Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..
Eisboch wrote:

I've posted this story before .... can't remember if on this NG or not so
forgive if it's a repeat, but here goes:
[trimmed]
"I was saying, "No .... you are not going to hit anything"".

Just for fun I asked my (art major) wife a physics question.

There is an airtight car with a helium balloon on a string attached to the
center of the floor. There is absolutely no air movement in the car. The
car is moving straight ahead at a constant speed and then makes a hard
left turn. Which way does the balloon move relative to the car?

After about 1 second of thought she confidently answered "It moves to the
left."

Being surprised that she got it right at all, let alone that quickly, I
asked "how did you know that?".

"...Well, that's the way I'd lean..."

As the car turns left, the ballon keeps going straight...which means it
moves to the right relative to the car. Your wife got the answer wrong.

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

NOYB wrote:
"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..
Eisboch wrote:
I've posted this story before .... can't remember if on this NG or not so
forgive if it's a repeat, but here goes:
[trimmed]
"I was saying, "No .... you are not going to hit anything"".
Just for fun I asked my (art major) wife a physics question.

There is an airtight car with a helium balloon on a string attached to the
center of the floor. There is absolutely no air movement in the car. The
car is moving straight ahead at a constant speed and then makes a hard
left turn. Which way does the balloon move relative to the car?

After about 1 second of thought she confidently answered "It moves to the
left."

Being surprised that she got it right at all, let alone that quickly, I
asked "how did you know that?".

"...Well, that's the way I'd lean..."

As the car turns left, the ballon keeps going straight...which means it
moves to the right relative to the car. Your wife got the answer wrong.




The helium balloon is lighter than the air in the car and is
displaced to the left as the air pressure on the right
increases.

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

some reading issues

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in
eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted But if we explore its paradoxes, we find
that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea
pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't
the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends
but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of
all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the
English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally
insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a
recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and
feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man
and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in
which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes
off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any
other two-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the
list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a
meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the
officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP
a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP
the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock
UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the
little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP
for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed
is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is
stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at
night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the
proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized
dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to
about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building
UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your
time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun
comes out we say it is clearingUP

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP ,
so........... it is time to shut UP.....!

Oh . one more thing:


What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do
at night? U-P

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..
NOYB wrote:
"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..
Eisboch wrote:
I've posted this story before .... can't remember if on this NG or not
so forgive if it's a repeat, but here goes:
[trimmed]
"I was saying, "No .... you are not going to hit anything"".
Just for fun I asked my (art major) wife a physics question.

There is an airtight car with a helium balloon on a string attached to
the center of the floor. There is absolutely no air movement in the
car. The car is moving straight ahead at a constant speed and then
makes a hard left turn. Which way does the balloon move relative to the
car?

After about 1 second of thought she confidently answered "It moves to
the left."

Being surprised that she got it right at all, let alone that quickly, I
asked "how did you know that?".

"...Well, that's the way I'd lean..."

As the car turns left, the ballon keeps going straight...which means it
moves to the right relative to the car. Your wife got the answer wrong.




The helium balloon is lighter than the air in the car and is displaced to
the left as the air pressure on the right increases.


But you said that "there's no air movement in the car". That's not true.
The air molecules have inertia too. ;-)

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

-rick- wrote:
NOYB wrote:

"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..

Eisboch wrote:

I've posted this story before .... can't remember if on this NG or
not so forgive if it's a repeat, but here goes:

[trimmed]

"I was saying, "No .... you are not going to hit anything"".

Just for fun I asked my (art major) wife a physics question.

There is an airtight car with a helium balloon on a string attached
to the center of the floor. There is absolutely no air movement in
the car. The car is moving straight ahead at a constant speed and
then makes a hard left turn. Which way does the balloon move
relative to the car?

After about 1 second of thought she confidently answered "It moves to
the left."

Being surprised that she got it right at all, let alone that quickly,
I asked "how did you know that?".

"...Well, that's the way I'd lean..."


As the car turns left, the ballon keeps going straight...which means
it moves to the right relative to the car. Your wife got the answer
wrong.




The helium balloon is lighter than the air in the car and is displaced
to the left as the air pressure on the right increases.


Would it not move to the right first until the inertia of the weight of
the balloon and string and the movement of the air was overcome by the
displacement? Sounds like a good experiment to try the next time I have
a helium balloon, of course real cars are not completely air tight.

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:42:42 -0800, -rick- wrote:

Eisboch wrote:

I've posted this story before .... can't remember if on this NG or not so
forgive if it's a repeat, but here goes:
[trimmed]
"I was saying, "No .... you are not going to hit anything"".

Just for fun I asked my (art major) wife a physics question.

There is an airtight car with a helium balloon on a string
attached to the center of the floor. There is absolutely no
air movement in the car. The car is moving straight ahead
at a constant speed and then makes a hard left turn. Which
way does the balloon move relative to the car?

After about 1 second of thought she confidently answered "It
moves to the left."

Being surprised that she got it right at all, let alone that
quickly, I asked "how did you know that?".

"...Well, that's the way I'd lean..."

Is your wife a sculptor?

I was surprised to learn that most of the Mythbusters team, including
one of the stars, are artists and sculptors. Which shouldn't have
surprised me on second thought - there is a spatial component to being
an artist that some engineers I've met never seem to quite grasp.

Such as?

Boating: Are reading and arithmetic skills required?
 

NOYB wrote:

But you said that "there's no air movement in the car". That's not true.
The air molecules have inertia too. ;-)

You're right, I don't remember the original wording but I
overstated that part. Nice recovery... ;-)