Re: sailing upwind?

[John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>]

On Wed, 29 Dec 1999, John S. Denker wrote:

> Here's a riddle that you may find entertaining and/or pedagogically useful:
>
> Short version:
>     Do the laws of physics permit a boat to go directly upwind, powered by
> wind alone?

Which is, of course, (almost) the same thing as asking, "Do the laws of
physics allow a riverboat to travel downstream through still air faster
than the flow of the water powered by the interaction with the air and the
water alone?"

I say "almost" because, in this formulation, the questionable source of
the "power" becomes a bit more obvious.

John Mallinckrodt      mailto:ajm@csupomona.edu
Cal Poly Pomona          http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm