🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 05 Dec 1996 16:33:02 GMT, richard@conad.demon.co.uk (Richard
Sobey) wrote:

>On Wed, 04 Dec 1996 10:51:16 GMT, Andrew@gebbie.demon.co.uk (Andrew
>Gebbie) told everyone about:
>
>>1.  Sid, because two 5kg things both fall at the same rate.  Somebody
>>proved this while making the tower of Pisa lean over, didn't they?
>
>In which case, the feathers will win, won't they. If they get dropped
>first, and your Pisa argument is correct, and they both weigh 5kg,
>then they fall at the same rate, thus hitting the ground at
>proportional times from their release.
>
>Unless you want to bring wind resistance into the equation.. any
>physicists here?
>

Wind resistance dominates as far as the feathers go. To take an
extreme case imagine dropping the feathers _without_ a bag. Some of
them wouldn't hit the ground for days.

But it depends on how you pack the feathers. If you compress them
enough and put them into an aerodynamic package you might get them to
win.

If you were doing it on the moon then yes, the feathers would hit
exactly six seconds ahead of the ball, in fact the two objects don't
have to have the same weight: Any two objects will fall at exactly the
same acceleration if there's no air resistance.

---------------------------------+----------------------------------
I was born weird:  This terrible | Like Pavlov's dogs we are trained
compulsion to behave normally is | to salivate at the sound of the
the result of childhood trauma.  | liberty bell.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
Malcolm