Syrian Arab Republic

The National Center of The

Distinguished

Physical collisions upon

mathematical constant

By: Mohammad Bakkar

2019-2020
Abstract
This article studies the number of collisions between two objects with
different masses and a wall under perfect circumstances( preserving in
energy and without friction) and how it's related to the famous constant .

Introduction

It's known that is one of the most famous numbers in math, but
when we hear that number our mind always think about circles. However,
sometimes it can show in some places that are very far from circles or don't
have a trivial connection. one of this places is the collisions of two objects!
And like this places is what makes math beautiful and what pushes us to go
deeper in it to feed our curiosity.

Describing the experiment

The system consists of two objects with different masses and a wall
behind them closer to the smaller) and the motion happens on the -axis
without any kind of friction and without lost in the energy. Also there's a
device can count the number of collisions either between the two objects or
between the object and the wall.

No lost in energy

#colissions:0
p0

m1
m2

frictionless Figure 1

I
Initializing the experiment
Assuming that the big block has mass and the small block has
mass and the ratio between the masses is . The experiment beings by
giving the bigger block an initial speed to hit the smaller block, which
will also hit the wall and be reflected backwards to hit again the first block
with counting all the collisions happen during this. The experiment ends
when the collisions stop completely.

The Next chart gives the number of collisions in term of

1 3
64 25
100 31
3141
3141592

It's been noticed that when the ratio the number of collisions was
the same as the first digits from the number . So
the question is what is the deep connection between this completely unrelated
things? Or it is just a coincidence?

The physical study behind the experiment

For starters, the two blocks were motionless before giving the big
block initial speed. After giving it an initial speed and hitting the smaller
block, the block will move towards the wall and because the wall is
irremovable and there is no lost in energy or friction the small block will be
reflected in the same speed, but in the opposite direction to hit again the big
block and so on. During this process there were two famous laws at physics
has been used which are: the conservation of energy and momentum.

The law of conservation of energy:

( ) ( )

The law of conservation of momentum:

II
Turning from physics to math
First, it could be useful to turn the previous laws into a mathematical
equations represented on the homogeneous coordinates ( ) by
noticing that the conservation of energy has the form of:

Which is the equation of a circle with as a center and √ as radius. Now by

comparing the law of conservation of energy with this form it can be deduced
that √ , √ , and √ √
Also the conservation of momentum has the form of

Which is the equation of a line. Comparing this with the law of conservation
of momentum it can be deduced that √ , √ , √
, √ and .
Also are the speeds of the two blocks with masses of
respectively, and they are related to the initial speed . Now all the points on
the plain will represent ( ) (√ √ ) so every point will
describe the speed of the two blocks where the study will be done.
Beginning with giving the big block initial speed towards the smaller one.
so the study will begin on the point ( √ ). Now at the moment of
the first collision it will move to another point in a way that satisfies the both
laws which is the common solution of the following equations
( ) ( )

And because the solutions are the intersection points of the line and the circle
that represent the equations and one of these intersections is it's easy to
see where will be the other solution on the plane and let it be .

m1
m2
Figure 2

III
 Now after the first collision the small block will hit the wall, which
will reflect the block on the other direction in the same speed and the speed
of the big block remains constant after the first collision. So the collision
between the small block and the wall only change the sign of its speed, which
can be translated into the plane as has been reflected on the -axis, which
represents the speed of the big block and the -axis represents the speed of
the small block and because we reflect on the diameter of the circle the
reflected point also will lie on the circle and let it be .
After the reflection, the two blocks will hit each other again. Now in
the same previous way will move again to a new point, which is the
another solution of the two equations but this time with a different constant in
the momentum equation but with the same slope √ . So it's easy to know
where is the new point by taking a parallel line from and intersecting it
with the circle and the point is . This process continues until the end of the
collisions and more physically when the two blocks have speed in the
positive direction away from the wall and the bigger is faster than the
another. Mathematically when the ( ) point is on the arc between the
-axis line and the line with an equation which means ( )
√ √

Figure 3

Noticing that the number of collisions is the same as the number of the arcs
determined by for . Considering

IV
Mathematical work
First, noticing that those arcs are congruent because every new arc is
either a reflection from a previous arc or between two parallel lines with
another arc because the slope is constant.
Second, let be the inscribed angle that determines one of these arcs. So the
length of the arc is where is the radius of the previous circle and the
length of all the congruent is because there are points. However,
it's known that or . So the number of arcs is the
biggest In which the last inequality holds.
As a final step, it's necessarily to find a relation between and the masses.
By noticing that one of the lines that form is perpendicular on the -axis
and the other one is from the reservation of momentum which forms an angle
with the -axis its tangent is the slope, and from another hand it equals to
because it's an external angle of the triangle so:

√ ( )
( )
√ ( )

or
√
√ √
it's known that

So it can be said that

√
Plugging this into the last inequality

√
And because is the biggest natural number that achieves this we get that

⌊ √ ⌋ ⌊ √ ⌋

V
Results
It's been concluded that:

 The number of collisions is given by the formula ⌊ √ ⌋

⌊ √ ⌋ o it's only related to the masses of the two blocks.

 If then the number of collisions is ⌊ ⌋ which is

the integer part of the number after moving the decimal digit to the
right.
 It's easy to conclude the number of collisions for enormous masses for
example if then the number of collisions will be
30679615
 The previous study happened in perfect circumstances, in the real
world the number of the collisions will absolutely be less than this
number depending on its circumstances.

references
1. M.S. Rafat and D. Dobie. Throwing at a wall. University of Sydney.
NSW.2006.
2. G. Galperin. Playing pool with . Department of Mathematics &
Copmputer Sciences. Eastern Illinois University. USA. 2003.
3. X. M. Aretxabaleta, Marina. Gonchenko, N. L .Harchman, Maxim
.OLshanii .G. E. Asrakhaechik. Two-ball billiard predicts digits of
number PI in non-integer numerical. 2017.

Figures table

Figure # Description
1 The experiment
2 Presenting the laws on the coordinates system
3 Presenting all collisions

VI