What happens when you drop a HUGE Putty Ball?

Well, Crazy Aaron can't be the first at everything. Here are two different putty ball drops for your enjoyment. Be warned, the files are huge. I recommend using the "Save Target As..." feature in your browser (right-click on the link) to save these files to your hard drive before viewing them.

The 100lb putty ball drop at Alfred University in 1989 was the first to be recorded for posterity. A number of other individuals claim to be the first, but they can offer no documentary evidence of the event.

It's A Big One - 75 MB MPEG

Thanks to Rick Haponowicz for digging up this video from VHS and digitizing it for us.

The second drop, performed by Stu Sjouwerman and his crew at Sunbelt Software, used a 50lb block of Coral putty.

High Res Version (35MB) AVI
Low-Res Version (15MB) AVI

Thanks to Stu for allowing us to reproduce his files here for your enjoyment.

So, what is happening to the putty when it hits the ground? The force of the impact quite similar to the effect of hitting the blob with a hammer. Of course, here, the hammer stays still (the ground) and the putty moves towards it (fast!).

The force of impact breaks the bonds between putty molecules. These breaks occur along fractures inside the ball, cracking it into large chunks. The momentum from the impact that wasn't used in cracking the putty, transfers to all the remaining pieces and so they fly all over the place.

Pretty cool, huh! Let's watch that video again...