Which ball will race to the bottom first?

I’ve got two ramps here. One is the straight ramp and the other one is the ones with the dips and the hills. And so the question is if you put the ball at the top of both ramps, which gets to the bottom first?

This Gravitational Illusions demonstration video from chemistry professor and scientific gizmo collector T. Ross Kelly provides a break in the middle of the video. Pause there to make and discuss your guess before the marbles race down the two ramps: Which one will win and why?

Related reading: Brachistochrone curve:

“…or curve of fastest descent, is the one lying on the plane between a point A and a lower point B, where B is not directly below A, on which a bead slides frictionlessly under the influence of a uniform gravitational field to a given end point in the shortest time. The problem was posed by Johann Bernoulli in 1696.”

Watch these related videos next:
• Homemade marble track demonstrations
• The mysterious isochronous curve
• Six machine puzzles: Can you predict what will happen?

via Boing Boing.