3 ms·
Maybe I'm wrong, but that sounds like he was trying to get the formula for kinetic energy, which would be half em vee squared. Just to be clear: I'm not questi
by josteink 11y ago
Maybe I'm wrong, but that sounds like he was trying to get the formula for kinetic energy, which would be half em vee squared.
Just to be clear: I'm not questioning the story, just the details in the recollection :)
- EdwardCoffin 11y agoI did wonder at the discrepancy at the time, so I re-listened to the audio several times carefully when I was writing the transcript above. To me, he is clearly saying gee rather than vee (could be an artifact of the recording though). I'm sure Hillis knows more physics than I do (though I knew the equations of motion pretty well at one time), but he could easily have just mis-spoke. I didn't pursue this line of thought, but considered it might have been something to do with him deriving an expression for the vertical position in a gravitational field, perhaps in terms of horizontal motion or something.