A Spherical Horse Broadens Our Horizons of Study

Takeshi Sugimoto¹*, San'ei Ichikawa², Shigekatsu Saitou², Keiichi Kawase² and Masashi Mimura²

¹Faculty of Engineering, Kanagawa University, 3-27-1 Rokkakubashi, Kanagawa-ward, Yokohama 221-8686, Japan
²Japan Wildlife Research Center, 3-10-10 Shitaya, Taito-ward, Tokyo 110-8676, Japan
*E-mail address: take@is.kanagawa-u.ac.jp

(Received August 7, 2008; Accepted September 4, 2008)

Keywords: Spheres, Toy Models, Conceptual Experiment, Problem Solving

Abstract. The spheres are the ultimate 3D toy models. Although the spheres are often treated as purely theoretical entities without real-world practicality, the spheres serve as hatchets to hard problems to be solved. Here are a couple of new twists to the classical mechanics: a sphere falling in the transverse winds and colliding with a branch. These results show usefulness of conceptual experiments by use of the spheres.