Newton's Cradle

What an hysterical way to begin the week: with a human version of Newton's Cradle working right in front of us on our train! And a bespectacled hottie in the middle! Although we typically pixelate or blur the faces of women, we made an exception this time as this group of 4 from Japan were just too funny not to feature. Above we see how kinetic energy, moving from left to right, mimics the energy of a stopping train whose forward motion is to the right.

And then the train leaves Central and the kinetic energy flows the opposite direction, forcing movement onto and through our hottie in glasses in the middle.

And then our train reaches the apogee of the Longfellow Bridge. The kinetic energy from the stopping and starting has dissipated and our group of somnolent travelers begin to show the effects of gravity. Hair and heads begin to dangle straight down. Below is a video of a Newton's Cradle.

Location: Red Line at Harvard, Central and Kendall/MIT
Imagined Profession: Admin at Foreign Student Exchange Bureau
Photographer: GB