Monday, February 07, 2005

Fun with Physics

Question:
A rescue plane wants to drop supplies to isolated mountain climbers on a rocky ridge, 235m below. If the plane is traveling horizontally at a speed of 69.4 m/s, how far in advance of the recipients must the goods be dropped? Suppose instead that the plane releases the supplies at a horizontal distance of 425m in advance of the climbers. At what vertical velocity should the supplies be given so they arrive at the climbers' position? With what speed do the supplies land?



Answer: (Well, my answer...)
Who gives a crap. If a plane can get up there, then so can a helicopter. Why not send one of those instead? The chopper could drop a ladder and pull them up. OR.... How about this: we just leave them there to starve because they were stupid enough to get stuck in the first place. I'm a biologist. I believe in survival of the fittest.

Had a crappy day in class. Calculus boy started off with more of his "I just have a general question" crap. That wasted a decent amount of time. Then, in physics, 3 different people forgot how to do some basic algebra. Bleh.

Condor has been a wild-man lately. He woke me up at 6am. I was not happy. He's begging for food right now so I have to bend to my master's will and provide sustenance.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, the climbers must have been men, not girl scouts or women. In that case, let them starve for awhile.

Perplexio said...

If the climbers were girl scouts they'd have cookies anyway, so let them sweat it out awhile too.