Science Handout

FORCE & MOTION

Toppling Tower - Inertia,
Friction & Movement
Here is what you need:
-Coins -Butter knife -Ensure plenty of space
for safety

Superglued Notebooks- Friction

Here is what you need:
-2 notebooks -Ensure plenty of space for safety

Give It A Go

-Stack the coins into an even and straight

tower.
-Use a butter knife to swipe a coin out from
the bottom of the tower.
-See how many coins you can swipe out
before the tower topples!

-Place the notebooks on a flat surface.

-Ensure the covers completely overlap each other.
-Alternate pages from each notebook placing one
over the last, continuing until the notebooks are
entirely intertwined.
-Holding the notebooks just inside the binding pull
as hard as you can. Go ahead and have a friend pull
on one of the notebooks while you pull the other.

How Does It Work?

How Does It Work?

Removing a coin from the bottom of a tower

comes from friction and inertia. Inertia comes
from Newton's first law of motion, stating
that an object in motion (or at rest) tends to
stay in motion (or at rest). This means that the
balanced coins wants to stay in their stacked
position, in the spot they are stacked.
However, when you attempt to remove the
bottom coin, you apply an outside force that
causes the stack of coins to topple over.

No. We didnt cover the notebook pages with super

glue, and you can really pull as hard as you want on
the notebook! Since we know youre wondering,
friction.

Give It A Go

This is where friction becomes a factor. There

is friction between the bottom coin and stack
above it. To overcome the amount of
friction, you swing the knife at the bottom of
the stack. The amount of force applied to the
coin is enough that the friction isnt allowed
to tip the tower over. Instead, the tower
drops into the spot that it was before.

Friction is the force that opposes motion when two

surfaces are in contact. Friction is the reason you
cant roll a ball for eternity with one toss, but its
also what enables you to run as you press your feet
against the ground. Friction slows the ball to a stop
while preventing your feet some sliding out from
under you.
You may think that the amount of friction between
sheets of paper to be pretty minimal, and youd be
right. When you multiply that friction by hundreds
of surfaces - like each of the pages interwoven
together - you wind up with an amount of friction
that is insurmountable.