09-02-2022, 10:47 AM
(09-02-2022, 09:06 AM)josemendez Wrote: Yes, this is the expected and intended result. Note this is what would happen in real life too, and is not related to the momentum gain I explained before: even with perfect momentum conservation, coiling would take place.
Imagine trying to reeling out a rope to the floor in a straight line:
would it magically keep straight on it's own, assuming there's no one pulling it straight as you reel it out? no chance! you'd have to rely on pushing the already reeled out rope it in a *perfect* straight line as you reel out more rope, and make sure there's absolutely zero resistance to rope motion (no mechanical friction). The slightest perturbation would cause it to start rolling and waving around. In physics, this effect is called "coiling".
It might help to attach two points on rope, instead of just 1: a single point has rotational freedom on all 3 axis, but two points define a direction (and so they only have rotational freedom on one axis). This would force the rope to come out in a straight line, however, it's free to coil further down the attachment unless it's extremely rigid. Here's a video of the results by attaching a couple points to constrain orientation:
As you can see, it starts out straight and only starts bending when there's quite some rope reeled out.
That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure. Thanks for the tips for the straight rope !