10 Dec
2010
10 Dec
'10
8:11 p.m.
I tried to do this by thinking of the balls as springs with a very big constant instead of as rigid bodies. Then the question of space between them doesn't seem so important any more, and I start to think that the behavior of the system will depend more on the structure of the big ball (how does it compress compared with the small balls). I still don't see how to predict exactly what will happen. In fact, my cluelessness about the way the big spring acts makes me even less clueful about what should happen. --Joshua Zucker