Re: NIF: How to use a spring balance

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

On Wed, 1 May 1996, Rauber, Joel Phys wrote:

> There has been disagreement on how a spring balance is used to measure a 
> force. Here are my instructions...

We have full agreement here.  We don't really need to use "Fred's force"
as an example though  --  you can charge up your cat electrically and use
the spring scale method of checking Coulomb's law in the vicinity of 
other charged objects, or you can tie a magnet to the cat's tail and 
measure the forces near your local hospital's magnetic resonance imaging
equipment.  Everyone agrees these are real forces and we make them do 
real work for us all the time.

A. R. Marlow                          E-MAIL:  marlow@beta.loyno.edu
Department of Physics                 PHONE:   (504) 865 3647  (Office)  
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