Professor Harold Stokes at Brigham Young University demonstrates a ping-pong cannon that shoots ping-pongs at hundreds of miles/hour. See details at stokes.byu.edu/...
I built a 5 ft tube vacuum canon for demos in my science class. I had a student ask me once what happens if we put a marble in there, so I had the class get behind a counter and I launched the marble.. of course, most of the air went around the marble and it kinda just fell out the end. Then a student said we should push the marble with the ping-pong ball, my first thought was that it would come out similarly, but just in case I put a piece of 3/8 inch laminate flooring I had with me in front of it and held a steel lid (from a fire bucket. ) to deflect anything out at an angle away from anything. Of course, the marble blasts through the piece of wood easily and dented my steel shield a half inch in. Now I have dozens of holes in this piece of board and dozens of dents. I guess the transfer of momentum in a vacuum was near perfect between the ping pong ball and the marble.
"Students Applause At Professors Attempted Suicide" That title would get you quite a few more views. :) Cool demo though. I love seeing applied science, even if it is just the wanton destruction of innocent ping pong balls.
More than likely this teacher funded this project himself and gave risk management a heart attack. Administration typically has to look the other way for excellent science demonstrations and teachers willing to perform them, risk a lawsuit in the event something goes wrong. Most teachers have already invested so much time, money, and effort to enter the profession and therefor are not willing to take on these kinds of risks.
To demonstrate that even though the ball is moving at 500mph, the force is insignificant due to the tiny mass perhaps? And because capturing the attention of teenagers isn't easy.
It looks like you americans are late in the education because we did it 1st year in highschool(it's not called highschool, but it is the similar thing to you)
