Passage VII

A heavy chain was positioned on a frictionless tabletop with a length of the chain, Y₀ , hanging over the edge of the table, as shown in Figure 1.

The total length of the chain was L. When the chain was released it slid off the table, as shown in Figure 2.

The fall time was the time required for the chain to slide completely off the table. The fall time is graphed in Figure 3 for a fixed L and various Y₀ on the surfaces of Jupiter, Earth, and the Moon. The fall time is graphed in Figure 4 for Y₀ = 20 cm and various L on the same 3 surfaces. The acceleration due to gravity at these surfaces is shown in Table 1.