Re: Apparent weight

[Raacc@aol.com]

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?