Old_Coaster_Guy said:
Most of us have driven or will drive a car 120 MPH. The sheer speed is no big deal --
Most? I doubt that *half* the people here have gone 120+mph. You *do* of course realize that if you get caught, you WILL go to jail, not simply get a speeding ticket. I'm *pretty* sure that would be "Reckless Driving" in any state of the Union (save Montana on a clear day...)
I *personally* have never driven more than 115mph, though I once was a passenger in a caddy pushing 130...
lata, jeremy
--gotta love the long flat roads of Illinois/Indiana
I will admit, I have never gone 120 in a car before but I would think that would not be as impressive as in an open air coaster train. 120 on a motorcycle might be the closest thing to 120 in #16 but I know a lot of motorcycle riders who will tell you 120 is a little lame. Try 180 for real speed.
*** This post was edited by Chief Wahoo 12/4/2002 11:27:31 AM ***
I'm afraid I agree with 2Hostyl (gasp again!) in that a good portion of people have not gone 120 mph in a car. I've never gone more than probably 90.
-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
------------------
Launch: Tophat: Twistage: Brakes...
...Denial is an ugly thing.
Old coaster guy. Though you are right about superman's initial take off, Lims push and pull the rare earth magnets by changing polarity very fast at a constant speed urging a static magnet to flow with the flux feild. Once it reaches the speed it is set to then it wil have no influence. With Hydraulics, it's a different story. The fluid is pressurized and set to a certain psi. When the valves flip the the hook will launch the train. Scince the train is launch via fluid pressure then rest assured that the train's acceleration will be constant as with all hydraulics.
------------------
Launch: Tophat: Twistage: Brakes...
...Denial is an ugly thing.
I regret that I have been unavailable to respond for the last couple of days. I hate to dig up old posts from this thread, but I would like to correct myself. Back on page one I said:
Any time an object changes speed or direction (or both), it is being acted on by a force (or more precisely unequal forces). These forces can be generated by any number of things, but are often quantified by comparing them to the most constant force that we are familiar with, gravity. Here on the surface of Earth, the force of gravity pulls every object toward the center of the planet with a force of 9.8 Newtons (this force accelerates falling objects at roughly 32 feet per second every second that it falls or 32 ft/s^2).
It seems that in cobbling this post together between breaks at work I misspoke. I meant to say that gravity pulls every kilogram of an object toward the center of the earth with 9.8 Newtons; notice the parenthetical relation that I included between force and acceleration. With the exception of this one incomplete phrase, I stand behind my entire post emphatically.
And then:
___________________________________
Fluidcoasters said:
also you stated that you experience "zero Gs" when standing still, traveling a constant speed in a straight line. Try 1 G! im sitting down typing right now and i can assure i am by no means experiencing airtime. also when in free fall you dont experience 1 G. THATs where you experience zero gs.
______________________________________
I thought we agreed that g's are units of acceleration. If you are experiencing 1 g while typing, I'm amazed. And in freefall (assuming you are near the surface of Earth), are you not accelerating straight down at 9.8 m/s^2? You may want to go back and reread my original post regarding this common confusion. Though you may feel the force due to gravity at any time, acceleration is not necessarily present. Oh, and please use 'g' instead of 'G' as G is the Gravitational Constant 6.67x10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2.
_____________________________________
Fluidcoasters said:
Mr. halo. how long have you been studying this?...
Use your corrections wisely and make sure you know what you are saying. Because anytime you try to BS it destroys your credibility.
_______________________________________
I know you are new here, but you may not want to be so agressive in the future, particularly with posts like:
_______________________________________
Fluidcoasters said:
2 Gs isnt very much force??
It may not sound like much force but it is a ton of force.
_____________________________________
Care to do the math?
edit: Apparently this forum only allows one official quote per post, so I've added some of my own lines for clarity.
*** This post was edited by Mr. Halo 12/6/2002 11:53:20 AM ***
Though you may feel the force due to gravity at any time, acceleration is not necessarily present. Oh, and please use 'g' instead of 'G' as G is the Gravitational Constant 6.67x10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2.
If there were no accelleration, there would be no force. Remember, F=ma (divided by the gravitational constant if you're dealing with force and mass pounds). If there were no accelleration, there would be no force. And since you do exert a force, you are being accellerated. The chair you are sitting in is excerting the same force back at you (the normal force). You're in equilibrium. Gravity is still accellerating you, something is just blocking the way. Technically speaking, you weigh just as much falling as you do on the earth (the accelleration is the same), but your "apparent weight" is zero though due to the fact that nothing is exerting that normal force (which is what we feel when we sit down). It only feels like you're weightless. Hopefully this clarifies everything.
--James
You are absolutely correct that everything is subject to multiple accelerations (and thus forces) at any given time; I reference this also in my first post and in my self-quotation above, but I failed to carry it through into my rehash. What I should have said, to be more complete, is that relative to a fixed point on the surface of Earth (which is not only a valid reference, but is far and away the most often used for this type of real world analysis), a person experiencing a net acceleration of zero g's will either not be moving at all, or moving with a constant velocity along a path with a constant distance from the center of the planet. 'Airtime' is percieved when all other forces acting on the body are small compared to the Earth's gravitational force, and so the net force on the body is optimally 1 g in the direction of the center of the planet. We can't really pick and choose our forces if we are talking about a material scenario rather than a theoretical one; we logically have to look at the sum. In the end, to be precise, my statement that you quoted should have been clarified by "Though you may feel the force due to gravity at any time (which is actually at all times, but is inversely proportional to the square of your proximity to the center of mass of planet in this case), net acceleration is not necessarily present."
When it all boils down, you just can't get away with dumbing down physics.
Most people's confusion here is not in dumbing things down and not being precise, but in trying to relate to others their perceptions without sticking to a common set of rules. So when Fluidcoaster states,
also you stated that you experience "zero Gs" when standing still, traveling a constant speed in a straight line. Try 1 G! im sitting down typing right now and i can assure i am by no means experiencing airtime.
he then apparently contradicts himself in the next breath when he changes frames of reference midstream:
________________________________________
also when in free fall you dont experience 1 G. THATs where you experience zero gs.
________________________________________
Obviously the acceleration due to gravity hasn't disappeared as an independent force (which he so valiantly holds dear in the first part), and the net acceleration is no longer zero. So how can he and so many coasterphiles reconcile using this terminology? Just go back to paragraph 4 of my first post no page 1 to see that they have just chosen to use as their frame of reference the moving (and more importantly accelerating) train. While this is perfectly acceptable to do, I feel it is kind of strange and confusing to talk about how much the train is accelerating your body with the forces that it exerts on it.
As for your last statement, jdoty:
________________________________________
jdoty said:
Hopefully this clarifies everything.
________________________________________
For this bunch (myself included), I think that lies outside the realm of possibility. ;)
edit: Blasted multiple quotes problem strikes again.
*** This post was edited by Mr. Halo 12/6/2002 5:33:32 PM ***
--James
You must be logged in to post