How do ping-pong balls bounce so high?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ping pong is a super fun game. It’s like miniature tennis, where people use paddles to make balls fly across a table., and sometimes way, way up in the air! But how do those tiny plastic balls manage to bounce so high? We asked physicist Dr. Kiley Kennedy to help us find the answer. Got a question that’s bouncing around your brain? Ping us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll serve up the answer!

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios.
0:35.8	I'm Polly.
0:40.4	And I'm a brand new ping pong ball.
0:45.9	Check it out.
0:48.8	I've still got that new ping pong ball smell.
0:53.2	Actually, do you have any deodorant?
0:56.0	Wouldn't want to get stinky out there.
1:03.7	My palpatti and I were all cozy in our ping pong box just this morning.
1:10.0	Cozy and safe and not flying through the air.
1:15.5	That's Patty out there now.
1:17.1	Look at her go.
1:21.6	Back and forth, up and down. Woo!
1:23.6	Go, Patty.
1:26.6	Sure does look fun. Okay. Actually, can I be real with you for a second?
1:37.0	The truth is, I've got a terrible fear of heights, and I'm so bouncy. Oh, why, oh, why couldn't I have been a bowling ball or a hockey puck?
1:51.9	Something that stays low to the ground. Seriously, what's up with us ping pong balls bouncing so high anyway?
2:02.2	Actually, Siwu was wondering the same thing.
2:06.0	How do ping pong balls bounce so high?
2:11.7	The first thing you need to know to understand why ping pong balls bounce so high
2:16.4	is that energy can't be created or destroyed.
2:20.3	My name is Dr. Kylie Kennedy and I am a physicist at Princeton University where I do research
2:26.8	on the tiniest particles in the universe. Okay, so let's think about what's happening when we drop a ping pong ball.
	...

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