I can tell when it falls

awesome

how does the spring constant effect this? you can see in a few of the shots that gravity is accelerating the top of the slinky faster than the pressure wave is propagating down the slinky. does the bottom of the slinky drop before the top hits if the pressure wave releases the tension force first?

These people should probably go to an eye doctor if they couldn't see it.

what if you had an infinite slinky?

I like the way derek never showed any footage of the kid who predicted exaclty what happened after the slow motion shots

Little girl repeats everything mom says

I loved how the explanation was just a simple application of Newton's first law.

yes? In other words he got it right.

1:20

why no only use a rope?...

In the first instance the top is accelerated down at 2*9.8m/s^2. After that the acceleration decreases to 9.8m/s^2 when the slinkie is fully compressed.
IMPORTANT: This is without any friction! The force would still be the same (9.8N/kg) with friction, but the acceleration is lessened.

The last kid got it right he said the bottom stays and the top falls

vsauce

Good question. I think you are correct because if you were to do the same experiment w/o gravity it would accelerate so Im assuming that the accel is greater than 9.8 m/s/s. But in space the two would meet in the middle bc the bottom wouldn't be in equilibrium w/ gravity. I THINK?

i have a slinky slinky's are cool

But does the top accelerate with the average 9.8 m/s/s or does it accelerate faster because of the tension between the two ends?
As in; the bottom is being held up by the tension even though the top is free falling (as described in the video) but tension doesn't work only in one direction, so that means the top is being pulled down by the force of gravity and tensional force of the spring correct?

soooo a space elevator should be a slinky?

it will bang his head :)

yeah until the giant and massive slinky comes down and crushes your head ;)

It wouldn't at all be like zero gravity. It would probably feel more like you were attached to a bungee cord.

I suspect the same thing would happen if someone reached an equilibrium on a bungee jump. If you cut the cord, they wouldn't fall until the cord fell to the person, because be for then there's still the tension the bungee cord is pulling on the person.

I disagree that its "counterintuitive." I actually despise that word, because I think what people really mean "counter conventional thought," when they say "counterintuitive."

I believe "intuition" is quite different from conventional thought. I would describe a lot of Einstein's work as "intuitive," but it went against "conventional thought"; therefore, "counterintuitive" is quite a nasty word that is somewhat nonsensical.

ok have not watch the entire video what i think it is that the springs on top fall ont he ones on bottom ???

You just would feel the slinky pulling you up until it reaches you. No zero gravity sadly...