Q: Does a bouncing ball experience constant acceleration?
Answer:
The answer is NO during the bounces, but YES in between bounces.
In between bounces, the ball is always having a downward acceleration of g=9.81 m s-2. As such, the displacement at equal time intervals display a square number sequence 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25… This makes sense since the s-t relationship is quadratic.
If we calculate the difference between each pair of square numbers (4-1, 9-4, 16-9, 25-16,…), we obtain the arithmetic progression 1, 3, 5, 7, 9… This shows that the distance travelled between equal time intervals increases at a constant rate. This makes sense since the v-t relationship is linear.
xmPhysics 