perplexus.info :: Science : Broom Balance Bother

Broom Balance Bother (Posted on 2022-03-19)

You balance a broom horizontally on your finger in such a way that your finger was exactly on the broom's center of gravity.

Now, if you marked that spot and cut the broom in two, then you would have a long and a short piece.

The long piece constitutes most of the handle and the short piece being bristle and a small part of the handle.

Which will now weigh more: the short piece or the long piece or, will they weigh the same? Give reasons for your answer.

See The Solution Submitted by K Sengupta

Rating: 5.0000 (1 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)

re: soln

Comment 3 of 3 |

(In reply to soln by Steven Lord)

A heuristic way of looking at it could be to imagine a simplified model of a broom:

Let the handle piece be 10 units long with a mass of 1 unit but with all the mass concentrated at the end.

Let the bristle end be 1 unit long with a mass of 10 units, all mass concentrated at the end.

In each case the torque is 10*1 = 1*10 = 10

but clearly the bristle piece weighs more.

Posted by Larry on 2022-03-20 21:26:44

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