Re: non-inertial frames

["A. R. Marlow" <marlow@beta.loyno.edu>]

On Wed, 1 May 1996, Lew Haddad wrote:

> I think most physicists feel strong reservations about the notion of
> `fictitious or inertial forces' and I certainly share these reservations.
> They are particularly dangerous at the introductory level... 
>
> ... With this background, I would be interested in comments on the  
> reason for the use of rotating space stations (as remarked upon by Mark 
> Sylvester),
> especially in reference to plant growth. Plant hormones (auxins, if I recall
> correctly) cause stems and roots to grow in opposite directions - a
> phenomenon referred to by earthlings as negative and positive geotropisms. I
> have a feeling that plants experience most things naively, and that they do
> `experience' in some sense that centrifugal tendency measured by  r x
> omega^2  as just what the doctor ordered to direct their growth.

I would imagine the plants are doing pretty much the same thing they do
at the Earth's surface  --  growing stems and leaves in the direction in 
which the electrochemical surface forces are exerted on them, and sending 
out roots in the opposite direction.

A. R. Marlow                          E-MAIL:  marlow@beta.loyno.edu
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