Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Just starting on my project. I am wanting to have two clear tubes with some type of ball inside and one tube is slightly angled and one tube has huge drop curve in it. I want to prove that a straight line is not always the fastest distance. Is there any references or help on this site to help me?

Hi

You appear to be studying the solution to the Brachistochrone problem. Here are some references which explain it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachistochrone_curve

http://hom.wikidot.com/the-cycloid

http://web.mit.edu/jasc/Public/thesis.pdf

Unfortunately as far as I can tell Science Buddies has not addressed this very famous math and physics problen directly. The closest Science Buddies project I could find is:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p036.shtml

This is a really cool problem!!!

Have fun with it.

Best regards,

Barrett L Tomlinson