This is what happens when a bullet meets a Newton’s Cradle at 100,000fps
Mar 30, 2022
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Gav and Dan are back at it again, and this time they’re firing bullets (and other things) at Newton’s Cradles at 100,000 frames per second. I think we all know how a Newton’s Cradle works. It’s an amusing desktop toy that demonstrates the principle of conservation of momentum. As the first ball drops down from its lifted position, its energy and momentum is passed through the balls in the middle until it hits the end one where it swings up, falls back down and the cycle is repeated.
But what happens when you fire a projectile at it travelling just over the speed of sound? Well, in this video, The Slow Mo Guys find out by firing ball bearings at one using their Malteser launcher and then later fire an actual bullet at one. It’s an intriguing experiment and it’s pretty epic visually, too!
As has been the trend on their channel largely, they’re using the Phantom TMX 7510 camera, capable of shooting at some pretty insane speeds. But in order to keep the resolution somewhat decent, they limited it to 80,000-100,000 frames per second for these tests. It’s interesting to see that even at this sort of velocity, the principle still sort of holds true.
Except… A projectile travelling around the speed of sound presents way more energy than your average Newton’s Cradle is designed to handle. As a consequence, there’s quite a bit of beautiful mayhem and destruction but also one or two nice little surprises!
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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4 responses to “This is what happens when a bullet meets a Newton’s Cradle at 100,000fps”
100,000FPS seems a bit fast. Maybe 1000FPS?
My mistake, confused Frames Per Second with Feet Per Second. Will now wear the brown paper bag of shame over my head.
Might want to edit the title as it reads as if the bullet is traveling at 100,000 feet per second. About 25 times the speed of commonly available rifle rounds. Maybe try “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BULLET MEETS A NEWTON’S CRADLE FILMED AT 100,000FPS.”
It’s a photography and video site. Given the context of the site, it’s pretty obvious to 96% of the planet’s population that it’s “frames per second”. :)