This weird metal is insanely bouncy

Summary by Krater

Steve Mould tests various ball bearings of different materials and sizes inside an atomic trampoline setup to find which material and size bounces the longest.

From the video

Answers: Which ball bearing material bounces the longest on an atomic trampoline?

• Atomic trampoline physics
• Ball bearing bounce test
• Coefficient of restitution
• Amorphous metals and plasticity
• Energy loss mechanisms in bouncing

What it concludes

• A 7mm Zirconium Oxide ball bearing bounces the longest at 42.7 seconds, a 23% improvement over the original ball bearing.
• Smaller ball bearings suffer disproportionately more from air resistance and bounce-destroying lateral motion due to the square-cube law.
• Amorphous metal resists plastic deformation because its atoms lack a regular lattice arrangement, preventing defects from traveling long distances.
• The coefficient of restitution in terms of height is the square root of the height after the bounce divided by the height before the bounce.
• Placing the atomic trampoline assembly on a heavy, rigid brick and metal slab significantly reduces energy dissipation and improves bounce time.
• Running the test inside a vacuum chamber yields a bounce time of 1 minute and 5 seconds, which is only slightly outside normal atmospheric variation.