The falling chain of Hopkins, Tait, Steele and Cayley
European Journal of Physics, 28 (3):
385--400 (2007)Abstract
A uniform, flexible and frictionless chain falling link by link from
a heap by the edge of a table falls with an acceleration g /3 if
the motion is nonconservative, but g /2 if the motion is conservative,
g being the acceleration due to gravity. Unable to construct such
a falling chain, we use instead higher-dimensional versions of it.
A home camcorder is used to measure the fall of a three-dimensional
version called an xyz -slider. After frictional effects are corrected
for, its vertical falling acceleration is found to be a\$\_\x\\$
/ g = 0.328 \$\backslashpm\$ 0.004. This result agrees
with the theoretical value of a\$\_\x\\$ / g = 1/3 for an ideal
energy-conserving xyz -slider.