A Variable-Mass Snowball Rolling Down a Snowy Slope

• Scott Rubin ^[1]
  1. [1] The Berkeley Carroll School
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 57, Nº. 3, 2019, págs. 150-151
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The stereotypical situation of a snowball picking up both mass and speed as it rolls without slipping down a hill provides an opportunity to explore the general form of both translational and rotational versions of Newton’s second law through multivariable differential equations. With a few reasonable assumptions, it can be shown that the snowball reaches a terminal acceleration. While the model may not be completely physically accurate, the exercise and the resulting equation are useful and accessible to students in a second year physics course, arguably.