Balancing act

You are trying to balance a long, thin rod at the tip of your finger in such a way that the rod is supported at the bottom but remains close to vertical.

You have two rods with about the same weight: one is 0.5 m \SI{0.5}{\meter} long and the other is 2.0 m \SI{2.0}{\meter} long. Which one is easier to balance?

About the same The longer rod The shorter rod

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1 solution

Laszlo Mihaly
Aug 17, 2017

The longer rod is easier to balance, because its response to external forces is slower. This is easy to understand if we consider what happens when we make pendulums out of the rods: The longer rod will have longer period.

With a slower response time you have more time to act and move your finger a bit if the rod starts to tilt out of the vertical position.

If you have doubt about the correctness of the answer, try to balance a pencil at its tip and compare that to balancing a long measuring rod.

good reason

azadali jivani - 3 years, 9 months ago

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