Does "Crack The Whip" actually speed you up?

Question

"Crack The Whip" is a game played on ice skating rinks where several individuals line up all facing the opposite end of the rink, and skate forward. When the group reaches the opposite end of the rink, the "point man" or the person on one end of the line stops, and everyone else pivots around him. Supposedly, the person on the opposite end swings around, and rockets forward at much greater speeds.

However, I don't believe this is possible. Because the question remains, where would the extra speed come from?

I was told that the momentum of all the people is transferred into the one person on the end. While there is a ponderous amount of outward force on the chain of people, I don't think it's possible to actually gain speed. And after watching my friends do it several times, I concluded the person on the end didn't seem to go any faster. Was it simply that the process was inefficient? Or is the theory even possible?

Carl Witthoft · Answer

Well, it's not so much the speed as the acceleration that's being felt, as the last fellow in the chain is suddenly turned roughly 90 degrees off-course. But, no, the people who are stopping are not doing so by transferring momentum to others. If you were skating with one other person and pushed him forward, you'd slow down, but not as much as you might expect- only by half the total energy your push added to the system. In crack-the-whip, the first person stopped by dumping his energy into friction on the ice. He then is pulling the second person to a stop, most certainly NOT by handing off any energy.

Answered by Carl Witthoft on September 15, 2020

Does "Crack The Whip" actually speed you up?

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