Hey, I'm Dianna.

And you're watching Physics Girl.

Ever tried bouncing Tic Tacs into a cup?

Bouncing Tic Tacs into a cup is hard.

Some might say strangely hard.

See, I was in the best state the other day to come across an everyday mystery, when I noticed something strange.

Sometimes Tic Tacs bounce higher on the second bounce than on the first.

What?

If you've ever bounced any round ball ever, you know that the first bounce is always higher than the second bounce.

What is going on with the Tic Tacs?

We're going to solve the mystery with any clues we can pick up, like Tic Tacs aren't shaped like round ball.

So maybe it's the shape of the Tic Tacs that makes it bounce like that.

And then try to accomplish a challenge.

Today's mystery challenge is this.

Try and make the Tic Tacs bounce to a height higher than we dropped it from.

If you like physics like I do, that should make you raise an eyebrow.

So the Tic Tac mystery.

I have a theory of what's going on.

But I can't give it away yet because I don't want the culprit to escape.

But to verify it, we need to film dozens of Tic Tacs drops with a Phantom high speed camera at 1,000 frames per second.

with a Phantom high speed camera at 1,000 frames per second.

It's for science.

It's for science.

I love this footage.

Thanks so much to my friends Darren, Joe, and Todd.

I got really good footage of the Tic Tacs bouncing higher.

But that's the next clue.

I didn't get any bad footage because it takes five minutes to save one second of footage on the Phantom camera.

to save one second of footage on the Phantom camera.

But that's a hint to the clue.

But that's a hint to the clue.

The clue is that the Tic Tac does not always bounce higher on the second bounce.

In fact, if you drop it straight up and down, it kind of just bounces like a normal ball.

That's another clue.

Is it?

Yeah.

It's a good one.

Write it down, Watson.

You know, like, the computer.

So something's happening that doesn't happen all the time.

I think it's time to show you the high speed footage.

But you're going to get some really, really good clues from this.

Here it goes.

[MUSIC PLAYING] It's so obvious now.

When there's a low balance on the Tic Tac, it starts rotating really quickly.

Have you solved it?

Putting it all together, the shape of the Tic Tac must come into play.

Because the elongated shape of the Tic Tacs, you can get the Tic Tac to start spinning.

It happens when the Tic Tac hits the table on one side first, creating a torque across the Tic Tac that starts it spinning, like a torque starts a lot of things spinning.

That's why it's important for the Tic Tac not to be falling straight up and down.

Because you can't get it to work if you're pushing perpendicular to this axis.

Nope, still can't.

And then you notice that the next time the Tic Tac hits, it stops spinning.

And that's when it bounces higher again.

This is where it gets conservational.

We have to follow the energy because energy is always conserved.

The amount of energy we start out with when you drop a ball is our potential energy, coming from the fact that it's starting out at some high in Earth's gravity field.

And then as the ball falls, it loses its potential energy and gains kinetic energy.

And energy is always conserved.

So then why doesn't the ball come back up to the same height?

Ah, well, some energy went into heat when it hit the table.

Ah, well, some energy went into heat when it hit the table.

So you will never get higher than the original height So you will never get higher than the original height when you drop a ball.

And same with the Tic Tac.

But we are getting higher than a previous bounce.

Let's follow the energy.

When the Tic Tac starts spinning, some of its energy goes into rotational kinetic energy, which means it has less energy that can go from that translational kinetic energy, the energy of just moving in a straight line, into potential energy to bring the Tic Tac back up.

So it can't go as high because that energy is in the rotational energy.

So the Tic Tac can't have it for potential energy.

There it is.

And then when the Tic Tac un-spins, when it stops rotating by bouncing again, that rotational energy is available again to allow the Tic Tac to go higher.

Mystery solved.

And now onto the challenge.

Welcome back to my boredom palace.

That's what I like to call my bedroom.

I was supposed to be talking about a challenge.

The terms that I set out in this beginning of this video was-- you remember?

To get the Tic Tac to bounce to a higher height then I dropped it from.

I'm just waiting to see whether you wanted to think of a way to do that before I gave it away.

We learned that when the Tic Tac has some spin, it has extra energy.

So my idea is to impart a little bit of spin when I drop the Tic Tac.

Then it'll have extra rotational energy.

So once it bounces, it can turn that rotational energy into more just translational kinetic energy and get up higher than where I dropped it.

Spoiler alert, I've actually already been doing this for 10 minutes.

And I had to remove the bottom part of my sweat suit because I got so sweaty dropping Tic Tacs.

Get you a friend who puts so much effort into her Tic Tac experiment, she makes this face.

I shouldn't be left alone in a room.

But OK, it totally worked.

Now, some of you are thinking, how do you know that I didn't actually give it some downward velocity, which is kind of cheating?

Like, it's already got some more kinetic energy.

And it's not just the rotational energy.

I'm not dropping it.

I'm actually throwing it downward.

And that's a legitimate concern.

And that's a legitimate concern.

And since I anticipated it already, And since I anticipated it already, I have a way of addressing your concern.

I don't think it's cheating if you give it a little upward velocity in addition to the spin.

And then we try and see whether I can match the top part of the trajectory.

Now I'm going to gauge whether I can drop it back up to that peak.

It was a little harder to do.

They're so orange.

"Orange" you glad I'm doing this for 30 minutes and not you?

Sorry.

Keep trying.

We did it.

Woo!

Challenge accomplished.

Now, if you have any other ideas for how you could win that challenge, let me know down in the comments.

But I think we did pretty darn good.

Thank you so much for watching.

And happy physicsing.