why doesnt a ball bounce on a cushion?

Answer 1

for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. when the ball hits the cushion the cushion is less dense and compacted then the ball so it will compress and absorb the impact. it has to do with energy. think of throwing a steel ball at the ground really hard. will it bounce?........depends on how hard you throw it. you see....energy is not created or destroyed. when you throw a steel ball at the ground it will have a lot of enrgy in it while it is going towards th ground......well that energy has to be changed to stop the ball from bouncing. this can be accomplished with the use of a cushion. the cushion will absorb the enrgy of the ball. the cushion acts as a whole. so when the ball hits it it will compress the cushion. it takes energy to compress a cushion. much of this energy is abosrbed. an object at rest stays at rest until a force acts upon it. an object in motion stays in motion until a force acts upon it. a force is an energy. the ball is in motion and the pillow is at rest. now also it will depend on the density of the ball and the pillow. for example. a steel ball thrown at a pillow is so dense and heavy the pillow will not be able to absorb all the energy so it will still bounce if you throw it hard enough. when objects hit each other they will exert forces on each other. so when you push on a wall if you push hard enough you will end up pushing yourself back. if you are on skates and you push against a wall you will roll back. this is the wall exerting that energy back on you. this idea is the same as the pillow and ball. now this ball has energy. it will keep moving until another force acts upon it.......like the pillow. this is why in a hallway if you throw a bouncy ball at a wall it will bounce back and forth lots of times between the walls then it will hit the ground an roll a little ways........when you throw the ball you are giving it energy this enrgy is then changed into wind motion and some is lost to friction and motion. when it hits the walls it puts off audible sound. this sound was caused by the wall vibrating and the wall vibrated because of enrgy it got from the ball. then when the ball rolls on the round it loses energy to friction until it stops rolling. when a ball hits a pillow the pillow will compress. chances are the pillow weighs alot more then the ball so when the ball hits the pillow it has to force the pillow down. when the pillow is compressed it creates tiny amounts of friction. but the ball will still bounce some. if you throw a steel ball at a concrete ground it will have alot of enrgy that has to be changed. it will stay in motion until a force acts upon it. those forces are gravity drag and friction. it will go through the air (drag). then hit the ground (friction) but then it will still have alot of kinetic energy so it will bounce back in the air and then it is being pulled back down by gravity where it will hit again then roll a few until the last of the enrgy is lost to friction. this is how the pillow and ball work. if the pillow is to stiff then it will just exert the impact force back onto the ball which will cause it tou bounce. but if it is too soft and to light then the pillow will just compress until the ball hits the solid ground under the pillow then it will bounce. but this is just the basics of how it works. it would depend on the density and size of the ball, and the density thickness and firmness of the pillow that would determine if the ball bounces or not and by how much it will bounce.\

but a ball doesn't have to depress to bounce. like is said before. if you push on a wall you will eventually push youself back because the wall will not give. if you lay on the ground and do push ups you are trying to push the ground down. but if the ground doesn't move down then you will end up pushing yourself up off the ground.....and then you are doing push ups. this is because you are putting energy into the ground and the ground is solid and wont move so it exerts the force back on you. the force is enough to overcome gravity and the result is a push up. this is what the steel ball is doing when it hits the concrete ground. neither of them depress or compress. the ball just does a push up......it bounces. the force in which it puts into the ground is then exerted back into the ball. if this force is strong enough to overcome the gravity pulling the ball then the ball will go back into the air....or bounce.

Answer 2

something like when the ball hits the cushion
the energy is not transferred into the ball bc the cushion is softer and less dense

when the ball hits something more dense than it, the energy is then transferred through the ball again to make it bounce the opposite way..

the cushion acts as a shock absorber and the energy is transferred into it, not the ball

Answer 3

The cushion deforms rather than the ball. The ball would need to deform in order to bounce.

Answer 4

A ball is elastic...it compresses while it hits an merchandise and while it decompresses it pushes faraway from that merchandise..making it bounce away.....a cushion is a delicate cloth, for this reason there is not any rigidity in it to help the ball compress its self.....what happens is very of the ball being compressed the cushion itself compresses and its decompression fee is so sluggish that we don't see any reaction or no sign of the ball bouncing....in evaluation to solid products...they take an extremely vast rigidity inorder to compress..in evaluation to a ball it has an extremely small rigidity for this reason it bounces faraway from solid components...

Answer 5

The ball must compress to bounce, the cushion absorbs the kinetic energy of the ball, it doesn't compress, so it doesn't decompress and bounce.

Answer 6

Because the cushion absorbs the bounce instead of deflecting it.

Answer 7

cuz in a cushion it gets to go down the cushion that prevent it to bounce, i dont if it even makes any sense !

Answer 8

it is because cushion doe;nt have hard surface to bounce tha ball.

Answer 9

Because a cushion is soft.

Answer 10

because the cushion absorbs the balls kinetic energy