Veritasium Falling Ladder Response

This is a response to the question posed by Derek over at Veritasium on YT Shorts about the downward acceleration of two falling ladders.

The solution is a combination of torque about the left side of the rod as well as the conservation of angular momentum about the same point.

Admittedly the left side of the rod rebounds exacerbating the gap between the rod and ball, but the outcome is similar if the rod does not bounce.

Many thanks to Andy Ruina for the original posting and discussion of the falling ladder.

Follow the link web address below for a long-format video with the full solution explaining the increased acceleration and speed observed at the tip of the rod.

[veritasium]

great response, now I don't need to make part 2 haha

[wesleyf]

YouTube algorithm worked perfectly on this one, I just scrolled down from Veritasium's video and this was the very next one on my feed!

[muhammadryan]

Wonderful response! Thank you for the explanation!

[haydnenthusiast]

Hey, it's my old AP physics teacher! Still to this day one of my favorite teachers

[richardlee]

Thanks for illustrating the “other”force involved.

[SlimyPenguin]

I kept trying to make force diagrams in my head to figure out why there's a greater force downwards on the ladder hitting the ground. I never even considered moments and rotation 🤦‍♂️. Thanks for this!

[andyruina]

Very nice video. The cleanest simplest video one could possibly make for the purpose. OOPs. I see that I already commented similarly a year ago. Well, I still agree with myself.

[acall]

There seems to be some opposing rotation before the rod hits the ground

[iGuysCOMEDY]

This was my intuition too, the ladder rungs are pulling the ladder down faster

[sabres_fan]

Does rod rotate because of the rebound off the floor? For example if you had a rod and floor combination with no rebound and no friction, would it still fall faster? Would love an answer

[tahasabtain]

You really need to be subscribed
bro that was amazing ♥️

[SHLee]

This can be explained by 'Conservation of Momentum!!

[Tinybabyfishy]

Does this mean that if the ladders had all their rungs parallel to the ground, the effect wouldn't occur?

[abdulhadikus]

this isn't a problem at all it is just an analysis I guess. try to change the length of the rod and see what happens.

[maheshwari_franklin]

Circular Kinetics where v = wr so the length of stick should affect this too am I right guys ?

[brucewayne]

Do the math for us in your channel too!

[daspedal]

You kids invent the wheel a second time and you degen. Community will celebrate it.

[foomaoseng]

Weird, nobody has made any jokes about rod and balls.

[FZ]

How did an American get his hands on a floorball ball? Nobody plays it there :)

[wesfoulds]

If you used a Fuji film camera it would have been a lot smoother