Question

When a fast moving striker strikes a pile of carrom coins only the bottom coin is removed from the pile. Give Scientific Reasons.

Answer 1

It was stated by Newton in his first law of motion that when observed from an inertial frame of view, an object will continue to move with a constant velocity or remain at rest unless a force acts on it and changes its form of motion. This property of an object to resist a change in its state of rest/ uniform motion is known as Inertia.

Complete step by step solution:
The fast moving striker carries a lot of momentum with it, and when it strikes any other carrom coin, it transfers some of its momentum such that the other coins gain momentum and start moving with some velocity.
When caroms are kept in a pile, the striker only comes in contact with the bottom carrom coin. Now if the striker is very fast, the bottom carrom coin is quickly moved away due to the high momentum gained by it.
But the other carrom coins that are situated above it do not experience much of a force and do not move along with the bottom carrom coin. The inertia of these carrom coins tends to keep them at rest, and the coins will remain in the pile unless a horizontal force acts on all of them.

Note: It is also observed that when the striker is stroked with a slower speed, the pile of the carrom coins tips and falls down. This is because, on a slower impact the friction forces act more significantly and try to displace more than one bottom coin, due to this the center of mass of this pile shifts out of the body and the structure becomes unbalanced, thus it tips and falls down.