Phone crack part 2
Entry posted by IVIR
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After reading Zach's blog post on a phone cracking, I started thinking about the one thing I have been doing since I got my first cell phone to prevent it from cracking: kicking it.
I usually try to catch the phone on my foot or at least slow its fall, but it is interesting to actually think about the advantage of doing so due to the physics behind the phone's fall and impact with any surface. First of all, the best way to prevent a falling phone from cracking is by trying to catch it with your foot like how you would catch a lacrosse ball. This means that you try to have the phone fall as softly as possibly on your foot by moving your foot downward as the phone is about to hit your foot. This would increase the contact time between the foot and the phone, therefore decreasing the force as force is inversely proportional to time when looking at the impulse of an object. Another factor is that the material that your shoes are made out of are most likely softer than the hard concrete, so the shoe has some "give" built it, further increasing the contact time. Most likely, the chances that you will be able to react quick enough to get your foot underneath the phone completely and try to "catch" the phone with your foot are slim to none, but there is still hope to save your phone from a disastrous fall. Even by making contact with the phone with your foot at least a little bit or even slightly kicking your phone will decrease part of the velocity downwards, decreasing the momentum while putting some force on the phone, but then the phone will not hit the ground at nearly as high of an impact speed, decreasing the impulse needed and therefore decreasing the force inflicted on the phone.
So the next time you drop your phone, feel free to use your feet to slow the fall as even a little bit of contact can make a huge difference... Or you can use my alternative strategy that makes you look like a fool.
Occasionally, when nobody is around and I happen to drop my phone above a concrete surface, I immediately fall on my butt and catch the phone on my thighs. It sounds ridiculous, but I have done this multiple times at it makes it really easy to catch the phone and prevent it from hitting the concrete at all, but also my thighs act as a soft landing spot so even if the phone bounces off me, the less than a foot drop to the concrete does not allow the phone to increase to a large enough velocity to truly hurt it.
Either way, there is no worse feeling than picking your phone up off the ground and checking to see if it is cracked.
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