Can You Solve this Ice Diamond Riddle? ft. Vsauce’s Michael Stevens

A point on your follow-up to riddle #1 - you ask "how can it be that the ball just stops for an instant" - well, it doesn't stop, because it still has it's velocity imparted to it by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the Earth's rotation around the Sun, and the Sun's rotation around the center of the Galaxy.  The ball never stops, and most things never do.  However, it's upward motion appears to halt momentarily before the ball travels back down, but this is only our perception.  From the ball's frame of reference, all it did was continue on its path through spacetime that has been curved by the Earth, the Sun, and the Galaxy.