Ping-pong ball cannon: Why do barrel and balls fly in the same direction?

Poeschel, Thorsten; Nasato, Daniel S.; Parteli, Eric J. R.; Gallas, Jason A. C.; Mueller, Patric

doi:10.1119/1.5088805

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Ping-pong ball cannon: Why do barrel and balls fly in the same direction?

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Gallas, Jason A. C.
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Poeschel, T., Nasato, D. S., Parteli, E. J. R., Gallas, J. A. C., & Mueller, P. (2019). Ping-pong ball cannon: Why do barrel and balls fly in the same direction? American Journal of Physics, 87(4), 255-263. doi:10.1119/1.5088805.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0003-CCA3-F

Abstract

An impressive ping-pong ball cannon can be made by placing a bottle of liquid nitrogen at the bottom of a container and quickly covering it with, say, 1500 ping-pong balls. The liquid turns rapidly into a gas whose mounting pressure explodes the bottle, sending a swarm of balls upward out of the container. Surprisingly, the container also moves upward. This is a counterintuitive effect because the balance of forces, that is, Newton's third law does not seem to allow the container to move upwards. We explain the effect as a consequence of granular jamming in combination with Coulomb's friction law. (C) 2019 American Association of Physics Teachers.