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As w/ all good legends much of the Fisher pen is true * :
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
* If Snopes is correct.
bc, googling again.
carmelo@pacific.net.sg wrote:
John Mallinckrodt wrote:_______________________________________________
I understand that lots of people (including apparently the folks at
NIST) want weight to be the same thing as gravitational force, but I
have yet to hear one compelling reason for that. Moreover, I submit
that weight is demonstrably NOT the same thing as gravitational force
in common parlance. Again, if astronauts are not "weightless," then
I simply don't see any good use for the word.
This reminds me of another urban legend...
The story goes like this: in the 1960s, NASA astronauts discovered that their pens did not work in zero gravity. So like good engineers, they went to work and designed a wonder pen. It worked upside down. It worked in vacuum. It worked in zero gravity. It even worked underwater! And it only cost a million dollars! The crafty Russians used a pencil.
I prefer to tell this story using "microgravity" instead of "zero gravity". Is there anywhere in the universe where the gravitation force is *exactly* zero, and whatever your frame of reference?
Alphonsus
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Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
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Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l