A
Active8
Guest
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:04:29 GMT, Fred Bloggs wrote:
and was thinking that if I were to try to quatify that, I'd look at
impulse and momentum. The key is that her jerk/motion energy is
internal to her and the stopping energy is imparted by the canoe.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Damn Fred. Right after I posted that, I went and had some sardinesActive8 wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:12:10 -0800, Robert Monsen wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 19:42:44 -0800, Robert Monsen
snip
"A canoeist in a still pond can reach shore by jerking sharply on the
rope attached to the bow of the canoe. How do you explain this? (yes she
can! - it's true)" (question 11, chap 9, "Physics, Part I", Halliday and
Resnick, 3rd edition).
That's the book I had in HS and used at U of PA. I bought it when I
moved to a new school. And that's a damned good question. Thanks,
I'll remember to look at those noodle twisters when I'm bored.
Sadly, I don't know the answer to this, other than some hand wavings
about friction of the water on the boat. The chapter is entitled
"Conservation of Linear Momentum", so it probably has something to do
with conservation of momentum... Maybe somebody with a few more
intact brain cells left over from college can explain it.
I think it's because the energy she uses to jerk her hand is
internal to her [strike lewd remark] body. If she stopped the motion
on her own, an oppositely directed energy from inside her body would
negate that. But the rope stops her motion and that is external to
her body.
It has to do with F=M*dV/dt which for small time intervals (jerk)
becomes F*dt=(Vf-Vi) or in this simple case, Vf(velocity imparted to
canoe)=F*dt, where F is impulse force she applied to rope during the
jerk of duration dt- so many pounds*milliseconds.
and was thinking that if I were to try to quatify that, I'd look at
impulse and momentum. The key is that her jerk/motion energy is
internal to her and the stopping energy is imparted by the canoe.
--
Best Regards,
Mike