Skip to main content
The Physics Behind Jenga


Jenga, the popular party game, teaches children about physics often times without them knowing it. The game is well known for requiring that the players attempt to master the laws of physics and rely on a slight amount of luck in order to defeat their opponent. Let's get into the physics of this cult-classic. 

Jenga is a game that requires an understanding of opposing forces, gravity, balance, and center of gravity. This is why the game comes so quickly to people, because this same knowledge is required for a person to stand up straight. As we know for an object to remain stationery it must have equally opposing forces to hold in in place. This is why when someone takes a Jenga piece off of the outside of the tower, the tower most always collapses. Due to the lack of an opposing force on the side opposite to which the piece was taken out, the Jenga tower cannot stand. Also, when you play Jenga you are taking away from the stable foundation of your tower and piling the blocks higher and higher, thus raising the center of gravity. This is why it is recommended that you take blocks from the top of the tower as it lowers the center of gravity making it easier to control. Because of torque which is T=F*R, and R being the position vector with is relatively small, a person could theoretically remove all the blocks while keeping a cross pattern. Yet air resistance and friction would prove this almost impossible. Surprisingly, one can learn some of the fundamentals of physics through a game as simple as Jenga. 

 Works Cited: 

 https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/65134/why-are-some-jenga-pieces-easier-to-remove-than-others

 https://prezi.com/tun_f4kfn53d/the-physics-of-jenga/

 https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/5-things-jenga-teaches-structural-engineering.htm
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Physics of Black Holes...Or Lack Thereof

Isabella Jacavone To comprehend how the universe works, we must dwell into the most basic building blocks of existence; matter, energy, space, and time. NASA's  Physics of the Cosmos program involves cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics intended to answer questions about the elusiveness of complex concepts such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. In this blog post, I'd like to elaborate on a subject that is very intriguing  to me; Black holes. And more specifically, what would happen if we got near one. A black hole is anything but a hole, but rather an immense amount of matter compacted into an extremely small area. A black hole is caused when, hypothetically, a star four times more massive than our sun collapses into a sphere no bigger than 600 square km. To put that in perspective, that's about the size of New York City. B lack holes were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which showed that when a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aerodynamics of a Golf Ball

One may wonder how a small golf ball can travel at incredibly high speeds for such long distances.  While the swing of the club is a major component, the structure of the golf ball is quite important.  Unlike a baseball or tennis ball, a golf ball has dimples all over it (usually 336 dimples).  These dimples allow the golf ball to travel without facing much air resistance.  This diagram shows how air travels around the golf ball. The dimples on the golf ball also prevent drag that would occur in the wake region, resulting in further distance.  Also due to the contact with the club during the swing, the golf ball has backspin during its entire flight.  This diagram shows the motion of the golf ball mid flight with the lift force of F. There are hundreds of different types of golf balls that a player can choose.  Some show little affect to a player's game while others can alter their performance completely.  Personally, I prefer Callaway Supers...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Would Happen if Everyone in the World Jumped at Once?

Hypothetical and far out questions are what create great physicists and allow for us to discover and test things that have never been thought of before. Even as kids, we let our minds wander and ask questions that we never knew could be proved or disproved by physics. One question that I, as a young questioning child, and many other highly regarded physicists ask is simple; what would happen if every single person got together and jumped at once? This situation is completely unlikely to ever happen, so the only way we could ever know what would happen is through physics. Okay, so lets set the scene. Everyone, all 7 billion people, could fit into an area the size of Rhode Island, so lets assume that everyone did  travel to the smallest state in the US.  Finally, in unison, all 7 billion people jump. The push against the earth doesn't affect the earth at all, considering the Earth outweighs everyone by a factor of a mere 10 trillion. Even if the Earth were rigid and responde...
Post a Comment
Read more