TechCrunch has a scoop (not uncommon for the leading blog about goings on on the Internet). Everybody’s favourite iPhone game characters, the Angry Birds, are becoming tangible. Check out this range of plush toys headed your way (TechCrunch has photos of all of them).
Now, I can tell you that these birds aren’t actual size because somebody smart at
Wired/a> conducted some mathematical modelling on the game to determine its physics, and as a result, calculated that the red bird is five metres tall.
They worked out that there’s no air resistance in the angry birds world, and thus, gravity is the only force working on the bird (which moves at 2.46 angry birds per second in the horizontal direction).
“The only force acting on the bird (if the bird is not moving too fast) would be the gravitational force from the Earth. This is where I see lots of intro-student mistakes. They tend to want to put some force in the horizontal direction because the bird is moving that way. DON’T do that. That is what Aristotle would have you believe, but you don’t want to be in his club. There is no horizontal force in this case – no air resistance.
Check out the maths at Wired to see how the calculation of the bird’s height (actually 4.9m) was made.
Comments
Assuming the birds are on earth. That’s a pretty big assumption.