Between a block and a hard place
Early this year, I saw a popular video on TikTok demonstrating a very unusual way of computing the digits of \(\pi\) using basic physics. At the time, I rederived the solution in a couple hours and then moved on. However, I was reminded of the problem recently and realized it might make for interesting blog material. Although I'm sure it's been written about countless times by now due to its popularity, I still felt the urge to redo the problem with extra rigor and write about it. @3blue1brown I’m still astounded this is true. #math #physics ♬ original sound - Grant Sanderson The setup is as follows: two blocks of masses \(m\) and \(M\), \(m < M\), lie on a frictionless plane. There is a wall behind the smaller block, and the larger block slides towards it with velocity \(V_0\). The larger block collides with the smaller block, which rebounds off the wall like a squash ball, over and over, until the larger block is completely turned ...