Bouncing a Superball
Bouncing a Superball
A highly elastic superball can show some surprising behavior. When thrown down between two vertical planes, it will, in many circumstances, bounce back to near its initial location after three bounces. This Demonstration lets you control gravity (on or off), the initial velocity (by moving the arrow), the initial spin, the coefficient of normal restitution (elasticity; 1 denotes perfect elasticity), and the friction coefficient of the walls (1 means that there is no slippage when the ball strikes a wall). The color of the text inside the ball indicates the direction of spin (yellow denotes zero spin). You can experiment with either zero gravity or full gravity (980 ).
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