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Isaac Newton's Scientific Investigations

1. Newton's First Law of Motion (1) | 2. Newton's First Law of Motion (2) | 3. Newton's Third Law of Motion | 4. Newton's Colour Wheel

 5.  Balancing Butterfly | 6. The Floating Balloon

Newton's First Law of Motion (1)

Experiment: "An object at rest (or in motion) stays at rest (or in motion) unless a force acts upon it."

Materials:

You will need:

2 empty drinking glasses (exactly the same)
2 cardboard tubes (from toilet rolls or paper kitchen towels)
2 eggs (limes or small oranges will do if you are concerned about making a mess!)
A very flat bottomed baking tray
 

Method:

What you have to do: 

1) Fill your two glasses with water (to about three quarters full - important if you want to keep your eggs intact).

2) Balance the baking tray on top of the glasses.

3) Put your cardboard tubes directly above the glasses, but on the tray.

4) Place one egg (lime or orange) on top of each tube.

5) Give the tray a sharp tap.

Result: The two eggs (limes or oranges) fell into the glasses of water.

Conclusion: The eggs were at rest until the tubes were knocked out from under them and then gravity pulled them straight into the glasses. The baking tray was in motion until gravity acted upon it and pulled it down.

You can, of course, do the same experiment with just one of each (egg, tube, glass) but it is more spectacular with two. We have tried it successfully with three.

Sixth Class Experiments