🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Pine.3.89.9505101153.A538985378-0100000@NOACSC.OHIO.GOV> Mervin Koehlinger <PW_KOEHLINGE@NOACSC.OHIO.GOV> writes:
>Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 11:45:24 -0400
>From: Mervin Koehlinger <PW_KOEHLINGE@NOACSC.OHIO.GOV>
>Subject: Re: Forces

>>...Instead, I laid a pencil
>> on the floor and flicked one end of it with my finger.  The pencil scooted
>> out the door, rotating around its CM.  The student's eyes got as big as
>> saucers and he exclaimed "It moved!"  I pointed out to him that physics is
>> supposed to be an _experimental_ science, and whenever a question is asked
>> that lends itself to an experimental check (even if its only qualitative),
>> they should do the experiment.
>>
>> Steve Luzader
>> sluzader@fre.fsu.umd.edu
>>
>There is one factor involved in the pencil experiment which does not come
>into play in the original situation: friction.  Friction is responsible
>for the rotation, not the original force.

>Merv Koehlinger
>Parkway HS
>pw_koehlinge@noacsc.ohio.gov


I sure hope you're not saying that, had the floor been frictionless, the 
pencil would not have rotated.  Any time a force is applied to an object in a 
direction other than right at the center of mass of that object it will cause 
that object to rotate.



  Matt Tuley                                              tuley@csn.org

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   Making my own little dent in the infinite Spandex of the universe...