pjabrony

pjabrony t1_isu9abt wrote

> The second interpretation does not make physical sense as the plane will immediately leave the treadmill.

I understand that, but I think not everyone does which is why there's a question.

Put it this way: if you put a car on a treadmill, which does operate by the wheels' grip on the road, and you spun the wheels and the treadmill up to high speed, the car wouldn't have gone anywhere. Then say you quick-stop the treadmill. Would the car take off at a high speed? Could you get a lower zero-to-sixty time this way?

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pjabrony t1_ist70za wrote

Much like the Monty Hall Problem, the "airplane-on-a-treadmill" problem creates controversy because of how the problem is defined.

If you had a proper runway of proper runway length, but you turned it into a treadmill, that would not affect the takeoff of the airplane because it doesn't care how fast its wheels are spinning for takeoff purposes.

But, if you just had a treadmill the length of the airplane and you tried to use that to allow the airplane to get up to speed so it could take off without a long runway, that would not work.

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pjabrony t1_iri8gc5 wrote

> Besides, it's not like using different systems causes any problems." > > It almost caused a drug overdose. It caused us to almost lose a satellite. It caused us to crater a Mars orbiter into the planet. It caused an airplane to run out of fuel mid flight. Finally, it caused a roller coaster to derail.

I agree. These are all problems. That's why the rest of the world should give up metric and use the correct system.

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