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Hingeless Rotor
4th Aug 2003, 05:54
The scenario……………

Neil Armstrong is standing on the surface of the moon. He picks up a moon rock and places it in a stocking that he conveniently brought from Earth (as they do). He takes a giant vertical leap for man kind and begins to swing the stocking around his head in a circular motion.

Will old mate Neil encounter TORQUE? :\

sprocket
4th Aug 2003, 06:26
... instead off taking of his stockings, he pulled out a radio controlled model of a teetering M/R helicopter and proceeded to run it on the ground while moving the controls.

Would there be any precession or weewaa ?? :\

The Nr Fairy
4th Aug 2003, 06:46
Hingeless :

Yup. TORQUE = Force x Moment-Arm.

And that's where my Google skills run out.

NickLappos
4th Aug 2003, 08:11
When Neil leaps off the ground, and then he starts to swing his arm, the rock in the stocking resists the aceleration he tries to make it undergo. As his arm pushes on the stocking/rock, the stocking/rock pushes back against his arm, and he is turned in the opposite direction of the swinging rock. He feels what we call torque. His turn rate is exactly proportional to the rock's, each would find that the rotational inertia times the spin rate was the same, (smaller rotational inertia, larger spin rate). Because the moon's atmosphere is almost a perfect vacuum, once the rock is up to speed, it needs no further push, so the Neil-rock system will simply spin until Neil falls back to the moon's surface, where his feet will grab the surface, he will stop spinning and the rock will start to wrap around him and eventually whack him.

This can be done on an icy pond on earth. You will probably, scientifically, fall on your butt!

vorticey
4th Aug 2003, 20:13
would'nt the torque from the arm be transmitted vire the feet to the moon?
theorfore the moon would alter its spin! (just a little)?:confused:

NickLappos
4th Aug 2003, 20:50
vorticey,
Yes, that's why I talked about starting the spin while aloft. The angular momentum of a system must stay a constant, so when you whirl a bucket over your head, you affect the entire earth a bit.
Please stop doing that, you are clouding my coffee here in Connecticut!

Rich Lee
4th Aug 2003, 23:28
Where will the torque take effect if Niel's arm is attached with a delta-3 hinge at 18 degrees of offset?

Further, suppose it wasn't Niel Armstrong but was instead Brian Boitano--would that make a difference?

NickLappos
5th Aug 2003, 04:57
or Nichole Kidman?

Skycop
5th Aug 2003, 06:58
Now if a lady were carrying out the experiment, the reaction might be cancelled out, by other things swinging in opposition..... :ooh:

Rich Lee
5th Aug 2003, 07:30
Your collective theories neglect Coulomb's law of friction which states that, for two surfaces in relative motion, the force of kinetic friction is almost independent of the relative speed of the surfaces. He recognized the distinction between static friction (the force to start two surfaces in releative motion) and kinetic friction (the force to maintain the two surfaces in relative motion). He showed that kinetic friction could be much lower than static friction. Now Nick would say "that is why I had Niel jump in a vacuum". Well, I submit to you that (Paul) Dirac applied a quantum tratment to Maxwell's electromanetic field and described it in terms of a large number of oscillators with discrete energy levels (like, oh, I don't know....maybe atoms?). According to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, there is an intrinsic limitation to the precision in specifying both time and energy, which permits the law of conservation of energy to be suspended for very short time intervals. Each oscillator has a fixed minimum energy therefore, with the result that even a vacuum is filled with virtual activity and virtual particles. So, through out the vacuum-there is no perfect vacuum.

Now Nichole Kidman, she could do it.....oh yes....she does it for me!

Arm out the window
5th Aug 2003, 19:40
You bastards may be able to talk all day long on points of order, but you sure can't spell names properly - try Neil and Nicole!

NickLappos
5th Aug 2003, 20:41
If you pulled your arm in from the window, you'd have a hand free, and you'd understand why we don't care about the spelling......

Rich Lee
5th Aug 2003, 22:04
Now I understand why Nichole (Nicole) has not answered the letters from Niel (Neil)--but what has spelling to do with Torque other than I need a free hand when I think about Nicole (there, you happy?)

Hingeless Rotor
6th Aug 2003, 06:36
Won't bringing his arm in from the window just add to the whole Neil and Nicole conservation of momentum caper?

Armoutthewindow:
I would leave my arm hanging out and just raise my middle finger in response.:p

Rich Lee
7th Aug 2003, 02:57
"Won't bringing his arm in from the window just add to the whole Neil and Nicole conservation of momentum caper?"

Yes indeed. You are very perceptive?


"I would leave my arm hanging out and just raise my middle finger in response."

Raising his middle finger would only cause him to spin faster if he were already spinning (decrease in the arm or distance term), or slow down if moving forward with no increase in power (increased drag term). If he is stopped in a no wind condition, aerodynamics would not apply.

helmet fire
7th Aug 2003, 15:31
My head is beginning to obtain significant angular momentum as I wrangle with this one. In grappling with Coulomb's Law, it would be advantageous to keep my previously free hand moving whilst thinking of Nicole, although when changing direction, my hand must at some point be stationary (albeit an ifinitesimal amount of time), thus I must overcome both static and kenetic frictions during hand travel.

And thus friction can be seen to equal pleasure.

:}

Rich Lee
7th Aug 2003, 22:24
F=P Where F is Friction and P is Pleasure. Oh come now!Validation testing is required.