View Single Post
Old 05-15-2001, 06:23 PM   #276
n00bies
Elite Waterdeep Guard
 

Join Date: March 11, 2001
Location: Montreal, Canada
Posts: 41
A train, and a housefly, are heading directly at each other at a very high speed. The train and the fly then collide. Now obviously, the fly will hit the train, the train will overcome the fly, and the fly will head in the other direction.

Now the laws of physics state for an object to head in one direction, then have a 180 degree change (which the fly undergoes), then there must be an instant where said object experiences no motion. Think of a baseball, the instant the bat hits the ball, it has to stop for a brief second then go the other way.

So the question is: Since this is an elastic collision, and the fly undergoes a 180 degree turn in motion, and since the train is attached to the fly at this instant...

... does the fly, technically, stop the train?



------------------
"Life has no meaning but what we give it. I wish a few more of ye would give it a little" -Elminster of Shadowdale

Dragons? Splendid things, lad - so long as ye look upon them only in tapestries, or in the masks worn at revels, or from about three realms off... -Astragarl Hornwood
n00bies is offline