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Re: apparent weight



Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 20:40:08 -0800 (PST)
From: John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPomona.Edu>
Subject: Re: Apparent weight

... This brings you perilously close, however, to concluding that your
weight is equal to your mass times negative your acceleration. Hmm.
What a simplifying idea that might be. I wonder if anyone else has
ever thought of it?

You forgot to specify, (I am not criticizing you for this) that the
acceleration is "in our so-called inertial frame of reference". Some
want to make a central issues out of it, others prefer to focus on
differences between v and a, or between mass and weight. Unfortunately,
many students have difficulties with these things. That is the issue.

Some said we need a new noun, microgravity, others said that the one
we already use, apparent weight, is good enough for the purpose of
dealing with a specific activity in a specific elevator using a specific
forcemeter. A forcemeter suspended from above would also be OK as an
alternative "operational definition", at least in principle.

Hmm, I really turned the computer on to see if somebody had anything
to say about the magnetic field lines of "solar monopole". But let me
refer to this in another message.
Ludwik Kowalski