

Does the angry blue bird multiply its mass? - TimH
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/does-the-angry-blue-bird-multiply-its-mass

======
seldo
This is the kind of brilliant and pointless analysis that I love. Me, I would
have just emailed the app author and asked them.

------
brc
You might laugh, but I genuinely thought this was going to be something about
Twitter and the momentum caused by an avalanche of negative tweets - ie Gap
logo, etc.

Turns out I couldn't be more wrong.

------
treblig
Incredibly cool and in-depth post. But it's funny, I just assumed the
conclusion intuitively since the first time I used a blue bird.

------
spicyj
Please note that "its" is the correct word to use in the title and the Wired
article had it correct.

Edit: Thanks.

------
JangoSteve
I noticed something was not being conserved with the blue bird when I first
tried out Angry Birds. My strategy was usually to explode the bird just before
collision to take advantage of the extra force.

My assumption was that the mechanism for splitting 1 bird into 3 birds was an
internal explosion. This would introduce a large amount of energy into the
system and account for increased velocity in the resulting birds, and thus the
increased momentum.

Of course there is a way to test my theory (and I realize it probably has
little basis in how the game was actually programmed, but it satisfied my
mechanical engineer side to reconcile what I was seeing with reality). You
could launch the blue bird such that it falls just to the right of a standing
piece of wood and "explode" it just as it's right next to the wood. If it is,
in fact, an explosion that propels all 3 new birds to the right, then there
would be an equal force directed to the left, which should knock the piece of
wood over without touching it.

------
kylec
Tomorrow: Does the angry yellow bird violate the conservation of momentum?

~~~
akjetma
Angry yellow bird makes a noise as if it were angrily flapping its wings when
you activate its speed boost, suggesting that it is not accelerating without
having a new force act upon it. This is a completely Newtonian bird afaik.

------
shasta
I love how the conclusion to all of this is that you should expand blue birds
before impact - a conclusion I reached in twenty seconds by just trying it
both ways.

------
tiffani
Neat-o. Hopefully, he'll explain next why the sticks and stones don't seem to
have heard of Isaac Newton at times! Some of the planks won't even _slide_ and
fall when they're in awkwardly precarious positions. But, then again, that's
why I played for an hour at work the other day. :)

~~~
orangecat
Yeah, static friction is very strong and kinetic friction is very weak.
Several levels I had to wait quite a while for a pig or rock to verrry
slowwwly roll off an edge.

~~~
tiffani
Yup, first thing I thought of afterward was friction. But, alas, let me not
continue reading too much into one of a few things in the middle of the day
that actually _keeps_ me from thinking. Gotta have a refuge at your desk
somehow...(besides just getting up and leaving for the day).

