If there is a The thing that you should learn from physics is that the big things are not the same as the small things. I don’t just mean that big things are bigger, or even that bigger things are massive. (That’s too obvious.) I mean when the big things fall apart, they do it differently than the little things.
In physics, we want to start with the simplest possible case. So let’s start with a regular falling ball, like this:
Illustrated by: Rhett Allin
It is just a single ball that is acted upon by a single force: gravity due to the ball’s interaction with the Earth. The magnitude of this force is the product of the sphere’s mass (m) and the local gravity (g). Newton’s second law says that the total force (we call it the net force) is equal to the product of the mass of an object and its acceleration. For this is the only force and it But also Depending on the mass, the ball will fall and accelerate with a magnitude of g (9.8 m/s2).
Now let’s make it a little more complicated. I would take the ball itself AND add a very low mass, 1 meter long stick to it. One end of this rod will be attached to the ground, but can be rotated. The ball will be inserted into the other end so that the combo sticks the ball almost vertically. (If it’s exactly upright it will never fall — so this one will tilt a bit.)
Video: Rhett Allin
If you want to see all the physical details I used to animate that—don’t worry, I’ve got you covered:
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With the addition of the club, things get a little more complicated as it puts an extra force on the ball. Although it is fairly simple to calculate the force of gravity on a falling ball, the force from the club is not so easy. When the club interacts with the ball, it can either push it away from its pivot point on the ground or it can pull it toward the post.
In fact, the value of this “stick force” (I just named it) depends on both the position and the velocity of the ball. That’s what we call “the power of binding”. It pushes or pulls with whatever value is needed to keep that ball the same distance from the pivot point.
Since it is a limiting force, there is no simple equation for it, so we will not explicitly compute this adhesive force. Instead, I would model the motion of the ball using polar coordinates. This works for some of the more complex physics – but it works well. (You can see the explanation in the video above.)
