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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How much does the Earth weigh?
« on: 01/12/2010 22:04:21 »Foolosophy
Firstly - you seem to have drawn back from your claims that the earth isn't accelerating, glad to see you have read up on vectors v scalars and circular motion. Secondly, you need to understand what free-fall means.
Free-fall motion is when the only force experienced is that of gravitational attraction. We feel gravitational attraction on earth - but on earth there is also a normal force (equal and opposite) from the ground; this is why we don't sink through the floor.
Astronauts in a space station are in orbit - they are in freefall, but it is completely incorrect to say that there is no gravitational attraction towards the earth. If they were not continually accelerating (due to a force) towards the earth they, and their tin can, would fly off at a tangent. They weigh something (not as much, but something) in space just as much as they do when they jump in the air when back on planet earth. Just because there is no normal at an instant in time does not mean that there is no attraction/force - it is that their attraction to the earth is counteracted in a different manner than the normal force that we suffer.
I am astonished at the polemic here.
The weight of the earth = 0 for the same reason that astronauts are weightless when orbiting the earth in a space station - THEY ARE IN FREE FALL MOTION
Now if you don't like this reality all I can suggest is to take up the matter with Sir Isaac Newton's estate.
ARE you still claiming that the earth's weight ISNT equal to zero??
Perhaps you can use your scalarisation and vectoring techniques to prove your alchemic claim?