Engineering
Physics
Collision
Question

An elastic ball is dropped on a long inclined plane. It bounces, hits the plane again, bounces and so on. Let us label the distance between the points of the first and the second hit d12 and the distance between the points of the second and the third hit d23. Find the ratio d23/d12.

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Solution

If we rotate the coordinate system so that the ramp is "horizontal", then the free-fall acceleration will have two components; one downward given by ay' = –g cosθ and one horizontal given by ax' = g sinθ . In this frame, the initial velocity will have components given by vy = v0 cosθ and vx = v0 sinθ. 
The time for each bounce is given by

tb=2vyay=2v0g

The horizontal displacement is given by

Δx=vxt+0.5axt2

Given these two equations, we can find     

d12=v0sinθ2v0g+0.5gsinθ2v0g2=4v02sinθg

and 

d13=v0sinθ4v0g+0.5gsinθ4v0g2=12v02sinθg

Since, d23 = d13 – d12, the ratio

d12d23=12