Broken Bracelet

  

Yesterday, I was cleaning out my room when I found a bracelet from when I was little.  I was very excited because it used to be my favorite bracelet with the smooth beads until I lost it and never saw it again, 'til now.  I was walking to the kitchen and slipping it on my wrist when the worn string holding the beads together disintegrated and all the beads cascaded toward the cork floor.  The beads went in all directions.  Some went onto towards the kitchen table, others went under the couch behind me, and some hit the wall.  I noticed as the beads of my favorite bracelet from my early childhood days spread throughout every direction of my floor that there was some good after all.  Even though it was the last of that bracelet, until I put the beads on a new string, I noticed some physics.   I noticed the beads on the cork floor stopped quite shortly after they hit the floor and the bead that reached the smooth tile farther away went even further.  FRICTION!  The smoother white tile had a lot less friction than the cork tile.  The friction from the cork tile caused the beads to slow to a stop shortly after they landed making my clean up easier.   The one bead that fell closer to the white tile went further once it reached the smooth surface because there was less friction making it difficult for me to track it down.  I also noticed that my beads were demonstrating Newton's first law, an object remains at rest or maintains a constant velocity unless a net external force acts upon it.  The beads were at rest on my bracelet until the string broke and the upward or normal force of the bracelet string and my arm were no longer acting on the beads and the downward force of gravity was the only force acting on the beads which no longer had a net force of zero.  Even though my fav bracelet is no longer, at least I got to watch and analyze everyday physics.