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Hello!
Welcome to Splo-On-The-Go, a series of short video clips, where we feature the individual
exhibits in the Splo museum in Second Life.
I'm your guide, Opal Lei.
In today's episode, we will see an exhibit that illustrates how a chain reaction can
release energy that is exponentially greater than the initial expended energy.
The Domino Fall is comprised of nine dominoes in increasing size.
In order to knock down the BIGGEST domino, all you need is the slightest energy to knock
down the SMALLEST domino.
In Second Life, there are two ways to start the chain reaction.
One way is to click the picture of a hand near the smallest domino.
The second way is to touch the smallest domino to make them "physical" so that they would
simulate physics in real life, then hover your cursor over the smallest domino
until your cursor changes into a hand, and then left-click and drag your mouse to knock
it down.
Neat, huh?
This exhibit is the virtual simulation of a real-world exhibit on chain reaction at
the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco, California.
The virtual exhibit behaves the same way as the real exhibit.
So what's going on?
Each subsequent domino is 1.5 times greater than the previous one in four properties:
height, width, thickness and height of the center of mass.
That means each subsequent domino is 1.5 times taller, 1.5 times wider, and 1.5 times thicker,
and it has a center of mass that is 1.5 times higher than the previous domino.
Therefore, as each domino falls, it multiplies the energy from the previous domino by one
point five to the fourth power.
That is, ... as each domino falls, the energy released by the domino is FIVE TIMES the energy
released by the previous domino!
At the eighth domino, the energy released is 400,000 times greater than the first domino!
How cool is that?
For more fun push the largest domino over, toward the smallest domino.
Find out what happens by visiting this exhibit and many more at the Splo in Second Life.
[music]