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On 11/5/2012 7:42 PM, John Denker wrote:
On 11/05/2012 04:11 PM, Paul Nord wrote:/snip/
Ok, ok. I'll give you the real question. We've gotten bogged down
in dirigibles and blimps.
I have altitude data for a weather balloon which picks up enough ice
at a 5 km altitude that it begins to descend. It continues dropping
until it reaches about 2 km where enough ice has melted to allow the
balloon to continue its ascent. We know the lift of the balloon. We
know the mass of the payload. What is the mass at the two points
It's not every time that a Denker post resonates, but when the talkI hope everybody involved can now see the advantage of asking the real
question. For starters, from my point of view, the non-real questions
tend to be an enormous waste of my time. From the other party's point
of view, the real question is vastly more likely to generate a real
answer, a usable answer.
This is the sort of thing that gives ivory towers a bad name. Often
the non-real question is both more difficult and less useful than the
real question. When I see textbooks devoid of real-world topics and
instead full of made-up nonsense, I want to tear my hair out.
turns to real world - I listen. It's such an obvious exit from the
land of ideal physics.....
However, when I mentioned one real world application of real world high
school geometry - how to get a 10 ft wheelbase vehicle with a 1 foot
clearance over a high wall with 45 degree ramps - there was only one
effort to provide an answer that nodded to geometry - but the flat top
answer was plainly wrong.
Brian Whatcott Altus OK
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