June 22, 2017 at 8:58 am

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by twistedsifter

 

A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. A chain of dominoes of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino.

Original idea by Lorne Whitehead, American Journal of Physics, Vol. 51, page 182 (1983).

See here and here for more complex discussions of the physics.

 

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