this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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Tap for spoilerThe 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 5 months ago

Hum... What is your measurement error?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Depends on the color of the feather and the ball.

There's a simple explanation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Exactly, red has way more up-quarks than blue

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Stupid question, bowling balls don't fit through the vacuum's hose.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago

Ur mom could suck it through

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

uhmmm ackchshickzually, it's the space-time that's falling

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There’s too many words in this meme that’s making me dizzy from all your fancy science leechcraft, wizard.

I reject your reality and substitute my own: the feather falls faster. It’s more streamlined than the bowling ball, and thus it slips through the vacuum much faster and does hit the ground and stay on the ground, I think. The ball will bounce at least once, maybe even three times. On each bounce, parts of it probably break off, which change the weight. Thankfully those broken pieces won’t hurt anyone because they’re sucked up by the vacuum. Thus, rendering your dungeon wizard spells ineffective against me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

This person sciences good

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Brian Cox shows ball and feathers falling together in vacuum: https://youtu.be/E43-CfukEgs

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

I love it when scientists who know something to be true in theory get to see practical experiments like this. The jubilation on thier faces.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The difference in relative acceleration implied by the meme is on the order of tens of yoctometres (10⁻²³ m) per second per second.

It's a difference so small that it would be overshadowed by the fact that you're holding one object femtometres (10⁻¹⁵ m) higher or lower than the other in the gravitational field.

Additional sources of error to consider at this scale might be the heat radiation from the surroundings providing radiation pressure on the object, the sloshing of Earth's core causing time-dependent variations in the gravitational field, the location-dependent variations in the Earth's gravitational field, and the difference in centrifugal (yes, centrifugal in this reference frame) force due to latitude differences of one micrometre, and also due to natural variations in the rate of Earth's rotation over time.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (2 children)

But what weighs more:

A ton of bowling balls or a ton of feathers? 🤔

[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 months ago (1 children)

When you carry a ton of feathers, you also have to carry the weight of what you did to those poor birds...

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

That's a trick question. Feathers have lower density than bowling balls; a ton of feathers would have a larger volume compared to the same mass in bowling ball, thus the feathers are heavier

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Its a trick question because both weigh the same - a ton. The bag of feathers may take up more volume due to the lower density, but it'll still weigh the same as the bag of bowling balls.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why does a larger volume mean the feathers are heavier?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

So a beach ball weights more than a bowling ball?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You know, I'm not strong willed enough to keep going, but this comment thread is starting to remind me of this post

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

But ... Steel is heavier than feathers ...

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