NONTRIVIAL SCALING LAWS FOR A BLOCK SLIDING DOWN A ROUGH PLANE

The measured length distributions of slidings of solid cylinders of al uminum, brass, teflon, and polyvinyl chloride on an incline obey nontr ivial scaling laws. No significant dependence of the scaling exponent on material is observed and the data obtained are in agreement with th e Gutenberg-Richter law for the distribution of earthquakes and with n umerical simulations exhibiting self-organized criticality made by Che n, Bak, and Obukhov [Phys. Rev. A 43, 625-630 (1991)]. (C) 1996 Americ an Association of Physics Teachers.