Jimmy Kimmel Races along a Frictionless Course
Hint: banana peels make it harder to run
This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Jimmy Kimmel Live frequently features science demos by Science Bob (Bob Pflugfelder), whose web site is pretty terrific. If you go to his site, see if you can resist the yellow button on the bottom of the page.
In what the show termed an act of “Science Friction,” Science Bob set up a slippery course for Jimmy and his colleague Guillermo to run. “Frictionlessness" foiled their footing. They unintentionally demonstrated Newton’s First Law of Motion – a body in motion tends to stay in motion, kind of like a speeding train that derails on a curve or a steam ship moving across the Atlantic once it got started and overcame the resistance of the water.
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