If some superballs are manufactured with varying grades of elasticity then it should be trivial to get a gradient bounce out of the correct drop setup. The superballs would all be the same size.

I'm am thinking a red superball, long wavelength, so the softest elasticity right through the rainbow colours to a violet superball, short wavelength, with the strongest bounce.

A downward roll off a cliff edge onto a 45 degree plane would be a nice effect for 1000 or so mixed balls.

But what would be setup to get the rainbow out of a large height drop already bouncing mixture? Any suggestions? **

The impetus being, if the experiment is to drop 20,000 superballs from a helicopter for a demonstration to excite interest in science, why not add some of nature's quirks.

** maybe a big angled paraboloid. More science.
-- wjt, May 19 2018

Are you sure the strongest bounce will yield (or somehow represent) the shortest wavelength?
-- pertinax, May 22 2018


[pertinax] You are correct, the red colour has the widest, outside arc in photos of rainbows. True, the red , in a superball senario, would have to have the most elastic formula to make the highest bouncing arc.

No metaphor, or representation will ever be complete because it it not the thing being described. Similar or intriguing is good enough to inspire.
-- wjt, May 23 2018



random, halfbakery