Splashery
Newton's Cradle, a still.
True size20cm wide7.9 in
Toys · Built from a recipe

Newton's Cradle

No. 151 of 374, smallest first
A typical one: desktop cradle, about 20 cm

PlaygroundPull back from here

Newton's cradle is a row of steel balls, each hung on two strings so it can only swing in one line.

Shelf
Toys
Kind
Built from a recipe
Made from
Drag a ball out to the side and let go.
Sound
Yes
Licenses
Own work (made in the page)
Newton's Cradle at its real size

Life size. This newton's cradle is 20 cm wide on your screen too, give or take a tenth on a phone. Hold a real one next to it.

How to play, in the Playground

Drag a ball out to the side and let go. Or tap to lift the end ball.

Its controls

ControlKindRangeStart
Lift and let goTap
SwingButton

About it

Newton's cradle is a row of steel balls, each hung on two strings so it can only swing in one line. Lift the end ball and let go: it strikes the row, the ball at the far end flies out, and the balls in between barely move. Let go of two and two fly out.

It shows two rules of physics at once: in each knock both the momentum and the energy carry through the row, so the same number of balls leaves as arrived. Each clack turns a little energy into sound and heat, so the swings slowly die away. Drag any ball out (the balls beside it come too) and let go, or tap to lift the end ball.

Details

Splats
Opens at 200,000 at Mid Detail, 60,001 at Low, and up to 420,000 at Max

Sources and credits

Made in Splashery. Its code is MIT.

Share it

This link opens it in the Playground. To put it on your own page, add the element and one script tag. Every option.

https://splashery.app/play/?toy=newtons-cradle<script type="module" src="https://splashery.app/play/src/element.js"></script> <splashery-toy toy="newtons-cradle"></splashery-toy>

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