durangodawood
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- Aug 28, 2007
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I apologize for making you write that long and well considered post.Actually, no.
If you were to take a cup of liquid while on a train, plane, etc and dump it out it would merely fall straight down to the floor just like it would if you were standing still on the ground. You can also test this in a less messy way by using any small harmless object.
Get on the train (or airplane), hold this object out and let go of it. It will drop straight down to the floor and behave exactly like it would if you were on the ground.
It doesn't matter how fast or slow the vehicle is moving, everything on and in the vehicle has the same forward velocity until or unless an outside force acts on it. This includes the air inside the vehicle (but not the air outside of it!). If you were able to stand on the wing of an airplane and let go of an item, it would fly backwards (depending on how heavy it is and how much air can hit it) because the air outside the plane is not moving.
However, if you stand inside the airplane, and drop an item, it'll fall straight down because the air inside the plane is moving the same speed the plane itself is.
You can repeat these same experiments with a pickup truck: sit in the passenger seat and drop a paper airplane and watch it fall harmlessly to the floor. Then, stop the truck, get in the bed of the pickup and then drop the paper airplane while travelling 20+ MPH and watch the air catch and take the paper airplane away.
I assumed my post was so asinine that nobody could take it seriously. But clearly I underestimated the effect of this place, where earnest opinion regularly transgresses the irony boundary .
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