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John Mallinckrodt wrote:
> I've put an animation built with Interactive Physics online
> at http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm/special/slinky_drop.mov
That movie displays what one might call non-ideal
behavior.
In particular, the movie shows 9 red beads that
come together and _stick_. That implies there must
be some sort of dissipation mechanism; otherwise
the beads wouldn't stick. I'm not sure exactly
what sort of dissipation is being assumed, or why.
No such dissipation was specified in the original
statement of the problem.
It is edificational to consider another brand of
slinky, i.e. one that doesn't have this "sticky"
property. The slinky is, after all, just a medium
for the propagation of waves, and most media do
not have the property that they compress once and
get stuck in the compressed state. A slinky does
weird things when the turns slap together, but it
doesn't just stick.