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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why do round rocks make higher splashes than flat rocks?
« on: 24/10/2009 21:46:00 »
Thanks leeE and everyone else,
Your answers have been very useful. We had already tried your one suggestion of dropping a cone, and, as you suspected, it made a tiny splash (I've been measuring the central splash). To test the idea of flow being limited around flat objects, we also tried dropping two objects of the same shape and mass into the water only one bigger than the other. We tried this with round and flat shapes. With the spheres, size made hardly any difference at all, whereas with the flat shapes, the bigger one had a much lower splash than the small one. This completely fits with your hypothesis that the flat ones will break the flow of the water, therefore producing a lower splash. It seems that the molecules don't have as far to travel to make a splash with the small flat shapes, but with the big flat ones, they have much farther to go, and have less energy left to make a splash. With the round ones, as you suggest, the molecules are likely flowing around the shape.
Once again, Thanks so much for the interesting discussion.
Your answers have been very useful. We had already tried your one suggestion of dropping a cone, and, as you suspected, it made a tiny splash (I've been measuring the central splash). To test the idea of flow being limited around flat objects, we also tried dropping two objects of the same shape and mass into the water only one bigger than the other. We tried this with round and flat shapes. With the spheres, size made hardly any difference at all, whereas with the flat shapes, the bigger one had a much lower splash than the small one. This completely fits with your hypothesis that the flat ones will break the flow of the water, therefore producing a lower splash. It seems that the molecules don't have as far to travel to make a splash with the small flat shapes, but with the big flat ones, they have much farther to go, and have less energy left to make a splash. With the round ones, as you suggest, the molecules are likely flowing around the shape.
Once again, Thanks so much for the interesting discussion.