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Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods: slow motion
analysis of selected hands-on experiments

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2011 Phys. Educ. 46 472
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FEATURES
www.iop.org/journals/physed

Exploding balloons, deformed

balls, strange reflections and
breaking rods: slow motion
analysis of selected hands-on
experiments
Michael Vollmer and Klaus-Peter Mollmann
Microsystem and Optical Technologies, University of Applied Sciences Brandenburg,
Magdeburgerstrae 50, 14770 Brandenburg, Germany
E-mail: vollmer@fh-brandenburg.de

Abstract
A selection of hands-on experiments from different fields of physics, which
happen too fast for the eye or video cameras to properly observe and analyse
the phenomena, is presented. They are recorded and analysed using modern
high speed cameras. Two types of cameras were used: the first were rather
inexpensive consumer products such as Casio Exilim cameras operating at
frame rates of up to 1200 Hz for reduced image sizes and the second were
higher quality research cameras, which allow much higher frame rates at
larger image sizes. In this first article, examples are presented from exploding
balloons demonstrating retardation in mechanics, karate hits, deformations
associated with the bouncing of balls, strange trajectories of superballs as
well as the breaking of spaghetti.
S Online supplementary data available from stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia

Introduction
Quite often simple-to-perform hands-on experiments are utilized in the teaching of physics
for motivation and sometimes deepening of the
learning process [1].
Besides the fact that,
unfortunately, the phenomena are sometimes quite
complex, they often happen too fast for proper
observation with either the naked eye or video
cameras. In the past, high speed recordings
of experiments were in principle possible, but
the camera systems were too expensive for most
schools and only a few universities used them
472

PHYSICS EDUCATION

46 (4)

for introductory teaching. Hence quantitative explanations of even the simplest experiments were
often not possible or had to rely on assumptions
about the hidden physics.
This situation has improved considerably
within the last few years. The huge advances
in microelectronics and microsystem technologies
has led to modern high-speed cameras which
in the low price segmentare now affordable for
schools [2]. As a consequence, consumer product
cameras for less than 300 e can nowadays be used
in the teaching of physics [3]. Within the last

0031-9120/11/040472+14$33.00 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd

Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

10

Figure 1. A green laser burns a hole into the skin of a red balloon (diameter 49 cm). Within a few milliseconds,
the balloon explodes (numbers correspond to time in milliseconds).

two years, we have developed a series of teacher

training seminars dealing with high speed imaging
which were successfully tested in Switzerland,
Austria and Germany. Besides explaining the
physics and technology of the camera systems,
we have performed a large number of simple
to perform, but fast hands-on experiments. In
the following a selection of such experiments,
partly with a detailed analysis, partly only with
qualitative reasoning, will be presented. For better
image quality, most experiments were recorded
with our NAC camera [2]. However, an example
with the EX F1 camera will also be given below
to allow comparison with cheaper camera systems
and, in particular, to prove that such experiments
can be performed with them. The primary goals
of this work are first to make teaching materials
available by providing multimedia supplements
on the web (available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/
472/mmedia). Second we hope that this selection
of experiments may serve as an overview of how
high-speed imaging can be used in the teaching
of physics. It will hopefully stimulate interest in
such cameras for physics teaching and thus may
lead to widespread use and many more studies of
interesting experiments.
July 2011

Retardation
Retardation is a common phenomenon in physics:
it describes the fact that disturbances only propagate with a certain velocity and therefore consequences of the disturbance happen later at greater
distances. Very well-known phenomena involving
finite propagation velocities are retarded electromagnetic fields and potentials in electromagnetism. In mechanics, retardation effects can be
easily detected with sound waves and experiments
with large distances; think, for example, of an
echo. Demonstration experiments for retardation
with small distances as well as those involving
non-gaseous objects are, however, much more
difficult to observe. It has been proposed to
use falling bars and springs to observe that the
lower end starts to fall later than the upper end,
which was initially fixed [4]. Unfortunately,
the retardation effect is somehow hidden in the
theoretical analysis since, during the fall due to
gravitation, the spring forces lead to a vertical
shortening of the initially stretched spring.
We propose a very simple retardation experiment which can be more easily analysed using a
high-speed camera. Figure 1 depicts a series of
images (a video of a balloon explosion is available
PHYSICS EDUCATION

473

M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia) of the
explosion of a standard red balloon. Initially it
was inflated with air, sealed and kept fixed by
hand near a metal bar. In order to destroy the
rubber skin without inducing forces and hence
movements, a green laser (frequency doubled
Nd:YAG at 532 nm, 150 mW) was directed onto
the balloon. Absorption of the green laser light
by the balloon usually burns a small hole into the
red rubber skin within less than 50 ms, the exact
time depending on the balloon material and the
degree of expansion of the rubber skin. Once an
initial hole is created, a fast rupture of the skin
occurs, which can be heard as a loud bang. During
this explosion, retardation manifests itself very
nicely.
The individual images of figure 1 were
recorded at 1000 fps (frames per second) and an
integration time of 1/1000 s. At the centre of
the first image (0 ms), one readily observes two
large reflection spots from the white light sources
used for illumination as well as a smaller intense
reflection spot due to the green laser. This green
laser reflection gets dimmer as a hole starts to form
within the rubber skin.
Once the hole is created, a rupture develops
and propagates very fast. After 6 ms the outer
skin in the front nearest to the observer has
vanished and white light reflections can now be
seen nicely at the surface of the still stretched
inner skin, far away from the observer. Within
the next images, the reflection starts to become
fuzzy and it finally vanishes, when the skin is no
longer stretched. This behaviour can be explained
by retardation: the information that there is a
rupture in the skin can only propagate with a
maximum the speed of sound in the skin material
(some up-to-date research focuses on materials
where rupture cracks may propagate at higher
speeds). The information that the balloon has
already been destroyed has not yet arrived at the
back part of the balloon, which is therefore still
stretched as if the balloon were intact.
For a semiquantitative analysis, one may
estimate the speed of
 sound in rubber, which

E
is given by v =
, where E is Youngs

modulus and is the density. Typical densities

of rubber range between 0.9 and 0.92 g cm3 ,
however, in a balloon they will also depend on
the degree of inflation, since the skin gets thinner
upon stretching. Unfortunately, it is not easy

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PHYSICS EDUCATION

to get an accurate number for Youngs modulus.

It depends on temperature and more importantly
on the degree of vulcanization (the degree of
interlacing of the chain molecules, induced by
sulfur). For example, E can reach values of the
order of 107 108 N m2 for T = 20 C and a
sulfur content of 20%. Therefore speeds of sound
in rubber would be expected to range between 100
and 330 m s1 . Larger degrees of vulcanization
can lead to even larger speeds of sound. Note that
although values are close to the speed of sound in
air, these are speeds in rubber!
From the images of figure 1, we experimentally deduced that the rupture propagates across
about half of the circumference within 6 ms,
leading to a speed of sound of about 120 m s1 .
Tests with other balloons and stronger inflation
could produce experimental maximum speeds of
rupture of about 300 m s1 . Sometimes, two
different speeds are observed, e.g. the rupture may
propagate at more than twice the speed in one
direction compared to the perpendicular one. This
was also observed in the beginning of the balloon
explosion of figure 1. The third image clearly
shows that the rupture initially propagated much
faster horizontally than vertically. Since this effect
depends on the type of balloon, it may be due to
anisotropies induced during manufacturing of the
rubber skin.

Karate demonstration: translation and

rotation of rods
A typical example of a hands-on experiment which
is performed very fast, such that details of the
physics behind it are sometimes difficult to grasp,
dates back to the 16th century and it has belonged
to the standard repertoire of hands-on experiments
since the 19th century. A wooden rod (which
may or may not have needles fixed to the ends) is
lying on two easily breakable objects, e.g. on two
glasses, on two raw eggs or hanging in two paper
loops, such that the ends of the stick are supported
(see figure 2, after [5]).
Hitting the rod in the middle very hard leads
to breaking of the rod. Subsequently, the two
half rods fall down without damaging the supports,
which is quite astonishing to any audience, in
particular if using, for example, raw eggs as
support. The outcome is often explained such
that after breaking, either part of the rod is only
supported on one side. Due to the pull of gravity it
July 2011

Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

Figure 2. Historic illustration of the breaking stick

experiment (after [5]).

starts to rotate around its centre of gravity, thereby

lifting it off the support. Since the movement is
very fast, one is not able to observe it with the
naked eye. However, using a high-speed camera
easily allows us to study the process in slow
motion (figure 3), revealing the physics behind it,
which needs further explanation [6].
The rod breaks completely within 2 ms.
The fast hit transfers momentum according to
mv = Ft , which leads to a centre of mass

velocity of each half rod. In addition, the force

induces a change of angular momentum L due
to the induced torque according to L = Mt ,
where L = J . With known moment of
inertia J of the rod, one finds that the velocities
of the ends of the half rods should be 4 vCM
(downward) at the end where the hand had hit
and 2vCM (i.e. upward) at the end where the rod
was supported. In addition, the induced change
of angular momentum leads to a constant angular
velocity = d/dt , i.e. the angle of rotation of
each half rod should change linearly with time.
This theoretically expected behaviour was
analysed using the images from figure 3 (a video
of a karate hit on a rod breaking it into two
pieces is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/
472/mmedia). They were recorded at 1000 fps
and 1/1000 s integration time. From the known
dimensions (length of rod: 80 cm, height of
glasses: 18.9 cm), one can estimate the hand
velocity while hitting to be around 11.8
0.5 m s1 , which is also the downward velocity
of the half rods at this position right after the hit.
The upward velocities (mean value of both ends)
were found to be about 5.4 0.5 m s1 , which
is reasonably close to the expected 5.9 m s1 .
Another way of testing the theory is to plot the

-1

10

18

Figure 3. Snapshots of a breaking wooden rod (numbers correspond to time in ms). denotes the angle of rotation
of the pieces.

July 2011

PHYSICS EDUCATION

475

M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

angle of rotation in ()

200
160
120
80
40
0
0

10

20

30 40
time (ms)

50

60

70

Figure 4. Angle of rotation of the half rod after

breaking of a long rod as a function of time (for
details, see the text).

angle of rotation of the half rod after the hit.

Figure 4 depicts the result for the first 70 ms,
during which one rod rotates by 180 , i.e. half a
turn. As expected, the angular velocity is constant.
A hint for better performance is to make sure
that the rod is not (too) elastic; we usually use
some kind of laminated wood (wood pieces glued
together to form boards of about 15 mm thickness).
It must also be possible to break it with sudden
hits. First, test the breaking by hitting it with a
stable rod. The wood should not produce splinters
while breaking. For the in-class demonstration it
is more attractive to use the hand and show the
audience a karate hit.
At first glance it may seem advantageous
to increase the initial velocity, e.g. by using a
stable rod to extend the length of the arm. This
can easily increase the velocity by a factor of
two. Unfortunately, the outcome also depends

on the stability of the rod. Figure 5 shows

what may happen if you hit too hard (video
of a karate hit on a rod breaking it into four
pieces, available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/
mmedia); the excitation upon initial breaking
results in waves, which can lead to local stress in
adjacent regions and thus to fragmentation of the
rod into more than two pieces (compare the section
on spaghetti below). In this case, the motion of
the pieces is not very well defined. Uncontrolled
motion can lead to failure of this experiment if the
support is hit by part of the rod and falls to the
ground.

Deformation of bouncing balls

In sports and play, many students use balls and
the motivating physics of thrown, bouncing and
spinning balls has been extensively studied experimentally as well as theoretically (e.g. [711]).
However, even the bounce of balls falling from a
height of 1 m poses problems when using regular
video cameras. The problem becomes worse when
studying balls which are thrown by hand or hit by
a racket. The respective velocities are too large
and high speed imaging is needed for quantitative
analysis. Figure 6 depicts a series of snapshots,
recorded at 5000 fps and integration time of
(1/20 000) s (a video of a collision of a tennis ball
with the floor is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/
46/472/mmedia). An (old) tennis ball, previously
hit by a racket, is moving vertically towards the
surface of a table, where it bounces back. The
short integration times nicely allow us to record
sharp images of the ball. From the known diameter
of the ball, which serves as a length reference, and
the given time stamps in the images, velocities can
be calculated.

Figure 5. Snapshots of the (uncontrolled) breaking of a rod upon impact with a solid rod at velocity >20 m s1 .

476

PHYSICS EDUCATION

July 2011

Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

-3.4

1.6

10.8

Figure 6. A vertical tennis serve on a table. The ball (mass = 58.2 g) needs about 3 ms to travel the distance of its
64 mm diameter in the downward movement 5.9 ms after the bounce. Total contact time with the table was 4 ms.
The numbers give time in ms with regard to first contact.

In figure 6, the velocity before the bounce was

about 21.3 m s1 corresponding to a kinetic energy
of 13.2 J. Tennis professionals reach about three
times this speed. After the bounce the velocity was
10.8 m s1 and the kinetic energy was 3.4 J. The
missing 9.8 J were transferred to thermal energy
which leads to a warming up of the ball as well
as of the floor. The contact spot on the floor
easily shows temperature rises by several kelvin
for time scales of a minute or so (see [12, 13]).
The total contact time with the floor was 4 ms
with the time of maximum compression of the
ball taking place 1.6 ms after the start of contact.
Tennis balls are elastic, therefore the undisturbed
spherical shape (here diameter 64 mm) changes to
a deformed shape during contact with the floor.
At maximum compression, the horizontal size
increased to 72 mm while at the same time, the
vertical size from the floor to the top of ball was
only 41 mm.
A very similar experiment was also
recorded with the cheaper Casio EX F1 camera.
Figure 7 shows one snapshot (a video of the
collision of a tennis ball with the floor (Casio) is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/
mmedia). It demonstrates that in principle it is
easily possible to also record and analyse such
phenomena with the Casio camera. However, the
difference in image size is also apparent. As a
July 2011

Figure 7. Tennis ball recorded with the Casio Exilim

F1 camera at 1200 fps and 1/1250 s integration time at
time of maximum compression.

consequence, the Casio only observes a vertical

distance from the top of the image to the table of
about 10 cm. For the 20 m s1 speed, it takes
the ball about 45 images before it reaches the
surface. The contact takes another four images
and the rise maybe eight images; overall the event
can be observed on 1620 images. If a total of
a few seconds is recorded, one needs to pick out
these few images from several thousand images,
which can be quite tedious. For the NAC recording
(about 120 images of the event for a total of 10 000
images) the event was easy to find due to manual
or automated triggering [2]. The Casio does not
allow external triggering. Therefore one should try
to make it easier to find events. For the tennis ball
we just put some small pieces of paper (confetti)
on the table. The bouncing of the ball leads to
air movements which lead to movement of some
of the paper pieces. Therefore, a quick scan of the
PHYSICS EDUCATION

477

M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

Figure 8. Snapshot of a tennis ball being hit by a tennis

racket. The ball deforms appreciably while stretching
the strings.

Figure 9. Snapshot of the collision of a table tennis ball

with the table at the point of maximum deformation.
The ball (2.5 g) needs about 2.4 ms to travel the
distance of its 40 mm diameter in the downward
movement 3.6 ms after the bounce. Total contact time
with the table was 0.8 ms.

movie for any kind of change of paper position was

sufficient to locate the phenomenon.
Besides investigating collisions of tennis balls
with the floor, high-speed cameras can also be used
to study the interaction of a ball with a tennis
racket (see [14]). Figure 8 depicts a snapshot of
a ball while being hit by a racket (a video of the
collision of a tennis ball with a racket is available
at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia). The
ball was in free fall after being released from the
hand and had a speed of v 1 m s1 before the
hit. At contact, the racket had a speed of about
24 m s1 and after leaving the racket the tennis ball
had gained a speed of about 37 m s1 . One can
clearly see the deformation of the strings (giving
rise to spring forces) of the racket during the 3 ms
contact time.
Figure 9 shows a snapshot of the bounce
of a table tennis ball from a table where,
similar to the tennis experiment, a ball was
hit hard by a table tennis racket (a video of
the collision of a table tennis ball with the
floor is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/
mmedia). Two differences are obvious. First,
the shape change upon impact is smaller; during
maximum compression, the vertical size only
shrank to about 93% of the undisturbed size.
Second, the ball parts above the surface stayed
more or less spherical in shape. In figure 9, the
velocity before the bounce was about 16.6 m s1
(kinetic energy 0.35 J) and after the bounce

11.1 m s1 (kinetic energy 0.15 J). The total

contact time with the floor was a factor of 5 smaller
than for the tennis ball, only amounting to 0.8 ms
with the time of maximum compression of the ball
taking place in the middle, i.e. 0.4 ms after start of
contact.
Finally, we studied the behaviour of basketballs. Figure 10 shows snapshots of two experiments (a video of the collision of a basket ball
with the floor is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/
46/472/mmedia). The left image corresponds to
a ball thrown very hard on the table whereas the
right image shows a ball that was just in free fall
from a height of about 1.3 m. Both images refer
to maximum compression of the ball during the
collision.
When thrown, the velocity changed from
10.0 m s1 (downward, kinetic energy 29.9 J) to
about 7.0 m s1 (upward, kinetic energy 14.7 J).
Maximum compression occurred 4.6 ms after start
of contact, with a total contact time of 10.8 ms. At
maximum compression the vertical size shrank to
about 88% of the undisturbed size. Upon falling,
the initial velocity (and kinetic energy) was much
lower and, therefore, the compression was lower
too.
The differences in behaviour of the tennis
balls, basketballs and table tennis balls is due
to their elastic properties and material constants
(parameters are, e.g., the inside pressure in a
basketball, age and use of tennis and table tennis
balls).

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PHYSICS EDUCATION

July 2011

Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

Figure 10. Snapshots from bounce experiments with a basketball at points of maximum deformation. Left: if
thrown hard, the ball (598.7 g) needs about 23.8 ms to travel the distance of its 239 mm diameter in the downward
movement 34.2 ms after the bounce. Right: after falling from a height of 1.3 m.

Strange trajectories of superballs

The strange dynamics of superballs has been
studied for quite a while (e.g. [911, 15]). These
balls were invented in 1965 and are made from a
synthetic rubber polymer material. It is not only
their vertical bouncing with very high coefficients
of restitution but mostly the change of spin of the
balls upon each reflection that makes them unique.
Figure 11(a) illustrates this effect. A ball is thrown
at an angle onto the floor with very little or no
spin. It gains clockwise spin and enters a table
from below. Due to its spin, it bounces off in
a direction which does not follow at all the law
of reflection (similar to a billiard ball with spin).
Furthermore it reverses its spin direction. After it
hits the floor for the second time, it again travels
with very little spin in a direction which is nearly
parallel to the incident one. Therefore such a ball
can be regarded as performing a retroreflection.
High-speed imaging can nicely visualize the initial
gain of spin and its reversal. Figure 11 depicts
the trajectories and includes one snapshot with
the superimposed ball location as recorded (the
video of Superball: collisions in a horizontal
channel is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/
472/mmedia).
In the experiment, two parallel plates (surfaces of tables) were at a distance of 32 cm. The
5 cm ball (mass 69.5 g) entered (pink circles) with
a speed of about 12.6 m s1 and little rotation (
84 s1 counterclockwise). After the first bounce
from the bottom plate (blue circles) the translational speed decreased to around 8 m s1 whereas
at the same time the angular frequency drastically
July 2011

increased to around 465 s1 (clockwise). After the

second bounce from the top plate (green circles),
the speed further decreased to 6.2 m s1 while the
angular frequency changed sign and decreased to
around 300 s1 (counterclockwise). Finally, after
the third bounce from the bottom (red circles), the
translational speed increased to 6.9 m s1 while
the angular frequency decreased to only 58 s1
(counterclockwise). Average contact times with
the surfaces were around 2 ms each.
The process of how the rotation starts to
increase upon bouncing off from a surface
becomes clear in slow motion: at the beginning
of a bounce, only deformation occurs. Then
the ball starts to roll (not slide) on the surface
thus gaining spin before leaving. During each
bounce in figure 11, the ball lost at least 20%
of its initial kinetic energy, Still, the huge shift
from rotational to translational energy caused
an increase of translational speed after the third
bounce. For more details of the theoretical
treatment, see [9, 10, 15].
Obviously, retroreflection should not only
work for horizontal plane reflections, but for those
from vertical walls as well. Figure 12 depicts
two possible ball trajectories that superballs may
take when thrown hard at an angle into a vertical
channel made from two parallel tables. Obviously
it should be possible to throw a ball downward and
it will be reflected back upward and even exit the
channel after three of four bounces. Similar to
the case of horizontal surfaces, each bounce will
change translational speed as well as rotational
frequency.
PHYSICS EDUCATION

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M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

(a)

(b)

Figure 12. Schematic trajectories of the super ball

thrown into a vertical channel made, for example,
from two tables. It should be possible for the ball to
re-emerge from the channel after, for example, three
or four bounces within the channel.

(c)

Figure 13. Three-bounce trajectory of a superball

within two vertical walls (separation about 35 cm, ball
diameter 5 cm). The ball entered at an angle of 28
with speed of 8.9 m s1 . The colour sequence is as in
figure 11.

Figure 11. (a) Scheme for the reflections of a super

ball between two horizontal surfaces (after [10]).
(b) The toy ball used in the experiments. Black lines
were painted on the surface to study rotations of the
ball during flight. (c) A snapshot image of the ball at
first contact with the bottom plate at time 6 ms after
entering the scene. Various locations of the ball
(numbers indicate time in ms) outlining the
trajectories are superimposed. Pink: before first
collision; blue: between 1st and 2nd collision; green:
between 2nd and 3rd collision; red: after 3rd
collision.

The result of an experiment with three

bounces is shown in figure 13 as one snapshot
(at 190 ms) with superimposed circles at the
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PHYSICS EDUCATION

positions of the ball at times in ms, indicated by the

numbers (the video of Superball: three collisions
in a vertical channel is available at stacks.iop.org/
physed/46/472/mmedia).
Initially the speed (pink) was v1 8.9 m s1
with little rotation (1 < 17 s1 ). After the first
bounce (blue circles) the speed decreased to v2
7.1 m s1 with increased angular frequency (2
200 s1 ). Speed and angular frequencies after the
second and third bounce were v3 5.4 m s1 ,
3 180 s1 and v4 4.9 m s1 with 4 < 1 .
The three contact times with the walls amounted
to less than 1.75 ms each.
The outcome of this experiment does sensitively depend on the initial velocity and the angle
of the throw. If the ball velocity is too small,
the pull of gravity will inevitably dominate and
the ball will never make it up again. In this case
it may have multiple bounces inside the channel
July 2011

Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

the upper edge of the vertical channel, i.e. more
than eight times its diameter! The trajectories
after the first and second bounce as well as after
the fourth bounce involved appreciable rotational
energy. The total kinetic energy decreased by
between 25 and 40% per bounce.
These superball experiments are a lot of fun
for students but high speed cameras are needed in
order to visualize the trajectories and the change of
spin upon each bounce.

The breaking of spaghetti

Figure 14. Four-bounce trajectory of a superball within

two vertical walls (separation about 35 cm, ball
diameter 5 cm). The ball entered at an angle of 43 with
14.6 m s1 . The colour sequence is as in figure 11.

which will lengthen the fall time. For sufficient

ball velocity the angle will decide how many
bounces are needed for the ball to exit the channel
again. Small angles like <30 can result in threebounce trajectories, steeper angles than 40 will
usually need four bounces. Figure 14 shows
an example with a four-bounce trajectory (the
video of Superball: four collisions in a vertical
channel is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/
472/mmedia). Due to the larger angle of 43 ,
the ball had a lowest point of about 43 cm below

According to a science legend, 1965 Nobel prize

winner Richard Feynman and a friend were once
cooking spaghetti. Playing around they noticed,
that spaghetti only breaks in three or more parts
if held at both ends and bent until they break.
The dinner was probably postponed since for
the next two hours, all available spaghetti in the
kitchen was tested. Indeed, they never observed
that breaking in only two parts occurred. This
legend was warmed up by another 1991 Nobel
prize winner, Pierre de Gennes, who was asked by
a journalist about unsolved problems in physics;
The spaghetti problem was one of his answers. It
still took quite a few years before the solution was
published in the most prestigious physics research
journal [16]. The solution was found by analysing
video sequences of a 1000 fps high speed camera.
The experiment is quite simple: one just
needs spaghetti and nothing else. They are held
by two fingertips and then the fingers bend the
spaghetti until it breaks. A series of snapshot

Figure 15. Example of breaking of spaghetti into three pieces.

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PHYSICS EDUCATION

481

M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

Figure 16. The fragments of broken spaghetti show transverse vibrations. The right fragment oscillates at a
frequency of 250 Hz.

images are shown in figure 15, recorded at

4000 fps (integration time 1/4000 s).
The
spaghetti did break into three parts. A hint of
the dynamics is depicted in figure 16 in three
snapshots, demonstrating the bending oscillation
of the large right fragment (a video of the breaking
of bent spaghetti into three pieces is available
at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia). Within
2 ms it completes half an oscillation, leading to
a frequency of the bending oscillation of about
250 Hz.
In order to find out whether the breaking
occurs simultaneously or one after the other,
experiments were also carried out at 10 000
and 20 000 fps. Figure 17 shows an example
where spaghetti breaks into four parts (a video
of the breaking of bent spaghetti into four
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PHYSICS EDUCATION

pieces is available at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/

472/mmedia).
Very careful analysis, also at 20 000 fps
revealed that the breaking happens more at less
simultaneously within about 0.2 ms, however, the
limited spatial resolution did not allow any more
precise statements.
The quantitative explanation of why spaghetti
does not break into two halves was given in
2005 [16]. In simple terms, spaghettiif strongly
bentbreaks as soon as a curvature limit (defined
by material constants) is reached. The sudden
relaxation of the new free ends leads to a burst of
flexural waves travelling along the spaghetti rods.
These flexural waves then locally increase the still
present curvature of the rod such that the stability
limit for curvature is exceeded. As a result, there
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Exploding balloons, deformed balls, strange reflections and breaking rods

Figure 17. Example of breaking spaghetti into four pieces.

Figure 18. Example of breaking spaghetti into two pieces with a karate hit of the finger.

are additional spots where the spaghetti breaks.

The time delay can be very small and in the
original work with a 1000 fps camera, the time
delay between the breaking events could not be
detected. For example, if the speed of sound of
the waves in spaghetti were, say, 1000 m s1 , then
breaking in a distance of 1 cm could occur even
within 105 s.
However, it is also possible to successfully
break spaghetti into two pieces only, by doing a
karate-like experiment as with the wooden rods.
Figure 18 shows a few snapshots of a single
piece of spaghetti which is hit by the little finger
(diameter 15 mm, v 11 m s1 ) (a video of karate
breaking spaghetti into two pieces is available at
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stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia). Breaking
occurs within 0.5 ms and within 0.25 ms, the end
of the spaghetti on the table lifts off. One can
also readily observe bending oscillations of the
fragments.
If, as in the case of the wooden rod, the
initial velocity is increased (here 14 m s1 ) while
simultaneously decreasing the size of the hitting
object (top part of a screwdriver, lateral size
less than 3 mm), the spaghetti again breaks
into more parts (figure 19) (a video of karate
breaking spaghetti into four pieces is available
at stacks.iop.org/physed/46/472/mmedia). In this
case, the applied force is so strong, that a much
larger deformation happens in the middle. Since
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M Vollmer and K-P Mollmann

Figure 19. Example of breaking spaghetti into four pieces with a stronger karate hit by a smaller screwdriver.

the time for breaking (0.5 ms) is much smaller

than the time the spaghetti needs for bending due
to its elastic properties, the decision as to whether
there will be only two or more pieces depends on
the local curvature. This is much larger while
hitting faster with the much smaller tip of the
screwdriver (as can be seen comparing figures 18
and 19).

Outlook
The experiments discussed represent only a very
small selection in the field of mechanics where
high-speed cameras can be used. Many more
examples were tested and some can be found as
videos on the internet. Potential and successfully
tested candidates in the field of mechanics of solids
include experiments with inertia, e.g. quickly
kicking out a coin from the middle of a tower
of dice without touching the dice and destroying
the tower, or the well-known magicians trick of
removing a table cloth from a table with dishes
and glasses by very quickly pulling the table cloth.
It is also possible to directly demonstrate the
difference in free fall velocities of a metal sphere
compared to the top of a rod initially inclined
at an angle. One may study spinning tops and
also tippe tops which turn upside down during
operation as well as the so-called rattlebacks
(also called Celtic stones or wobble stones) which
have a preferred direction for spinning. If spun
in the opposite direction, they become unstable,
rattle and reverse the spin. The bouncing ball
experiments can be pursued further by studying
bouncing of two or three balls on top of each
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PHYSICS EDUCATION

other. Also trajectories of spinning balls, e.g. of

table tennis balls, may be studied, demonstrating
the Magnus effect. It is also very entertaining to
record a ruler falling between two fingers. Highspeed images can distinguish the pure reaction
time from the finger closing time, the sum of
which is usually measured with this experiment
in the classroom. In ballistics, one can directly
study the speed of bullets, e.g. from air guns.
These bullets may later on be used for experiments
demonstrating the incompressibility of liquids by,
for example, shooting into raw eggs in contrast to
empty egg shells. In acoustics, one may study
the vibrations of tuning forks or vibrating strings
from a guitar. We will present more examples from
other fields of physics soon.
Received 25 February 2011, in final form 17 March 2011
doi:10.1088/0031-9120/46/4/018

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Michael Vollmer is a professor of
experimental physics at the University of
Applied Sciences in Brandenburg,
Germany. His research interests include
atmospheric optics, spectroscopy,
infrared thermal imaging and didactics of
physics. He is also involved in in-service
teacher training in Germany.

Klaus-Peter Mollmann is a professor of

experimental physics at the University of
Applied Sciences in Brandenburg,
Germany. He works on MEMS
technology, infrared thermal imaging and
spectroscopy. He is also involved in
in-service teacher training in Germany.

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