Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Newton's Cradle

Newton's cradle

Newton's cradle in motion. One ball is set in motion and soon collides witht the rest, conveying the energy through the rest of the balls and eventually to the last ball, which in turn is set in motion.

Alternate option 1.

Alternate option 2.

This animated .gif, yet again by DemonDeLuxe, is not only very good quality and aesthetically pleasing, but also quite encyclopedic. It (obviously) appears in the article Newton's cradle, but I'm sure other uses could be thought up for it. I've also added two of his other (older) versions for your consideration.

Nominate and support. - NauticaShades^(talk) 16:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose The animation seems extremely unrealistic on all of them, although the third is a little better than the first two. I'd rather it was more apparent that they were following the acceleration of gravity and didn't look like they were just following a preset path (which I'm guessing is how the animation was made) Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe you would prefer this slower version. NauticaShades^(talk) 20:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excellent Animation showing perfectly a well known law of physics! Sean the Spook 18:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support the first one, the other two are too small and much less realistic. I get the impression the ball sets off slightly before the other one hits but that doesn't bother me - Adrian Pingstone 18:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It does bother me, so oppose until a correction is made. There should be a slight delay while the impulse propagates through the row of balls - like in real life. In option 2 again, the pause is too long going one way, OK the other. Never satisfied... --Janke | Talk 21:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there is a remarkable delay (a question that can be answered by a physicist). In the original version, the frame 17 shows the ball at the left side a short moment before it hits the next one. The frame 18 shows the moment, when the left ball is close to the others and the ball at the right side has already moved a bit away from its neighbour. A film shows pictures at certain intervals. In my opinion there is no need to show the moment when all balls are close together to make it look natural. The animation is correct, if the distance of the left ball in frame 17 plus the distance of the right ball in frame 18 is equal to the distance a ball would run through during the interval of time between frames 17 and 18 at the velocity shortly before hitting (approximately, because it is an accelerated movement). In the shown animation (original) I think that the added distance of the 2 outside balls is a bit too long. Nevertheless I support it. --wau > 11:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Referring to option 1: The speed of sound in steel is ~4500 m/sec, so if the distance traveled is ~20cm the time required would be roughly 4.4E-5 seconds...3 orders of magnitude shorter than the duration of a single frame. However, the deceleration of the ball as it rises and accelerates as it falls just looks unnatural. Visually its beautiful but I cant support it. The motion of the spheres in options 2 and 3 is even worse. I oppose all three. Meniscus 14:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. First version is perfect. sikander 18:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Is this Povray-traced? In this case (and even in others) it would be good to have the source. I would like to inspect closely the balls trajectory. At present it does not seem realistic to me and I'm not sure why. --Bernard 22:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The balls never come to a rest... If I were seeing this for the 1st time I'd wonder if this was a perpetual motion machine or what.-Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 00:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support version 2 though I would love it if it were as big as the first one. —Jared Hunt October 3, 2006, 00:18 (UTC)
Oppose. The animations are unrealistic, and there's a very odd acceleration just before the impact. The last version (on Mars?) looks totally out of sync. Is the movement being based over the proper equations? — If motion is fixed on the first image, then I'd be more than glad to support. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 03:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There are frames missing immediately before impact. It's especially easy to see in the slower version. Redquark 04:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Unrealistic motion, as others note. Also, the need for computer animation, as opposed to just recording a real Newton's Cradle, is not obvious. --Davepape 04:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is to me. How long would it take to setup the 1st scene with correct lighting etc? I certainly do not have the equipment to do it. Also the file size for this animation is probably alot smaller than an anm gif of a movie would be. -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 14:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Original - very stylish! --Fir0002 08:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Original and alternate 1 have major problems with the accuracy of the motion. Even alternate 2 is a little inaccurate (more noticible in the right ball at the top of its movement). Alternate 2 also is not cropped well enough. Cropping in original was best. Also, running this animation in a loop suggests perpetual motion, which is a BAD demonstration of physics. Dgies 20:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support You mean its not a perpetual motion machine/apparatus? :-) Ok, I'll be serious. I like the alternatave option 2, and feel that these complaints on the three options' motion is because of their position. Anyways, I like alternative option 2 because it is slower, and doesn't seem "rushed". The "wood surface" also looks better than white. | AndonicO 17:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support original. Nice animation! TomStar81 (Talk) 23:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support original, provdied the "broken" motion is fixed. - Mailer Diablo 10:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support original - animation looks good to me, or at least good enough to convey what's going on. Kaldari 23:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support original - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 05:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted. howch e ng {chat} 18:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]