I just came back from this weekends kayaking and climbing trip. Saw some westies FS on the side. More details below. To everyone who has p-mailed me (for parts or other things), I'll get back to you as soon as I can, but might take a couple of days to get through all the emails. Now to the Westy brainteaser. The question was if you park 25 Westies on the middle of the Golden gate bridge make the mass centrum of the bridge (alone) move up or down? The listees whose p-mail I've read so far all got it right and had good motivations for the answers, and in fact did overall better than the sample of Yale students I tested the question on. Here's my suggestion: Answer: Up. The Golden gate bridge is a suspension bridge, whose supporting cables form a curve approximately like a chain hangs (*) when suspended from its two endpoints. The 25 campers act as a force displacing the middle of the bridge downward somewhat, say d meters. This adds the energy d*25*2000kg. By preservation of total energy the bridge mass center goes up approximately d*25*2000/m_bridge, where m bridge is the bridge mass. (*) Catenoid curve. The exact curve is not important however, just the assumption that the energy is being conserved through the movement of connected masses, not through e.g. material elasticity. Now to the Westies I saw. They are in the lot next to the deli just down the hill from the climbing wall in the Mohonk preserve in the 'Gunks, NY State. Presumably the vehicles/houses of climbing bums who made it there, but not back again. All were late loaf Westys. Two of the three looked pretty rough. The third looked ok. The phone number on the sign was half worn off, so I couldn't read it. The people in the repair shop whose lot they are on probably know the scope, but I was there on a Sunday and it was closed. Someone who goes climbing weekdays could check. /Martin -- Westy 1.9l Turbo Diesel Quantum 1.6l Turbo Diesel New and used parts for sale, gas and Diesel: http://www.cs.yale.edu/~jag/vw/forsale.html Martin Jagersand email: jag@cs.yale.edu Computer Science Department jag@cs.rochester.edu Yale University Slow down and visit the VW diesel Westy page: WWW: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/vw ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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