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Re: Apparent weight
From
:
Raacc@aol.com
Date
: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 21:30:21 EST
I imagine these hypothetical conversations between media people (M), NASA pr
people (NPR), and physicists (P) in isolated instances.
After a TV broadcast of a launch in the sixties.
M1: That guy's floating.
M2: Yeah, it's as if he doesn't weigh anything.
Light bulb flickers over M1's head.
M1: Yeah, weightless.
After reading and watching the media's characterization of the event:
NPR1: So how do we deal with this weightless thing?
NPR2: The public seems to have accepted the idea?
NPR1: Yeah, but . . .
NPR2: Let the physics teachers handle it.
P1: So, how are you going to explain the weightless thing?
P2: Talk about bathroom scales in elevators and call it true weight and
apparent weight.
P1: Why not just call the force the scale applies to the mass being weighed a
normal force?
P2: That's too easy. The students will never believe us. Besides, we have
to explain it in terminology that the public uses.
A computer programmer overhearing this conversation shakes her head and
mumbles: Use terminology the public uses? Windows? Mouse? Buttons? Links?
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