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Astrophysics/egg drop w/ restrictions
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Question
I am a high school librarian taking a design course at a local college. Our final assignment is to make a structure to protect a raw egg from a fall.We can only use 150 wooden toothpicks and glue... nothing else! Help!
Energy must be dissipatedBy crumbling toothpicks. It doesn't matter how smashed your design looks later. You need to have something along the lines of toothpicks which are set at steep angles first and low angles (flatter to the ground) further into the crush zone. That's because you need to dissipate high amounts of energy first and low amounts of energy (at high momentum transfer) later. Aside from that, any design with a crush zone will do something. Just make sure that aerodynamically it stays upright! I would add a flared end at the top to try to ensure that, but put almost all your toothpicks in the crush zone.
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Steve Nelson
Expertise
Fusion, solar flares, cosmic rays, radiation in space, and stellar physics questions. Generally, nuclear-related astrophysics, but I can usually point you in the right direction if it's not nuclear-related or if it's nuclear but not astrophysics.
Experience
Currently a physics professor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Doctoral dissertation was on a reaction in CNO-cycle fusion, worked in gamma-ray astronomy in the space science division of the naval research laboratory in the high-energy space environment branch.
Organizations
Physics professor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Education/Credentials
Ph.D. in physics, research was on nuclear fusion reactions important in stellar fusion.
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