Superballs can be purchased in local toy stores. They are described as being highly elastic. For bounces on a wooden bench top, the coefficient of restitution, defined as the ratio of the velocity after collision to the velocity before collision, can be determined from the heights reached on successive rebounds. The value obtained is typically about e = 0.8.

Topics
Rigid body dynamics
1.
For a head-on collision of two masses, the coefficient of restitution e is defined as the ratio of their relative speed of separation to their relative speed of approach.
2.
R.M. Sutton, Demonstration Experiments in Physics (McGraw-Hill, 1938), pp. 56–57.
3.
Our steel spheres have diameters of 1 in and 1–7/16 in, so the ratio of their masses is 2.97.
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© 2007 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2007
American Association of Physics Teachers
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