Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

how would i test if height affect the stability of an object?

You first have to define what you mean by stability of an object. In mechanics, this can be how much force, torque, or energy is required to alter an object's orientation. In a gravitational field for an object at rest on the surface of the earth, I can also be expressed as how far can the surface that the object is sitting on be tilted before the object tips over. If the object is moving relative to some reference, the problem is no longer a static problem but involves dynamics so the definition of stability is more complex.

Give us an example of what kinds of situations you want to deal with so we can better help you understand what reasonable definitions of stability might apply to your problem.

Hi Tashika,

Good question!

Providing “does height affect the stability of an object?” to answers.com, you get the following (among the top hits):

1. http://school.discoveryeducation.com/sc ... avity.html - defines stability as chance of falling over and gives an experiment.

2. http://www.answers.com/topic/stability?cat=health - includes the following text “The stability of an object is inversely related to the height of its centre of gravity above its supporting base.” In other words (among objects with same packing bottom to top), shorter objects are more stable.

So, reference one gives an experiment. And reference two provides an answer, which you can treat as an hypothesis to test using reference one's method.