On several occasions at we have delved into the world of children’s stories such as Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White, giving them a twist. This time we want to talk about a television series based on a children’s book: heidi.
Most of us have seen this japanese series cartoon based on the book of the same name Johanna Spyri. Both the book and the series are transgenerational and many families They gathered in front of the television to see the new chapters. The children of that time, today parents, go back to watching the series with their children and enjoying it.
The swing problem
What concerns us today is a specific moment in the «opening» of the series.
In it, Heidi swings on an impossible swing with the incredible setting of the Alps behind. The ropes are very long…How long should the swing be? We ask ourselves this question and quickly forget it, but a physics teacher launched this challenge in the Physics Web forum -as he had previously done with his students in class-, how long is Heidi’s swing? She warned that it was not about measuring on the screen, but about solve a problem with very little starting data.
The response was not long in coming, the students and «forumers» found the solution. Practically the only objective data had to be obtained from the «intro» of the series in progress and this is the oscillation period -the time it takes for the swing to make the complete trip- and stopwatch in hand turned out to be 9 seconds. Studying how a pendulum behaves subjected to the effects of gravity, with physical formulas (on this website you can see the solved problem), the result is a length of 20.25 m.
If we add to the height of the swing what seems to be from seat to floor, the conclusion of the students is that, between one thing and another, Heidi swings, so happy, to approximately 150 meters. Naturally the questions don’t end there: How did you get on the swing?! Would you help her Pichi?
If you like riddles, you might be interested in having a good time solving the ones we propose here: 6 riddles to have fun thinking (I).
Images: Heidi