BBC Earth Unplugged - 2013-06-27
We met up with Steve Mould, the science guy from Britain's Brightest, to explore the science behind the "self siphoning beads" - also known as "Newton's Beads". Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToEarthUnplugged Taken from Slow Motion #20 Slow Motion: http://bit.ly/EarthUnpluggedSlowMotionTimelapse Expeditions: http://bit.ly/EarthUnpluggedExpeditionsAndLocationFilms Questions with Maddie: http://bit.ly/BigQuestionsWithMaddieMoate Wilderness Sessions: http://bit.ly/WildernessSessionsFilms Welcome to Earth Unplugged! We make films about the incredible natural world, we investigate the conundrums, quirks and beautiful science of our amazing planet, delving into the BBC vaults and mixing it up with our own stuff to take a brand new look at Earth. Want to share your views with the team? Join our BBC Studios Voice: https://www.bbcstudiosvoice.com/register This is a page from BBC Studios who help fund new BBC programmes. Service information and feedback: http://bbcworldwide.com/vod-feedback--contact-details.asp
mythbusters would have inserted a bomb somewhere in this segment some how =D
of course, because bombs are fun.
but they did this already with no bombs :(
WHERE!!! why did i miss that episode!?!? 0_o
@ember's page Mythbusters S13 E5”Do try this at home”
lol
Hello, God? It is what I would like to report a bug in physics
Have you tried stopping your life and restarting? This issue should have been resolved in the patch, maybe you need to upgrade your universe.
@Jude Jackson Sorry, but it seems the restart button is missing
Or trump has it
It's a feature.
I thought the guy was wearing a kilt until 3:22
Why didn't they do it off the side of a parking garage or some other high building?
@Scott Adie Dropping the beads off a building or parking garage would cause the loop of the beads to shoot up in the air a 1/4 of the velocity of 70mph. As this is average speed and maxium volicty of somthing of that mass falling from the sky.
This would be my estimate anyways, but like you mentioned the chain would need to be much longer.
This has made me think of a theory. If you can create this energy and force from gravity, it maybe possible to design a continuous loop thus making renewable energy. If someone can create continues energy from gravity they would literally be the richest man on earth, or they would be topped by NSA
No energy is free. After the beads have fallen to the ground and expended their potential energy, it then requires energy to lift the beads back up against the pull of gravity. So either way you have gained and lost the same amount.
but transfer wont be perfect, you will always lose energy
cuz there is an equation 4 it dude
Idek what the hell the replies even mean
As to why the little corkscrew effect happens - I have a different theory from Steven Mould: perhaps this is because of the way the beads are initially curled up in the jar. Again they will have a kind of angular momentum effect as they start travelling upwards
Also possible internal forces - the links connecting the beads won't bend all the way, so perhaps they won't easily twist round either...?
@Henry Acoustic Guitar this is what i presume too. Makes more sense, as the beads rarely hit the rim after the beginning.
Heh a UCL man! (did maths there myself - though was better at the pure stuff - and many many years ago)
@Will Brigg Also there isn't any guarantee that speed of beads falling and shockwave are equal.
So there I was trying to drink my beads. I spilled a little and wont to get a napkin to clean it up, by the time I got back it had all spilled. :'(
dem feels
Lol :D
You should eat the beginning of the chain - swallow - wait till the end comes out of your butt - and the other end is still hanging down from your mouth - dat'll be great... LOL
@Steffen Widmaier ...pls go awai
I think it's because the beads are connected with a small tube connecting each bead, and it's the tube's that can't bend when needing to change direction from going up the glass and been taking out and down because of the gravity pulling it so the only point' at which it can bend is at each joint that the ball meets the tube.
So basically i think it's all down to the rigidity of the bead chain relative to how fast it's being removed from the beaker.
The chain doesn't have enough time to bend because of how fast it is being removed. Thus causing the point of which it starts to bend to rise higher when the speed of the chain falling is increased.
just waiting for someone right back with how wrong i am lol.
That's my uneducated guess anyways.
you actually hit it. "Once some beads are dropped out of the container, their momentum pulls more beads along with them, and the limited flexibility of the chain causes it to assume shapes that appear to defy gravity as it falls."
found it on smithsonianmag.com :)
Isn't that what they said in the video?
Nope he only explained why it makes curls and loops. He said it's because the beads hitting the side of the container, well that's just common sense. But what he didn't explain was why it the beads rise up from the container in the nature that they do.
Again feel free to pick me apart if I'm wrong.
He just doesn't explain it well atall and doesn't explain all of what's going on, only parts of it.
As the beads go around the "loop" - the first time being when you do it yourself to start them - the "sticks" between the beads tighten and loosen in such a way as to cause the force to keep the loop viable while moving, I believe. I agree with the explanation in the video, I just don't know if it was a complete enough explanation.
While I do believe it is, at least partly, the momentum of the chain which causes it to rise, I also believe the rigidity of the chain factors in as well. If you were to do something like this with thread or yarn it would just continue hugging the edge of the container, if it did anything at all. And something like twine, because it's thicker and harder to bend, like the chain, it might rise above the edge, like the chain. I'm going to have to test this at some point.
No, it does the exact same thing with thread/yarn. I've seen it.
I noticed this 15 years ago......wish i had YouTube then.
You were right! the rigidity is a huge part of it. A college released a research paper (my have been PhD project, I can't remember) -- but Steve mentions it in his Ted Talk, etc
:-) -)
It's the density, not rigidity. The momentum causes the radius of the loop, more momentum is a bigger loop, more mass is more momentum, higher density is more mass.
do that off of a building
Definitively Aliens.
-iv
If the same phenomenon occurs when this experiment is performed on a conventional chain, I would agree with the explaination given here...but if the conventional chain does not react in the same way, I would suggest that the secret lies in the fact that a bead chain has limited flexibility in the links compared to the common chain design. The bigger arc in which the chain is forced to travel over the brim of the container would be the moment of leverage neede to pull the chain upwards from moment of rest, similar to the action of a fishing rod, bent under tension of the line...
That's where the term "chain reaction" comes from.
This is great to see this beads in slow motion! :)
I want to 1-up this by doing it off of a roof, plus ... Soak the beads in a flammable liquid so that it's on fire but frozen in air.
+DracoRogue1218 I love to see people getting creative.
Doctor?
It has been 9 months. Where's the video...?
Having played with smaller lengths of chain, there are small lengths of metal between the beads, which makes the string of beads arc (aren't these called ball bearings, by the way?) Does this chain also not have something to do with the large arc being created as it leaves the beaker?
Your analysis ignores the fact that the limited degrees of freedom limit the ways that the chain can be inserted into the jar, resulting in a pre-existing spiral / coil configuration inside the jar before the experiment begins.
Can you imagine how big the loop would be at terminal velocity?
maybe someone should try this?
Somebody should do this on top of a building.
Ahh that's awsome! I thought my explanation made more sense than the person on the video. Reassuring to know my brain is working correctly lol. Thanks for the clarification!!
I want to see my headphones cord untangle this way.
This is absolutely fascinating... thank you. We'd seen some of your updates but just caught up with everything you've done on the horizontal too. Brilliant. Now what could we do with this...? Great work on the out-of-the-window test too.
The higher you hold the jar, the longer the beads have to fall to the ground. As a result, the velocity the beads will travel at will be greater. Because the beads are connected in one chain, the beads traveling towards the ground at any given moment move at the same speed as the beads traveling upwards in the loop. Given that gravity acts upon the beads at all times, the faster the beads are traveling, the longer it will take for gravity to stop the upwards velocity of the chain, resulting in a "higher loop." The chain will achieve a maximum loop height when the beads travel at maximum velocity which theoretically would be terminal velocity.
well, yes, you just reconveyed the information given in the video and added the terminal velocity part.
Could you also demonstrate this from different heights in an apartment block? Would be awesome to see this from 5 stories high!
The song during the slow-mo part is an instrumental version of Journey by Alex Arcoleo. https://soundcloud.com/aarcoleo/journey
What's the music credit? I love that song!
someone should try this with bowling balls on a really long ass rope.
I love how your explanation just makes so much more sense than what those weird university people came up with.
Instructions for super epic tall chain fountain:
1. Go to very tall building.
2. Hold the glass of bead chain over the edge.
3. Start the chain fountain.
4. Profit. :D
1.1 get a longer chain
I wanna see the slow-mo guys do this, they would upload the whole sequence :I
It's a literal chained reaction.
The slow motion parts of this video were mesmerizing! I'd love to be able to experiment with this.
Im going to put my headphones in a glass cup and try to untangle it! Lol XD
No mystery about it, it is a "chain reaction."
3:25 If you knew anything about science you'd know that just because something is heavier it wouldn't make it fall faster..
Just wanted to share this wonderful information I found concerning Creation. I though people would like to know the truth for once ~ from God Himself (not me). Come see what He did.
Ok, this pseudo-science is getting on my nerves. Given I'm studying engineering at uni, I've got a few ideas: One of the main reasons why we're getting these large curls and corkscrews is because the chain they're using is not a normal chain - it's got little balls with rods attached to each side. I've got one as a necklace and I can see that it can't do very sharp turns. Probably an inch in diameter would be the smallest curve that that chain can make. Hence, we get these large curves. The bits they mentioned are right, but the type of chain is making a bigger difference.
That is right. But momentum is involved as well. If you watch carefully at the 0:30 mark you can see the loop growing.
The most simple explanation is to just say that the beads come out faster from the jar than they can bend.
it's like a 'chain ' reaction
First reaction: WITCHCRAFT!
well, i still want to try and drop it from the edge of a building! :))
The wadsworth constant works eerily well in this video. It's exactly 94.2 seconds in if you're too lazy to calculate
Damn they're hot <3
I want to see this done with some logging chain from a huge bin on a crane
I NEED THIS MUSIC!
Yeah I want the music too.
This is awsome! Makes me want to do physics!
We calls that grab a tea, where I'se comes from. ((Gravity)
That's exactly the same I was thinking when I watched this video
Ya it's great. They're being yanked up. :)
Rowie - 2014-01-19
I want to see him stand on a roof and do it.
Luis Alberto Fierro Salinas - 2018-10-27
just what I thought