Question: how long (approx.) does it take for a 'Newton's Cradle' to stop?

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  1. It depends on how well it is made! If it is very low friction, I imagine a good one could keep going for up to a minute?

    In my field of research, an experiment actually made a “quantum Newton’s cradle” They started a one-dimensional gas of atoms bouncing back and forth like a Newton’s cradle – and for as long as they could see it, it didn’t stop! (It did slow down, but for technical reasons, rather than fundamental ones).

    http://plus.maths.org/content/chaos-not-desk-toy

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