Inclined planes

[flano]

Anybody have any interesting scientific facts about inclined planes and object rolling down them

[landie]

Yes, you probably won't get anything to roll up the slope.

[Didwot]

There is always the old chestnut about telling the difference between two cylinders of identical mass and dimensions, one of which is hollow, and the other of which is solid.

[Dagman]

There's a place in Scotland called Electric Brae, here there is a road that appears as if you're going uphill but actually down!  been there, done it and it's true! I faced the car uphill, into neutral,and up we went. I know it's the way the surroundings appear to you but it's strange to see. 

[AngelofDeath]

Try these links:-

http://tinyurl.com/bqg2y

http://tinyurl.com/7nhoh

http://tinyurl.com/deodo

or http://tinyurl.com/d7emw

Not sure what level you were after.

[Peter Pedant]

Galileo used them to 'slow down' gravity.....

Basically you can get a slope that the object only goes down at constant velocity - that is with no acceleration.

this is where f-mgcosa = m . 0 - applying newtons second law

Remember G 1630s  did not have newtons second law 1680s

but I am sure that this was the key - someone realised that no force was required to keep something in constant velocity = newton's first law -and I am not sure if newton was the first...if you get what I mean......

[Tim Baxter]

Interesting links there Angel.  Peter, aren't you illustrating frictional forces slowing down a sliding not rolling body?

And the other chestnut is two identical cones joined at their bases.  These rest across two identically inclined but slightly divergent edges.  Because the edges are divergent the twocones can roll apparently up the edges.  Actually although the cones' faces are travelling 'up' the edges their centre of gravity is falling.  Try constructing it.

Another one which not many people realise is that a screw thread is an inclined plane arranged helically. If you put it in a tube then you get one of the good, old fashioned toys which you can roll coins or ball bearings down. Good old Archemides

[Peter Pedant]

yes i am - thinking about sliding and not rolling

sorry  - but i am sure that galileo did that work and found there was an incline that was constant velocity and this was later reinterpreted, as Newton's first law

[MargeB]

what's the screw toy you're talking about?

Electric brae is near Ayr, and is AWESOME. Pretty weird!

[Tim Baxter]

Marge, I'm trying to think of a witty answer along the lines of toys used for screwing but I'll leave that to your imagination.

Toys with inclined planes arranged as a helix or a 3 dimensional spiral or a straight line, are charity coin box, gob-stopper dispenser, the helter-skelter from days of yore, or a children's slide.  Tools with an inclined plane are a ratchet screw driver, a feed mechanism on a lathe, a cork screw, a wood screw (nowadays with a double inclined plane). Nut & bolt.  Not to mention the Archemides screw for raising water or grain etc.  Good old Archemides.

Intersting scientific facts are hard to come by (not like a screw toy), sorry.