Jeff Schwab wrote: > Erik Max Francis wrote: > >> Jeff Schwab wrote: >> >> >>> Erik Max Francis wrote: >>> >>>> Robert Bossy wrote: >>>> >>>>> I'm pretty sure we can still hear educated people say that free fall >>>>> speed depends on the weight of the object without realizing it's a >>>>> double mistake. >>>>> >>>> Well, you have to qualify it better than this, because what you've >>>> stated in actually correct ... in a viscous fluid. >>>> >>> By definition, that's not free fall. >>> >> In a technical physics context. But he's talking about posing the >> question to generally educated people, not physicists (since physicists >> wouldn't make that error). In popular parlance, "free fall" just means >> falling freely without restraint (hence "free fall rides," "free >> falling," etc.). And in that context, in the Earth's atmosphere, you >> _will_ reach a terminal speed that is dependent on your mass (among >> other things). >> >> So you made precisely my point: The average person would not follow >> that the question was being asked was about an abstract (for people >> stuck on the surface of the Earth) physics principle, but rather would >> understand the question to be in a context where the supposedly-wrong >> statement is _actually true_. >> > > So what's the "double mistake?" My understanding was (1) the misuse > (ok, vernacular use) of the term "free fall," and (2) the association of > weight with free-fall velocity ("If I tie an elephant's tail to a > mouse's, and drop them both into free fall, will the mouse slow the > elephant down?") > In my mind, the second mistake was the confusion between weight and mass.
Cheers RB -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list