What can we learn from a bouncing ball experiment?

[iamBevan]

Hi guys - recently in college we have done an experiment where we drop a ball from 10 different heights, and recorded the bounce height. Obviously all the results were tabulated, and then a graph produced. It turns out that the graph is linear, and I have worked out y=mx+c, so am able to predict the bounce height with just the initial height.

I was just wondering if there is anything else I can explore from the results, other than just predicting the bounce height? Is there anything I can do that would test my calculus?

(I'm living in the UK, so when I say college I mean A-Levels)

Thanks!

P.S. Also I am wondering how this fits in with Newton's Laws. I'm guessing his Third Law has particular relevance here?

 

[vhbelvadi]

Bringing this from the older thread on General Physics:

How about the Potential and Kinetic energies (if you haven't done that already) of the ball at every bounce?

Edit: Perhaps you can also try to reason out simple stuff like why the bounce height keeps reducing (mathematically.) Now this is just off the hand, I haven't though about it fully myself; but I expect you can do it.

 

[gneill]

You might also want to look up the concept of "Coefficient of Restitution".