ERIC Number: EJ1154328
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Nov
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0031-9120
EISSN: N/A
Downhill Cycling Symmetry Breaking: How the Rider Foils Experiment
Abu, Yuval Ben; Wolfson, Ira; Bran, Gil; Yizhaq, Hezi
Physics Education, v52 n6 Article 065005 Nov 2017
In high-school teaching of mechanics, we deal, among other things, with the nature of static and kinetic friction, forces that are proportional to the normal force. Under the influence of frictional forces, a body moves down a rough sloped decline at a fixed rate of acceleration that is independent of its mass. This situation does not apply to cases where the frictional force is dependent upon velocity, such as bodies which are moving through a streaming fluid (such as raindrops falling to the ground). In this case the body moves with a continuously decreasing acceleration, eventually reaching a terminal velocity when the frictional and gravitational forces balance out. This velocity constraint is determined by the dependence of the frictional force on velocity and geometric parameters that determine the strength of the frictional force. We show here that a similar situation takes place when bicycles descend an incline with a fixed slope. We also investigated the dependence of the velocity constraint with mass, using bicycles equipped with sophisticated sensors that metamorphose them into data-processing laboratories.
Descriptors: Motion, Kinetics, Physics, High School Students, Teaching Methods, Science Experiments, Scientific Principles, Scientific Methodology, Scientific Concepts, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Israel
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A