Hovercraft; paradoxical CG?

Jim Logajan said:
Probably a pretty low Reynolds number involved. Might not apply to larger bodies.
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Yea, I'll bet viscosity plays the major part in stability in this case.

I dont like scientific studies described as being paradoxical, or counterintuitive, or any other such adjectives. I feel that it contributes to a perception among the lay population that science is always subject to change and "facts" today can be disproven tomorrow. Very counterproductive.

/rant
 
Science has been changing 'the truth' as new facts become available since the beginning! Its all part of the Scientific Method. And there is no end in sight to that.
However I would be happy to accommodate your dislike of certain words without complaint!
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Science has been changing 'the truth' as new facts become available since the beginning! Its all part of the Scientific Method. And there is no end in sight to that.
However I would be happy to accommodate your dislike of certain words without complaint!
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There is a not so subtle difference between changing and augmenting truth (i'd rather use the term 'scientific understanding' than 'truth'. This argument did stem from symantics afterall...). To paraphrase an episode of The Big Bang Theory I saw recently, "it's a little bit wrong to call a tomato a vegetable; it's very wrong to call it a suspension bridge." Newton's laws of motion weren't shown to be wrong when Einstein developed relativity (they had been upheld by experiment for over 200 years, and are still upheld under those same conditions), but they were augmented to account for certain conditions. The findings cited in this article don't change the fact that a pendulum is in a more stable equilibrium than a broom standing on its end. Its simply a special case where another (understood) phenomena is at play here.
 
jasc15 said:
There is a not so subtle difference between changing and augmenting truth (i'd rather use the term 'scientific understanding' than 'truth'. This argument did stem from symantics afterall...). To paraphrase an episode of The Big Bang Theory I saw recently, "it's a little bit wrong to call a tomato a vegetable; it's very wrong to call it a suspension bridge." Newton's laws of motion weren't shown to be wrong when Einstein developed relativity (they had been upheld by experiment for over 200 years, and are still upheld under those same conditions), but they were augmented to account for certain conditions. The findings cited in this article don't change the fact that a pendulum is in a more stable equilibrium than a broom standing on its end. Its simply a special case where another (understood) phenomena is at play here.
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Except that brooms standing on end and pendulums only have a difference in the stable equilibrium when one end is attached to the ground. When you are in free flight, both the light and heavy ends fall at the same rate and it is only the aerodynamic effects relative to the center of mass that control the attitude as it flies. For example, a model rocket needs weight in the front (top) to be stable.
 
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