CYCLOIDAL RAMP

CYCLOIDAL RAMP

• This Cycloidal Ramp comprises 2x different cycloid tracks plus 1x inclined plane 310 x 345mm  mounted side-by-side.
• A simple chiming device at the bottom of each ramp audibly announces the arrival of two steel balls when each one is rolled down its own track.
• Apparatus demonstrates that the straight line path from top to bottom of a ramp is not always the quickest.
• It is the cycloidal path in a gravitational field which has a fixed time of descent regardless of path length – known as a tautochronous property.
• Visually easy to understand that if the ball rolls down its specific track, it will take the same time regardless of where the two balls start.

(Wikipedia excerpt: .."...In geometry, a cycloid is the curve traced by a point on a circle as it rolls along a straight line without slipping. A cycloid is a specific form of trochoid and is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve.

The cycloid, with the cusps pointing upward, is the curve of fastest descent under uniform gravity (the brachistochrone curve). It is also the form of a curve for which the period of an object in simple harmonic motion (rolling up and down repetitively) along the curve does not depend on the object's starting position (the tautochrone curve). In physics, when a charged particle at rest is put under a uniform electric and magnetic field perpendicular to one another, the particle’s trajectory draws out a cycloid...")

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