Reflection 3: Basketball

In the basketball discussion, we talked about how the basketball had a few types of energy; kinetic, gravitational, internal or sound, and elastic. See how I did not use the ‘p’ word? Anyways, we proved that elastic was evident since the ball compressed when it hit the ground, and sound was evident because we could hear it. And gravitational and kinetic energy are basic. However, I’m having doubts on how much of that energy is presented in the ball. Sure, at point A there was a huge amount of gravitational energy, but there’s also at point C. Even if we’re talking about the point where it touches the ground, would it really just all be gravitational energy since it comes to a complete stop at some point? Energy is a complicated thing to work with since we can’t really visualize it easily, especially internal, gravitational, and kinetic, but they all seem so simple. I don’t have a lot of questions on the matter, but this gave me a good idea on how energy works.