More fun to actually do the demo in class, as I've done for 15 years now. No live animals harmed in this experiment, we have a large rubber cut out with a monkey painted on it, electromagnet & blow-pipe. When the "bullet" (AKA "anesthetic dart") leaves the tip of the blow-pipe it breaks an optical circuit which in turn releases the monkey from the electromagnet clipped to the ceiling. Blow hard or soft to vary the hit height. Sometimes I take the trouble to clamp the blow-pipe to a stand to guarantee aim, but it almost always works well, and the class seems to enjoy my accompanying patter. A memorable demo, good segue into the idea of treating x- and y-components of the motion separately or superposing the downward effect of gravity on the slanted path the bullet would have followed in the absence of gravity.
KC
Physics @ southern.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Phys-l [mailto:phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] On Behalf Of William Maddox
Sent: Friday, 16 August 2013 9:04 AM
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Subject: [Phys-L] The Make-Believe World of Real-World Physics
From: WC Maddox
In response to Chuck Britton's message below there is now a video of the Monkey Shoot showing the effect of the speed of the ball. The video was provided by Allen Crockett (arcrock@fas.harvard.edu).
"IMHO this video would be much more useful if, instead of showing the same shot at different frame-rates and from different angles, it included at least three different 'muzzle velocities' with identical aiming and target height.
Seeing then that the golf ball and monkey reach the same point at the same time would be more impressive.
High muzzle velocity => hit occurs high up.
Medium Muzzle velocity => hit occurs at mid height Low muzzle velocity => hit occurs near ground
of course it would take some effort to get the three muzzle velocities 'just right'"