I already posted some stuff about the MythBusters Jr. slinky defying gravity thing—here are those notes.

But how do you make a model of a falling slinky? Remember, you don’t fully understand something until you model it.

Also, with a model you can quickly test different situations. What happens if you put a car on one end of the slinky (or massive spring). What kind of spring constant do you need? What if the two masses are different?

All of these questions can be investigated with a model.

Let’s get to it. Of course, I am building my model with python—because I like python (and so should you). Here is my code. This is what most of it looks like (sorry, I can’t embed here).

Here is a gif of the output.

Some notes:

• The balls wait a short time before dropping—just to make it dramatic.
• I have calculated the position of the bottom mass so that it starts in equilibrium. If you don’t do that, the bottom mass will just oscillate up and down and ruin the whole thing.
• I added two objects—a stick on the side and a free falling ball. That way you can see how the spring thingy falls.
• Oh, you should absolutely try changing things up and running the model.

Here is how the model works.

• There are two masses (the ball1 and ball2)—just ignore the other objects, they don’t matter.
• Once the top mass is let go, there are two forces on the two balls. The downward gravitational force and then the spring force. Whatever the spring force on the bottom ball is, the top ball has the opposite.
• The gravitational force is easy to calculate.
• For the spring force, you need to know the natural length of the spring and the distance between the masses. The spring force depends on the difference between the distance and the natural length—then just multiply by the spring constant. Yes, I often mess up the sign on this force so that the two objects get pushed away in a weird motion.
• After that, you are pretty much done. Use this force to update the momentum and then use the momentum to update the position.

Homework.

Here are some things for you to try.

• What if the top mass is 0.1 times the bottom mass? Does this still work?
• What if the bottom mass is 0.1 times the top mass?
• See if you can calculate and plot the vertical motion of the center of mass of the two ball system.
• What if the spring also has mass? There is a way to model this, but I’m going to make you think about it first.
• Suppose I want to do this with a 2000 kg car. What spring constant would I need? What natural length of a spring should I use?