The weight discussion has included a sub-thread on weightlessness and
various forms of achieving such. We have the high dive, floatation, bungee
jumping, diving airplanes, skydiving, orbital motion. It seems to me that
from a purely Newtonian view, only the diving airplane and orbital motion
are really 'free-fall'. The high dive and bungee jumping come close, but
floatation and skydiving are not. My criteria for free-fall is that there
be only ONE force acting on the falling object, the gravitational attraction
of a MAJOR attractor (like the earth). Clearly floatation doesn't qualify,
and the air resistance in skydiving ultimately leads to a floatation-type
situation when terminal velocity is reached. To the extent that the falls
in diving and bungee jumping are too brief to build up a large air
resistance force, they may be good approximations. Therefore, I am not
surprised at all that the sensation of the high dive is different than that
of floatation or skydiving.
FWIW
Rick
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Richard W. Tarara
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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