Topic 71: Too Much Momentum

Carol:

Falling Bodies
 

Most of what I know about physics comes from watching falling bodies-mine or my family’s. I want to blame it on our house,  which is a veritable booby trap for the young or careless. Stairs up to the front door and off the back deck, stairs up to the second storey and down to the basement, an open loft and upper hallway  protected by the flimsiest of railings good only for hanging decorations at Christmas.
 

We  raised two children here with fairly simple safety precautions.  We bought kiddie gates for the stairwell and installed child-proof latches and outlet plugs.  We even covered the upstairs railings with chicken wire, inelegant but effective in keeping them from sticking their heads between the posts,falling through the rails or throwing anything dangerous off the balcony. 
 

Unfortunately, we adults seemed to be the weakest link in our safety system.  I was the one who left the door to the basement open while carrying laundry down to the garage, the basket blocking the sight of my toddler following behind. It was pretty amazing actually that, after bouncing off one section of the stairs and hitting his chin on another section, my son didn’t break any bones. He  did put his teeth through his bottom lip. it  sounds worse than it really was, I swear.
 

Child-proof Fence

The outside of the house wasn’t much better than the inside with its wrap-around deck,  railings edged by cat claws and other prickly shrubs, and the varied drop-off from the deck because of our sloping property. We put up fencing there as well, but only after—omigod, same kid—our 2 year -old son got too much momentum going on his Big Wheels and went through the railing and into the bushes while Marc was playing with him. Oh, the wails and tears…from my husband at the sight of the plastic cycle hanging precariously off the deck, his baby boy caught in the cat claws.
 

As the children grew, our inelegant safety system was dismantled. Countless children have stuck their heads through the balcony and not one has ever fallen. The only damage from  throwing things off the balcony was not done by children. Who woulda  thunk that #1  I would be such a lousy thrower, and that  #2  a flimsy piece of clothing could actually snap a propeller arm off the ceiling fan?
 

The chicken wire and baby fences are still in use, moved outside to contain a dog who can leap tall buildings and the front gate of our deck in a single bound. A barricade of chairs and fencing inside the gate has worked so far, but I was stingy with the chicken wire, thinking that the increasing drop-off and the huge bushes alongside the deck would be a deterrent, and they were until yesterday.  A chocolate Lab wandered into the yard. Milo, sitting atop his favorite outdoor perch, our glass-top table, spotted the intruder. Squeezing through the railing just where the chicken wire ended, he leaped off the deck, up over the gigantic bush right into the chocolate lab. According to Milo’s sister (Megan hates it when I call her that), the confrontation between Lab and mutt was a frenzy of gyrating bodies, a collision of tails and squeals as the two powerful animals became instant pals, running huge circles through the neighboring yards. I now have several more plastic chairs barricading the railing, inelegant and probably not very effective.  

I love my house even if it may appear to be a death trap. Hopefully, our youngest child doesn’t remember his accidents as well as his parents do. And hopefully, our latest dog will forget how easily he flew off that deck, unharmed despite the speed from too much momentum.

Dog-proof fence?

 

Megan:

When I was little I was quite a gymnast, according to my parents. I was enrolled in gymnastics at the age of 2.5 and I guess I was a little darling or something. What I remember is an exhibition and being the only one who could do neither the splits or a back flip. We went down the line, every girl doing the back flip and when it got to me, I did a somersault. Every time I would gear up to try a back flip or a handspring or something, I would freak out and lose momentum. That’s  how I remember it.

What I was good at was somersaults, cartwheels and headstands. Especially headstands. My little party trick was to tuck my shirt into my pants and then stand on my head for as long as I could – sometimes it was 45 minutes. I only stopped because I got bored. My favorite place to do them was in the living room against the door that leads to the basement, but I didn’t need a wall for support so I’d do them anywhere – the playground, PE, in front of the TV. I remember (although I’m not sure if it actually happened) my brother throwing toys at me, trying to knock me over.  The last time I tried to do a headstand was sometime in college, but I had to use a pillow under my head.

At some point I learned to do a back bend from a standing position, but again I didn’t have the strength to flip my feet over into a handspring. The last time I did a back bend was shortly before I quit gymnastics. I was in the gym at school and my arms gave out so I landed on my head. After that I lost my confidence, and wouldn’t even do one on a padded mat. Instead I lay on my back and then pushed myself up.  I walked around that way, not unlike Linda Blair in The Exorcist but not as fast, and definitely not down the stairs.

Growing up we were not supposed to play on the stairs. I remember mom warning us, “Someone’s going to get hurt” in sort of a singsong voice and then when it turned out she was right, there was no sympathy.  So, one time I was playing by myself  and I had this brilliant idea that if I did a somersault down the stairs, I would be going so fast I could launch myself as I came up and jump really far – maybe all the way to the couch. Maybe it would have worked if I’d started at the last step instead of the top, but I was right about going really fast. I lost control mid-way through the first roll and then did two or three more. I only slowed when my head slammed into the bottom of the banister and hooked my chin in the corner. I lay stunned at the bottom of the stairs, amazed that I had survived such an ordeal and I was waiting for someone to rush to my aid before I started crying. But my mother was in the kitchen around the corner and had missed the entire thing. Not even my brother had been watching.  So I didn’t bother crying. 

Later I came up with a new game to play on the stairs. Suitcase sledding. It's a wonder my brother and I survived our childhood.