Benny Blackwell, Jackson Briscoe, Aleks BerkoldsM. OlsonPhysics Period March 219, 2014Which surface is best for dribbling or bouncing a basketball? When you drop a basketball, or any ball in general, it bounces. But how high does it bounce? If there is no other external force acting on the ball, such as a hand pressing on the ball, the bounce of the ball will decrease with each bounce until it stops bouncing. The way the ball bounces is due to momentum and energy. Each time the ball bounces, it appears to lose energy because the height decreases with each bounce. However, energy is not really lost, but rather transferred or changed. A bouncing ball has two main types of energy: kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is the energy that an object has due to its motion. Every moving object has kinetic energy. Potential energy is the energy stored in an object due to its position. The higher the object, the more potential energy it has. Each time the ball bounces, the ground absorbs some of its energy, which is why different surfaces cause the ball to bounce to different heights. Soft surfaces like carpet absorb more energy than hard surfaces like concrete or wood. This causes the ball to bounce lower than when bouncing off hard surfaces like concrete. The higher an object is held, the more potential energy it has (if it were to be dropped). When this object, like a basketball, falls, its potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. The closer the ball gets to the ground, the more its potential energy decreases and the more its kinetic energy increases. The reason the ball does not bounce back to its original landing point is because when it hits the surface, some of its kinetic energy is "the...... middle of paper.... ..t abrasions” and scratches. Additionally, concrete doesn't have much traction, especially not as much as wood. Wood, as we saw in our experiment, is hard enough to get the ball off the ground, but it is not too hard because if you fall it won't hurt as much as a harder surface. Hardwood floors provide good bounce, which reduces wear and tear on your legs and knees. Basketball obviously can't be played on a soft surface such as carpet, because the ball won't get off the ground much and carpet doesn't have much traction, so people would slip all over the place! In conclusion, the bounce height of a ball has a lot to do with the surface on which it bounces. The harder the surface, the less energy is absorbed by the ball, causing it to bounce higher. The softer the surface, the more energy the ball absorbs, causing the ball to bounce lower..