Pumpkins Plummet in the Name of Science

November 07, 2007

In case you missed the real thing on Halloween, here’s your chance to catch the excitement of the third annual Physics Department Pumpkin Drop. This year, as always, it was a smashing success!

Courtesy of the BU Physics Department Demonstration Facility

These files show a pumpkin falling down from the roof of the Metcalf Building and the digital analysis of the fall, which proves that the acceleration of the falling object is constant (the graph for y(t) is a parabola!).

The Problem: how would you estimate the height of the building knowing that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s^2?