You might laugh, but I genuinely thought this was going to be something about Twitter and the momentum caused by an avalanche of negative tweets - ie Gap logo, etc.
I noticed something was not being conserved with the blue bird when I first tried out Angry Birds. My strategy was usually to explode the bird just before collision to take advantage of the extra force.
My assumption was that the mechanism for splitting 1 bird into 3 birds was an internal explosion. This would introduce a large amount of energy into the system and account for increased velocity in the resulting birds, and thus the increased momentum.
Of course there is a way to test my theory (and I realize it probably has little basis in how the game was actually programmed, but it satisfied my mechanical engineer side to reconcile what I was seeing with reality). You could launch the blue bird such that it falls just to the right of a standing piece of wood and "explode" it just as it's right next to the wood. If it is, in fact, an explosion that propels all 3 new birds to the right, then there would be an equal force directed to the left, which should knock the piece of wood over without touching it.
Angry yellow bird makes a noise as if it were angrily flapping its wings when you activate its speed boost, suggesting that it is not accelerating without having a new force act upon it. This is a completely Newtonian bird afaik.
I love how the conclusion to all of this is that you should expand blue birds before impact - a conclusion I reached in twenty seconds by just trying it both ways.
Neat-o. Hopefully, he'll explain next why the sticks and stones don't seem to have heard of Isaac Newton at times! Some of the planks won't even slide and fall when they're in awkwardly precarious positions. But, then again, that's why I played for an hour at work the other day. :)
Yeah, static friction is very strong and kinetic friction is very weak. Several levels I had to wait quite a while for a pig or rock to verrry slowwwly roll off an edge.
Yup, first thing I thought of afterward was friction. But, alas, let me not continue reading too much into one of a few things in the middle of the day that actually keeps me from thinking. Gotta have a refuge at your desk somehow...(besides just getting up and leaving for the day).
