Re: [Phys-l] Weightless

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

As w/ all good legends much of the Fisher pen is true * :

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

* If Snopes is correct.

bc, googling again.

carmelo@pacific.net.sg wrote:

> John Mallinckrodt wrote:
>  
>
> > I understand that lots of people (including apparently the folks at  
> > NIST) want weight to be the same thing as gravitational force, but I  
> > have yet to hear one compelling reason for that.  Moreover, I submit  
> > that weight is demonstrably NOT the same thing as gravitational force  
> > in common parlance.  Again, if astronauts are not "weightless," then  
> > I simply don't see any good use for the word.
> >    
>
> This reminds me of another urban legend...
>
> The story goes like this: in the 1960s, NASA astronauts discovered that their pens did not work in zero gravity. So like good engineers, they went to work and designed a wonder pen. It worked upside down. It worked in vacuum. It worked in zero gravity. It even worked underwater! And it only cost a million dollars! The crafty Russians used a pencil.
>
> I prefer to tell this story using "microgravity" instead of "zero gravity". Is there anywhere in the universe where the gravitation force is *exactly* zero, and whatever your frame of reference?
>
> Alphonsus
>
>
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