Embedded Files
Introduction and Materials
It’s a really cool science puzzle… balancing a pile of nails on the head of a stationary nail. I've always liked this puzzle because it gets kids thinking about the center of gravity. In this video, we substituted the small, table-top version of the set-up for a dozen large nails – like the kind you would use for landscaping. My experiment is balancing 11 nails on one nail that is hammered into a wooden board.
The Materials needed are:
Watch My Youtube Video
A wooden block
12 nails
Hammer
How to perform the experiment?
1. Assemble all your materials.
2. Hammer one nail into the wooden block. Make sure the nail is not very deep.
3. Lay one nail down horizontally and place 4 nails vertically (top). Then place 5 more nails vertically (bottom) and place one other nail horizontally completing this task.
4. Balance the arrangement of nails on the single hammered nail.
5. Now you are done with your experiment.
How does this work?
This is experiment deals with gravity, more precisely the center of gravity. Gravity acts at one specific point on the object, called the center of gravity.
Thanks to Newton’s law of Gravity we know now that gravity centers on one point. Knowing this we can easily conduct this experiment.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse