Re: Apparent weight

["Rick Tarara" <rbtarara@sprynet.com>]

For me, the justification for dealing the 'apparent' weight is that it helps
us deal with a whole range of _perceived_ forces--internally experienced by
people.  We tend to interpret many forces _backwards_ and if we keep weight
as the 'downward' pull of the earth (or other large body) then weight is
also one of these backwards forces.  The apparent weight is then the force
that we perceive (to be our weight).  To be sure, in _most_ cases, this is
what the bathroom scale reads, but what the bathroom scale reads is an
UPWARDS force.  Don't tell me that isn't going to be confusing to students
for whom weight has been _defined_ as what the bathroom scale reads but for
whom the 'sensation' is downward.  Apparent weight is an attempt to deal
with this discrepency--perhaps not successfully for some, but it works for
me.  ;-)

Rick


-----Original Message-----
From: Raacc@aol.com <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?