Timeline for Does a magnetically suspended frog feel weightless?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
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| Aug 8, 2013 at 21:46 | comment | added | DJohnM | I once read the description, by an experienced skydiver, of his first jump from a balloon. He was startled by the strange and unexpected initial sensation of weightlessness. On every other jump, from moving aircraft, he had experienced large drag forces from the very beginning, jumping into the moving air. Only on this jump from a balloon, at rest with respect to the air, had drag forces been missing at first. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 17:33 | comment | added | Jim | You only feel weightless if the counteracting force that cancels gravity is acting on every cell of your body. When that force is the normal force, the ground or water or harness is holding you up outside, but inside, your organs are still supported by your body structure. Also, I've been in the big wind turbine thing, it feels like floating on water. It does not feel weightless. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 17:31 | comment | added | Jim | I absolutely love how everyone completely misinterpreted my answer. The normal force does not make you feel weightless; it makes you feel gravity. I can assure you that you do not feel weightless in water. You may float, but there is a very different feeling between weightless and floating. Weightless is like the feeling you get in your stomach when your dropping on a roller coaster. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 15:27 | comment | added | udiboy1209 | @JSQuareD, I think thats the correct answer to this question, that you only feel weightless when in free-fall. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 15:25 | comment | added | JSQuareD | If you think about it, there actually is a net force working on astronauts in the ISS, since they are kept in an orbit, while there is no net force working on me in my chair. I'm tempted to think that feeling weightless means accelerating exactly as fast as gravity wants you to. This seems to be consistent with free fall-weightlessness, ISS-astronauts as well as hypothetical deep-space-astronauts... hmm. Anyway, that would mean that the frog doesn't feel weightless, because he's not accelerating, even though gravity wants him to. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 15:15 | comment | added | udiboy1209 | @SebastianHenckel I disagree with Jim. Even when standing on the ground, the normal force exerted by the ground perfectly cancels with gravity. But we still feel our weight. I think it's because of the pressure felt by our legs and not the net force. Unfortunately, a google search only returns how we feel on weight loss! | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 14:59 | comment | added | yippy_yay | I'm not quite convinced - after all, underwater I also feel weightless although the surrounding water is pushing me up by a normal force. On the other hand, one of those big turbines supending wanna-be skydivers does not produce weightlessness - at least I think they can still feel gravity. | |
| Aug 7, 2013 at 14:54 | history | answered | Jim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |