Further Slinky Physics

 It's been harder to find good videos on slinky physics than I'd imagined. A few experiments in zero gravity proved so disappointingly unsurprising, the only footage I could find was on the account of a grumpy flat-Earther calling for an end to science funding. But this from Veritasium is a cracker. Not only did I not predict what happens when a slinky is dropped at full stretch (in a situation with very few variables), but having seen it, my explanation for what I'd just watched turned out to be completely wrong. All in all, very satisfactory watch (and also clearly all a metaphor for something or other, like all videos of plummeting objects)

 So: I didn't predict the bottom would remain hanging in the air like Wile E. Coyote. And when it did, I decided what I must actually have seen was the bottom springing back up, and that it only looked stationary because the whole slinky was also falling at exactly the same rate in the opposite direction, but this seemed a remarkable coincidence. And that's because this is not what was happening at all, of course. Nobody's done anything to the bottom of the slinky so it's not "springing back up", it's simply staying put, held as before by the elasticity of the slinky above, although the tension's shrunk. Presumably therefore, if you simply lowered the slinky rather than let go, the bottom would still remain in place. But no, hang on, that can't be right. I guess it must be. Until the slackness passes through the slinky to the other end? I suppose... I need to get a slinky.... Oh, do you know what else there are surprisingly few videos of online? Mummenschanz.