I love to use this clip in the classroom to show the interrelationships between the "disciplines" of physics and biology, as well as the usual Newtonian distinctions between mass, force and inertia. The flea can jump over 150 times its own body length. Imagine if humans could do that. The flea has way of storing (relatively) large amounts of elastic potential energy in an elastomeric protein called resilin. This energy is released when the flea jumps. The flea (as the video shows) also is capable of pulling large amounts of mass (as shown in the video) despite its own small mass. Resilin allows the flea to generate large forces, which can easily overcome the (relatively)large inertia of the cart, thus accelerating it.
A link to "The Last Flea Circus"? How does this relate to mass, force, and inertia?
ReplyDeleteI love to use this clip in the classroom to show the interrelationships between the "disciplines" of physics and biology, as well as the usual Newtonian distinctions between mass, force and inertia.
ReplyDeleteThe flea can jump over 150 times its own body length. Imagine if humans could do that.
The flea has way of storing (relatively) large amounts of elastic potential energy in an elastomeric protein called resilin. This energy is released when the flea jumps.
The flea (as the video shows) also is capable of pulling large amounts of mass (as shown in the video) despite its own small mass. Resilin allows the flea to generate large forces, which can easily overcome the (relatively)large inertia of the cart, thus accelerating it.