friction and terminal velocity of a parachutist vs a car

[bongodriver]

can you sculpt a 'troll face' ?

[5./JG27.Farber]

Poor Raid, shot down more times on the forum than in the game...

Is this supposed to be Yoda?

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Imagen0101.jpg

It was the image you used in you sig for sometime but I thought it was something you had gotten from a kinder egg or something... because the picture was small.

[WTE_Galway]

Actually if you manage to drop a car and a parachutist simultaneously off the Leaning Tower of Pisa without getting caught by the Polizia they will hit at roughly the same time. This is because the tower is not high enough for the parachutist to accelerate to a high enough speed for the parachute to inflate. Unfortunate for the parachutist.

This is the dangerous bit of base jumping. When exiting an aircraft the aircraft forward velocity is sufficient to inflate the chute so if need be you can deploy instantly. When base jumping you need to fall quite a ways before your chute will inflate.

Now .... what would make it interesting is if you drove a car off a short cliff (such as the edge of a gravel quarry) of a similar height to the Leaning Tower of Pisaand had a parachutist leap out at speed. I would leave this experiment for professionals like the mythbusters, it could be dangerous at home.

[WTE_Galway]

Oh .. and some questions for Raaid to research ...

- do spinning objects actually fall slower ?

- do they fall slower even in a vacuum ?

- if you spin them fast enough can they even hover or go up?

[AndyJWest]

- do spinning objects actually fall slower ?

From the frame of reference of the spinning object, or from that of an outside observer?

And what would happen is you fixed a piece of buttered bread buttered-side-up to the back of a cat, and dropped it from the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Would it land buttered-side-down, or on its feet? And if you dropped it in a box, would Schroedinger expect it to be in a buttered-side-down or feet down position before he opened the box?

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

From the frame of reference of the spinning object, or from that of an outside observer?

And what would happen is you fixed a piece of buttered bread buttered-side-up to the back of a cat, and dropped it from the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Would it land buttered-side-down, or on its feet? And if you dropped it in a box, would Schroedinger expect it to be in a buttered-side-down or feet down position before he opened the box?

My prediction is that if you fixed a piece of buttered bread buttered-side-up to the back of a cat, and dropped it from the Leaning Tower of Pisa it would likely land on its head.

Adding jam or using a muffin may confound the results.

[Wolf_Rider]

Dunno... put the parachutist and the car (or a feather and a rock) in a vacuum and they'd both (if released at the same time) hit the deck at the same time?