🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <889@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes:
>>I think it is safe to say that most of us have
>>conceptions of acceleration and force, but mass is something we experience
>>only through F=ma.
>
>Funny. For my feeling "mass" just *is* matter, and so very concrete to me
>(My physics teacher didn't like me equating the two..), whereas "force" is
>a much more esoteric notion for me. (I know what getting hit by a stone is,
>however.. :-))

I think Bob Myers is right here.  At least that corresponds to *my* experience.
I wouldn't experience aomething as having mass unless it resisted a force I 
applied to it.  A feather offers little resistance, so we say it is not
massive.  A lead weight offers greater resistance, so we experience it as more
massive.

More precisely, at the phenomenological level, mass is experienced as aq
resistance to *acceleratd translation* (acceleration of an object as a whole
in a certainj direction), while *solidity*  and *viscosity* is experienced as
resistance to *transformation* (change of shape).  Friction is experienced as
resistance to *simple translation*.

Phenomenologically, the solidity and massiveness of the universe around us is
experienced through the resistance the universe gives to our efforts to change
it.
-- 
"Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind."

Sarge Gerbode
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.
Palo Alto, CA 94301
UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!sarge