Erik Max Francis wrote: > Jeff Schwab wrote: > >> Erik Max Francis wrote: >>> Robert Bossy wrote: >>>> I'm pretty sure we can still hear educated people say that free fall >>>> speed depends on the weight of the object without realizing it's a >>>> double mistake. >>> >>> Well, you have to qualify it better than this, because what you've >>> stated in actually correct ... in a viscous fluid. >> >> By definition, that's not free fall. > > In a technical physics context. But he's talking about posing the > question to generally educated people, not physicists (since physicists > wouldn't make that error). In popular parlance, "free fall" just means > falling freely without restraint (hence "free fall rides," "free > falling," etc.). And in that context, in the Earth's atmosphere, you > _will_ reach a terminal speed that is dependent on your mass (among > other things). > > So you made precisely my point: The average person would not follow > that the question was being asked was about an abstract (for people > stuck on the surface of the Earth) physics principle, but rather would > understand the question to be in a context where the supposedly-wrong > statement is _actually true_.
So what's the "double mistake?" My understanding was (1) the misuse (ok, vernacular use) of the term "free fall," and (2) the association of weight with free-fall velocity ("If I tie an elephant's tail to a mouse's, and drop them both into free fall, will the mouse slow the elephant down?") -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list