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There's nothing wrong with an infeasible thought experiment. Frictionless surfaces and spherical cows are a staple of learning physics. The problem is when th
by Symmetry 8y ago
There's nothing wrong with an infeasible thought experiment. Frictionless surfaces and spherical cows are a staple of learning physics. The problem is when the author describes them as "greased surfaces" or "watermellon shaped cows" and asks you to treat them as perfectly frictionless or spherical.
Describing the rope as being "steel" instead of "rigid" is just needlessly confusing.
- ColinWright 8y agoIf you're inside the world of physics, "rigid" carries exactly the meaning you say it has. But it's a code word, it's got a technical meaning, and for people not in the world of physics, using the word "rigid" would, I think, be confusing. So I've updated the side-box to try to make it clearer. You might like to check it out to see what you think.