FYI

[swestrup]

This, it turns out, is NOT the best weather to be wearing two pairs of socks, underwear, long underwear, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, jeans jacket, winter coat, toque, snood, and two pairs of gloves, all zipped up as tight as possible and all seams covered with a layer or two of duct tape. Oh, and safety goggles.

I think I'll just go over here now and melt for a bit.

Edit: For those wondering WTF, see Taxlady's Post

Comments

[swestrup]

Aristotle once said that it was obvious that large rocks fell faster than small rocks. It was 1500 years before Galileo thought to test it.

Empiricism is important!

[sps.livejournal.com]

Well, but they do. Don't they?

[swestrup]

Not to a degree that Aristotle could have measured.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Really? The back of my envelope predicts that even for nicely shaped objects, they only have to fall for a few seconds before drag becomes a significant factor. If he can find a 150-200m cliff...? Or have I lost an order of magnitude somewhere?

[swestrup]

Large rocks fall slower, due to drag, don't they? Drag increases by the square of the cross-sectional area, IIRC.

I thought you meant the increase due to the gravitational field of the falling rock, in a vacuum.

[sps.livejournal.com]

I thought drag was roughly (r^2)(v^3). In any case, the question is one of whether Aristotle had a good enough theory of atmosphere to abstract it away from his theory of falling. Absent that, it's slanderous to accuse him of being wrong if he folds drag into his theory, don't you think? My overall impression of the ancients is that they had good measurements, but weak theory.

[swestrup]

Aristotle's main problem was that he thought that his theory was so good that he need not ever take measurements. He believed that pure thought was sufficient and that ever checking or testing anything was a betrayal of that.