Science off the Sphere: Spring Theory

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How do you measure mass in a weightless environment? NASA Astronaut Don Pettit demonstrates as part of a collaboration between NASA and the American Physical Society.

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  Science & Technology

[TheDamnedOCRemix]

He uses Lego Technic beams for the pendulum?

LEGO IN SPACE! AWESOME!

Oh, and that science thing, I guess that was kind of cool, too...

[PhysicsCentralAPS]

make sure you check out episode 10.

[Arctic IceFox]

this is really interesting, KEEP IT UP!!!

[marcoisin]

Great series of videos, very well made(considering the difficulty of doing all that in space)

About the mass of the nuts all I can assume is that #1 is the most massive #2 being half its mass and #3 is 3/4 the mass of #1.

[Ido Porges]

the spring does not replace gravity completly because the force gravity enforces varies accordingly to the mass it acts upon (i.e it will put more force against more mass). the spring however always applies the same amount of force (i.e it will put the same amount of force against any mass)

[JesusFruit10]

I'm not sure if I'm right on this but doesn't the internet use satellites and stuff? So I would assume they get some sort of reception up there.

[Sheila England]

I love this stuff! Thank you.

[Gordon Freeman]

how do you upload these?

[TimmacTR]

What do you mean by atomic mass? Like compared to C12?

[ajpage98]

Ausinabadisa is right, he doubles the mass but doesn't double the force, resulting in a different frequency of oscillation.

[clntmagee]

I'm wondering if he doesn't pull the mass the same distance each time from the knitting needle if he'll get a proper measurement of the oscillations? Doesn't the amount of energy he puts into that spring affect how many oscillations will occur in a given period? Is there something about this thinking that's wrong considering the fact he's in space?