Why would'nt this work?
Why would'nt this work?
It can look dumb, but I always had this question as a kid, what physical principles would prevent this?
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Even if the stick were made of the hardest known material, the information would take about 7 hours to travel from Earth to the Moon, according to the equation relating Young's modulus and the material's density.
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Also, even if you could somehow pull the stick, Newtonâs Second Law (F = ma) tells us that the force required to move it depends on its mass and desired acceleration. If the stick were made of steel with a 1 cm radius, it would have a mass of approximately 754Ă10^6kg due to its enormous length. Now, if you tried to give it just a tiny acceleration of 0.01 m/s² (barely noticeable movement), the required force would be:
F = (754Ă106) Ă (0.01) = 7.54Ă106 N
Thatâs 7.54 MN, equivalent to the thrust of a Saturn V rocket, just to make it move at all! And thatâs not even considering internal stresses, gravity differences, or the fact that the force wouldnât propagate instantly through the stick.
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227 comments