It took me quite a while to understand exactly what was happening with a Newtons Cradle toy. You know the one with the clacky balls that swing...
If you hold 2 balls up, and let them fall, 2 balls swing up on the other side. How does it know how many you swung??? It boggled my mind for the longest time. Then I got to playing with one, and found something interesting. It doesn't always seem to work!
If the balls are perfectly aligned, and touching each other, the effect is dampened by the multi-body collision. It's strongest when the balls are just barely not touching.
What we see as multiple balls swinging and hitting is really a whole bunch of individual 2 body collisions that are close enough in time to seem like they are a single event.
I could be wrong about the reason, but this was my observation.
If you hold 2 balls up, and let them fall, 2 balls swing up on the other side. How does it know how many you swung??? It boggled my mind for the longest time. Then I got to playing with one, and found something interesting. It doesn't always seem to work!
If the balls are perfectly aligned, and touching each other, the effect is dampened by the multi-body collision. It's strongest when the balls are just barely not touching.
What we see as multiple balls swinging and hitting is really a whole bunch of individual 2 body collisions that are close enough in time to seem like they are a single event.
I could be wrong about the reason, but this was my observation.