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June 21 (UPI) -- French physics students investigated the mystery of why wheeled suitcases wobble and found a solution. Sylvain Courrech du Pont at Paris Diderot University told a group of undergraduate students to figure out why wheeled suitcases wobble – a question many travelers have had but no scientists bothered to answer until now.
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For their experiment, the group placed a tiny model wheeled suitcase on a treadmill to observe how it goes from easy rolling to side to side swaying.
The team found out that once the wheels hit something, the entire suitcase is thrown off balance. The wobbling is exacerbated by the diagonal position of the suitcase owner's arm, which inadvertently encourages the side to side motion.
However, by going faster over bumps or holes, the shock from those interruptions is lessened and the wobbling subsides and eventually stops.
The findings by the French undergraduate students were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A – a possible first for this type of research.
"It is a very extensive study, covering experiments and theory, on a problem experienced daily by anyone who carried a luggage," said physicist François Petrelis at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, who did not take part in this research.
He added: "It shows that many problems, even of daily interest, are still waiting for a solution. Young students sometimes have the feeling that most progress was made a long time ago. This may be true in some domains of physics, but in most domains there are many problems that are still unsolved."
