Equal Time vs. Equal Distance Drop - Physics Demonstrations - Equal Time vs. Equal Distance Drop | Physics Undergraduate Labs

Purpose

Two strings of nuts are dropped onto a metal pan. Equally spaced nuts produce impacts that speed up; nuts spaced at 1, 4, 9, 16... times a base length produce evenly timed impacts. The contrast makes the $d \propto t^2$ relationship audible.

Metal baking pan centered on a table with two strings of nuts laid out on either side — shorter equally-spaced string on the left, longer quadratically-spaced string on the right — with a wooden meter stick above

Figure 1: Equipment: metal baking pan, equally-spaced nuts (left string) and quadratically-spaced nuts (right string), with a notched meter stick for consistent release.