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Re: MOUNTAIN DEW / Free fall?

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Jennifer M Seckinger wrote:

One of my high school students broug a recent "Mountain Dew" commercial
to my attention. Two people are skydiving. One person is given a
Mountain Dew. Her parachute is NOT open, and she turns the can upside
down and pours the drink into her mouth.

Here's the question: If she is in free fall, will the drink REALLY pour
from the can?

Yes. After a few seconds of falling, terminal velocity is attained, and
weight fully returns but in the form of wind pressure.

What is terminal velocity for skydivers? Something like 150mph? The demo
would only have worked if the subjects were inside of a large, transparent
box. Without the box, the liquid would be blasted into a plume of sticky
aerosol by the enormous relative wind. A realistic film of attempted
soda-drinking would have been hilarious. Maybe we should write to the
Sprite folks and suggest that they film a "Jukie Cola" parody involving
what really happens when skydivers don't use a straw.

Whether I'm right or wrong, it sort of made my day to have a student
(who's planning on being a Special Ed teacher--not an engineer!) come in
with a question like that. Hopefully this is a sign that he's taking
SOMETHING away from his physics class!

Yeah, that was a really great question.


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William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com www.eskimo.com/~billb
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