4/16/2023 0 Comments Tiny balls on end of string![]() The cradle is meant to show the conservation of energy and momentum, both of which involve mass. ![]() Different-sized balls would still work, but would make the demonstration of the physical principles much less clear. Second, Newton had a greater overall impact on the world of physics and therefore more fame than did Huygens.Īll the balls are, ideally, exactly the same size, weight, mass and density. Ironically, Newton's laws of motion were published in 1687, 25 years after Huygens provided the law of conservation of momentum. First, the law of conservation of momentum can be derived from his second law of motion (force equals mass times acceleration, or F=ma). Unlike speed, velocity implies a direction of motion, so the momentum of two objects of the same size traveling the same velocity in opposite directions would be equal to zero.Įven though he didn't develop the science behind the cradle, Newton gets name credit for two main reasons. It was Huygens who suggested changing "speed" to "velocity" in the formula, which solved the problem. While this worked in some situations, it didn't work in the case of collisions between objects. Ĭonservation of momentum had first been suggested by French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), but he wasn't able to solve the problem completely - his formulation was momentum equals mass times speed (p=mv). Huygens did not use the term "kinetic energy," however, as the phrase wouldn't be coined for nearly another century he instead referred to "a quantity proportional to mass and velocity squared'. ![]() It was Huygens in particular who noted the conservation of momentum and of kinetic energy. John Wallis, Christopher Wren and Christiaan Huygens all presented papers to the Royal Society in 1662, describing the theoretical principles that are at work in the Newton's cradle. Despite its name, the Newton's cradle isn't an invention of Isaac Newton, and in fact the science behind the device predated Newton's career in physics. ![]()
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