Invented in 1945, the slinky is a nostalgic relic of many childhoods. Capture it with a high-speed camera, and it becomes a thing of beauty.
The above video was intended to show the aesthetic side of science, but it also shows how the little toy doesn’t collapse all at once when it’s dropped from a building. The last in a series of six slinky videos, it demonstrates how the bottom of the stack of coils doesn’t just fall immediately because it’s waiting for the signal from the top to make its way down. And the results are something quite enchanting and appear to defy the laws of physics. [Veritasium]