Sandbox FAQs

Relevance of Newton’s Cradle:

Newton’s Cradle works best if the steel balls are perfectly aligned and without any gap between them at rest. The energy transfer mechanism between the balls is a mechanical compressional wave (also named a sound compressional wave if the frequency is in human hearing range) initiated by the impactor ball.

The speed of energy transfer in a straight line vector through the balls is the compressional speed of sound through steel. (Click the link, allow the Wiki page to load, type the command Ctrl+F, type the search word compressional, click Enter.)

An Asteroid meets the Earth’s Geology

In the more complex matrix of elements in the Earth’s cool crust, warm mantle, hot liquid outer core and white hot solid core, the speed of sound (a mechanical wave) will be either increased or decreased accordingly. The three biggest influences on sound speed increasing are transitions: into a hotter medium, into a more dense medium, or into a medium wherein an increase in concentration of magnetic field flux runs parallel with the wavefront direction. The latter transition has a higher probability if the asteroid strike occurs in a polar region with the vector passing through the axis of rotation or close to it.

Note that the speed of the vector does not significantly affect the energy delivered in the wavefront, the speed provides data used to calculate the time interval between the asteroid strike event and the antipode formation event.