I hope this Ušomic gets into physics textbooks one day. It explain nicely the paradox where two particles with equal energy travel along different trajectories between identical endpoints, and the one going a longer way arrives earlier. Ascending in the direction of gravity, Ušo transforms some of his potential energy into kinetic energy. Having more kinetic energy than Lulu, he spends much less time crossing the street than Lulu. At the end he surfaces, and trades his excess kinetic energy back for potential energy, gaining the same height as Lulu. The extra time spent on the descent and ascent is dwarfed by the time gained during crossing, so Ušo is faster. Lulu knows this, of course, and thus does not look puzzled. Also she had to brake to avoid colliding with Ušo, which helped to distort the experiment's result in the right direction. (-:B
I hope this Ušomic gets into physics textbooks one day. It explain nicely the paradox where two particles with equal energy travel along different trajectories between identical endpoints, and the one going a longer way arrives earlier.
ReplyDeleteAscending in the direction of gravity, Ušo transforms some of his potential energy into kinetic energy. Having more kinetic energy than Lulu, he spends much less time crossing the street than Lulu. At the end he surfaces, and trades his excess kinetic energy back for potential energy, gaining the same height as Lulu. The extra time spent on the descent and ascent is dwarfed by the time gained during crossing, so Ušo is faster. Lulu knows this, of course, and thus does not look puzzled. Also she had to brake to avoid colliding with Ušo, which helped to distort the experiment's result in the right direction. (-:B