Thrown out of an FBO...

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 08:18:50 -0700, Chris M wrote in
:

This conversation is no longer aviation related, so please take it to
another forum ...

I'm happy to do that, just as soon as you are able to direct all the
other off topic posts to their appropriate newsgroups. :-)

It was obvious that heavier
things fall faster (feather, stone, duh)
Actually, they don't.

Correct. But it was obvious that they do.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose,

But it was obvious that they do.


Uhm, no. And Newton's law never said anything remotely like that.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 14:47:52 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Jose,

It was
obvious that heavier things fall faster (feather, stone, duh)


Drop a sheet of paper (airfoil) and a peanut that weighs the same off
a tall building. Which will get to the ground/pavement sooner (no
wind)


Actually, they don't.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:16:30 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Jose,

But it was obvious that they do.


Uhm, no. And Newton's law never said anything remotely like that.

Thomas. consider what Jose is actually saying. If it had been
OBVIOUS that everything fell at the SAME rate, Galileo could saved
himself the trouble of climbing all those stairs. Since GG did go to
all that trouble, at least SOME people must have held an idea that
needed disproving.

Don

Jose wrote:
It was obvious that heavier
things fall faster (feather, stone, duh)
Actually, they don't.

Correct. But it was obvious that they do.

Boy, I hate to be pedantic about this, but in a vacuum the heavier object
_will_ reach the surface of the earth faster than a lighter one if both
are released the same height above the ground. First, the forces are
equal on a mass Mo and the earth Me a distance h apart from their
gravitational centers; the equation being:

F = G*Mo*Me/(h*h)

The acceleration of the earth (Ae) and object (Ao) relative to a fixed
frame of reference are derived from F = m*a and the above gravitational
equation:

Ae = G*Mo/(h*h)
Ao = G*Me/(h*h)

The net closing acceleration in a fixed frame is:

A = Ae + Ao

Therefo

A = G*(Me + Mo)/(h*h)

But since Me Mo (Me ~= 5.98*10^24 kg), then to a very good
approximation we can ignore adding Mo up to values of ~10^18 kg and say
the closing acceleration is just:

A ~= G*Me/(h*h)

But the bottom line is under "ideal" conditions a heavy stone "falls" a
teeny tiny miniscule bit faster to the earth than a light feather would.

End of pedantry. ;-)

(G ~= 6.67*10^-11 N*m^2/kg^2 and h ~= 6.37*10^6 m)

Thomas Borchert wrote in
:

Crash,

PROBABILITY, not POSSIBILITY.
Big difference.


I know. I mistyped. Still: Nothing happens if it has zero probability
of happening.


Actually, that is not true unless the set of outcomes is discrete and
finite.

To see this, consider the real interval U = [0, 1]. Denote by R the
subset of rational numbers in U. The set of irrational numbers, Q = U/R
is dense in U, therefore, the probability of picking an rational number
in U at random is zero. Yet, it is not impossible.

In addition, with a continuous probability density function, the
probability of picking any given element is zero, yet some specific
element is picked etc etc.

Zero probability does not mean impossibility.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ndr/ProbabilityParadox.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely

Sinan

--
A. Sinan Unur
(remove .invalid and reverse each component for email address)

In article ,
Jim Logajan wrote:

Boy, I hate to be pedantic about this, but in a vacuum the heavier object
_will_ reach the surface of the earth faster than a lighter one if both
are released the same height above the ground.

That I'll buy. (unless they are dropped at the same time)

[snip]

But the bottom line is under "ideal" conditions a heavy stone "falls" a
teeny tiny miniscule bit faster to the earth than a light feather would.

um, not quite. The force on the more massive object is still just proportional
to the earth's mass. What happens is the earth moves towards the more
massive object more so than towards the less massive object.

Or have I totally botched my freshman physics?

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

Yes.

mike

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Mike,

As demonstrated on one of the lunar landings when (I forget which) the
astronaut dropped a feather and a hammer and they fell together.


Maybe, if one believes strongly enough in it, they WILL fall at different
speeds. Can you disprove that? ;-)

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

All he's saying is that to the people of the time, things obviously fell at
different speeds. They weren't aware of air resistance being a factor.

mike

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Jose,

But it was obvious that they do.


Uhm, no. And Newton's law never said anything remotely like that.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)