IYPT 1990, Задачи на турнира — Задача 13. Cosmonauts cloud (a fantasy with physical sense)

Problems for the 3rd International Young Physicists’ Tournament

Critical edition

Olympiets Youth Center, Moscow, Soviet Union; June 7‒14, 1990 [1]

Critical edition: translated, restored, and commented text [2]

FINAL DRAFT. — Please do not re-publish. Suggestions and criticism welcome

Translated, edited and commented by Ilya Martchenko. The original edition’s historical notes, sources and acknowledgments are retained with problem 1.

Епиграф

Victories do not attract him.
For him growth means: profound defeat
at the hands of ever greater adversaries.
R. M. Rilke [3]

Условие

A large number of cosmonauts form a “cosmonauts cloud” in the outer space. Initially each of them has a football with him. Starting from a certain moment, cosmonauts begin throwing these balls one to another (without losing them). Describe the evolution of the “cosmonauts cloud”. In order not to limit your imagination, we offer you to choose on your own the initial conditions, the rules of throwing the balls, and other parameters of the “cloud”. The only important aspects are that the choice of model should be logically validated; the conclusions should be supported with quantitative estimations; the number of described evolutions should not exceed two.

Решение

---

Оригинал в Архива: 1990.pdf