Science Memes

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270

ur dada so buff he falls significantly faster than g (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The bowling ball isn’t falling to the earth faster. The higher perceived acceleration is due to the earth falling toward the bowling ball.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No, it isn't. Because earth wouldn't fall towards the ball. Why?

Go to your frige right now and try to push it with one finger. It doesn't move does it? You may say "That's because of static friction!" And you would be correct. The force of static friction. Because the object moves in the direction of vector sum of all forces.

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(In the example with fridge the static friction force cancels all other forces up to certain value and after that - motion)

And adding microscopic attraction force towards the ball absolutely doesn't change the full vector sum of forces, that are applied to Earth constantly (which is probably pointed towards the sun).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It does change the vector though. There's no (well barely any) friction in space. In fact pushing the fridge with one finger rather than pushing the fridge will move and rotate the earth at incomprehensibly small velocity for a short time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It does change the vector, yes, but to such a small amount that it does not become pointed at a ball.

You can substitute static friction with a gravitational pull of the sun, and the result is going to be the same as in fridge example

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Static friction causes that result because it matches the force it's resisting. Gravity doesn't do that, so while the total vector will still be pointing away from the ball, it will point away from it with a slightly smaller magnitude.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yes. Therefore Earth would not "fall towards the ball" and therefore it isn't falling faster