Re: When Physical Intuition Fails

[Brian Whatcott <betwys@DIRECTVINTERNET.COM>]

I find it easy to visualize a spur wheel spinning at 1 rpm suddenly engaging
a fixed rack with no friction, in a fully elastic way.
Is this a limitation of my imagination, or of yours, Bob?  :-)

Brian W
p.s. When I visualize a mass suddenly hung onto a steel strip,
I see a fully elastic extension of the strip's length. Do you?

At 09:42 PM 10/29/02, Bob Sciamanda, you wrote:
> I regard this as an analog of a totally inelastic collision, where a common
> final velocity between two interacting particles mandates a definite
> dissipation of kinetic energy.  This is a "collision" between the rotational
> and translational modes of the disk, mediated by the floor/friction
> mechanism.  If you require a common final "velocity" in the sense that V=R*W
> as the end state, dissipation is mandated.
> Consider a spinning toothed wheel suddenly engaging a fixed toothed rack -
> the inelastic collision becomes evident.
>
> Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
> Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
> trebor@velocity.net
> http://www.velocity.net/~trebor
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brian Whatcott" <betwys@DIRECTVINTERNET.COM>
> To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 7:25 PM
> Subject: Re: When Physical Intuition Fails
> | . . .
> | Or am I missing some feature of the math model that must exclude
> | the high mu, no slip case from realisation?
> |

Brian Whatcott
  Altus OK                      Eureka!

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.