Open AccessWeight of an hourglass—Theory and experiment in quantitative comparison
Author(s) -
Achim Sack,
Thorsten Pöschel
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
american journal of physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.541
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 1943-2909
pISSN - 0002-9505
DOI - 10.1119/1.4973527
Subject(s) - hourglass , physics , center of mass (relativistic) , variation (astronomy) , function (biology) , simple (philosophy) , weight function , statistical physics , center (category theory) , classical mechanics , statistics , astronomy , mathematics , philosophy , epistemology , energy–momentum relation , evolutionary biology , biology , chemistry , crystallography
10.1119/1.4973527.2 A flowing hourglass changes its weight in the course of time because of the accelerated motion of its center of mass. While this insight is not new, it is frequently said that the effect is tiny and hardly measurable. Here, we present a simple experiment that allows the monitoring of weight as a function of time, and that shows that there are different stages of the weight variation. The experimental result is in quantitative agreement with theory. 10.1119/1.4973527.2 A flowing hourglass changes its weight in the course of time because of the accelerated motion of its center of mass. While this insight is not new, it is frequently said that the effect is tiny and hardly measurable. Here, we present a simple experiment that allows the monitoring of weight as a function of time, and that shows that there are different stages of the weight variation. The experimental result is in quantitative agreement with theory.
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