Re: little gee and its sign

["Kilmer, Skip" <kilmers@GREENHILL.ORG>]

Calm down, Jim
Skip

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Green [mailto:JMGreen@SISNA.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:13 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: little gee and its sign


> I'm not sure I follow your desire to calling g a "gravitational variable".
> The way I see it, I perform a number of experiments of objects in free fall
> near the earth, and I measure their accelerations. If I can eliminate
> and/or account for air, I find that all the objects fall with an
> acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2. For convenience I give that acceleration a
> symbol, g, and a name, "acceleration due to gravity". What else it that
> but an acceleration?

I am not sure that I can understand this post -- Well I understand the
words, what I don't understand is why one would say this in public.

Does one really have to suggest that one consider an Atwood Machine -- in a
laboratory system: |g| is still ~9.81m/s/s but the acceleration is
(usually) not equal to that!

Or even one's derriere as one sits at a computer: |g| is ~9.81 m/s/s, but
one's rear end (usually) does not accelerate at that value!  Maybe
occasionally. <g>

I just can't believe that a physics instructor would tell his/her class
that g is acceleration!!!!!

I also don't understand why an instructor would introduce the concept of
acceleration with free fall -- pedagogically this is nuts.




Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen