🚀 go-pugleaf

platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt) writes:

>There's a problem with this in the relativistic limit -- something
>infinitely rigid would transmit the signal instantaneously.  An infinitely
>rigid ball only makes sense in a limit where the stiffness makes a
>transmission speed much greater than any of the other dynamics in the
>problem.

But if you are going to impose this much realism, then you must impose
the realism that we live in an atomic world.  There is no such thing as
a perfectly spherical ball (except for something like a single Helium
atom), and there is no such thing as perfectly flat surface.  The contact
"point" will involve at least 3 atoms from each object, so it will have
finite area, so the pressure won't be infinite, so you won't need infinite
rigidity.

The problem as presented is not realistic, so there is no right answer.

Richard M. Mathews			D efend
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