Why Does a Tic-Tac Bounce Higher on the Third Attempt?

[AlchemistK]

Ok, just a few minutes back, a tic-tac slipped from my hand and fell to the ground.

The second bounce was to a lower height than the first (which is expected because e*<1) but then as it took the third bounce, it rose to a height higher than the one reached by it than in the second bounce.

I had observed this phenomenon before in pebbles, but today I sat down and started thinking about it, I came up with the following result :

I noticed (after dropping the tic-tac about a hundred times) that the height of a bounce is higher than the one preceding it only in one particular case : when the tic-tac hits one end on the floor first and then hits the floor a second time before bouncing back.

To make sense of this, I followed energy conservation.
The tic-tac originally has a potential energy of mgh and when it bounces back to a new height, it has no transnational kinetic energy, some potential energy and most importantly: Rotational kinetic energy.
Now to make the tic-tac reach a max height, the rotational kinetic energy would have to be minimum.
So what actually happens is that when a tic-tac hits the floor a second time in the same cycle, it gets a torque in the opposite direction to what it got in the first hit in the same cycle, hence reducing the rotational and by conservation of energy, making it reach to a higher height.

That's what I came up with, is it even remotely correct to what is actually going on? Any other thoughts?*e = coefficient of restitution

 

[tiny-tim]

Hi AlchemistK!

… So what actually happens is that when a tic-tac hits the floor a second time in the same cycle, it gets a torque in the opposite direction to what it got in the first hit in the same cycle, hence reducing the rotational and by conservation of energy, making it reach to a higher height.

Wow, that's amazing … I didn't know you could do that with tic-tacs!

Yes, that seems a correct analysis.

I wonder whether there's a similar manouevre in gymnastics?

I think you should do a few more experiments, and then publish!

eg, what's the coefficient of restitution for a tic-tac? ​

 

[AlchemistK]

I have a counter reasoning too though, since the tic-tac hits for a second time, it looses more energy as heat and sound.

what's the coefficient of restitution for a tic-tac?

How do I do that? With all the various uncontrollable variables like friction, angle of drop, and other things, it seems impossible.And also, I noticed that the phenomenon occurs more when the tic-tac is dropped at a certain angle, further supporting that the reasoning is correct because the tic tac would only hit twice if dropped at a certain angle.