Re: What's wrong with this?

George Murphy wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
> To: "'Ted Davis'" <tdavis@messiah.edu>; <asa@calvin.edu>; <gmurphy@raex.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 8:00 PM
> Subject: RE: What's wrong with this?
>
> > Darn, you got the gold star before me. But one addition. It was only in
> > free fall when it was on a geodesic path outside of the part of the
> > atmosphere where enough atmospheric density could cause significant
> > drag.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> > > [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Ted Davis
> > > Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 6:40 PM
> > > To: asa@calvin.edu; gmurphy@raex.com
> > > Subject: Re: What's wrong with this?
> > >
> > >
> > > If this is a quiz, George, the answer is: It isn't
> > > weightless, it's in free fall. Like the moon around the
> > > earth, or the earth around the sun.
> > >
> > > Do I get a gold star or my pick of the toy bag??
>
> Ted & Glenn -
> Not exactly. Objects in free fall _are_ weightless because in a
> coordinate frame moving with them the gravitational acceleration has been
> transformed away locally. It doesn't matter how high you are - you're
> weightless (except for the effects of air resistance) when you jump off the
> high dive. Astronauts train for weightlessness - or at least they used to -
> in planes that are in free fall (though perhaps moving upward &
> horizontally - on a parabolic path) for a fraction of a minute.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

So I take it that what was wrong in the original account was that
"weightlessness" should have been replaced by something like "a significant
interval of sustained weightless"? Not a big deal, in my opinion. The connection
with YECs seems rather remote to me.
Don
Received on Mon Jun 21 21:25:59 2004