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Site seems to be down. Cached version is here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uWHPLrGJYW4J:blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2009/11/09/myth-becaus

Site seems to be down. Cached version is here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uWHPLrGJYW4J:blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2009/11/09/myth-because-the-astronauts-had-heavy-boots/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uWHPLrG... A significant part of the article is a reposting of http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html Edit: Changed wording re how much of article is repost

gametheoretic 13y ago
Thanks for posting that. Not one to complain about blogspam, but that's one of the all-time great "internet motherfucker" posts. Neither Sciencegeekgirl.com (lol, brand yourself harder) nor anyone else can do much to add to it.
- brazzy 13y ago
  Actually, Sciencegeekgirl.com adds VERY MUCH to the article, namely a highly interesting discussion of WHY students give these wrong answers. No, it's not because they're stupid or ignorant.
  - enko 13y ago
    > it's not because they're stupid or ignorant They may not be stupid, but that's pretty much the definition of ignorance.
    - brazzy 13y ago
      Obviously, anyone who answers a question incorrectly is ignorant of the correct answer, but the point is that in many cases the wrong answer seems to be logically based on a wrong mental model of how gravity works. Just like Aristotelian physics. And Newtonian physics as well. Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? The interesting part is the discussion of what these wrong mental models look like and how you can teach a correct one.
      - plorkyeran 13y ago
        > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? By modern standards, absolutely.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? By your definition they're ignorant, but not stupid?
      - mbrutsch 13y ago
        > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? Absolutely. There was much they did not know, as is true of anyone. "Ignorant" is not an insult, it simply means you do not know something. Would you say Aristotle and Newton knew everything about everything? If not, then they would be, by definition, ignorant of the things they did not know.
      - almosnow 13y ago
        There's absolutely no way to justify a student attending a physics class and not knowing that the Moon does have gravity as well.
        brazzy 13y ago
        The problem is that they may know that the Moon has gravity, but they don't understand what that concretely means when it comes to questions like this.
        tene 13y ago
        I would dispute the validity of calling that state of mind "knowing that the moon has gravity". I would instead call it "memorized a couple of correlated keywords".
  - gametheoretic 13y ago
    No. Where writing is concerned, 2+2 is greater than 4.
nailer 13y ago
'Heavy boots' is actually a reasonable answer in that it doesn't preclude the moon having gravity.
- brazzy 13y ago
  On its own yes, but if combined with the previous statement that a pen would float away, it just exhibits a piecemeal and inconsistent understanding of physics.
  - judk 13y ago
    Why? On earth, heavy boots hold you down, but dust and feathers float away. The moon has less gravity than the Earth, so a pen is like a feather. Blah blah atmosphere electro-magnetism blah, the universe is big ad complicated.
    - na85 13y ago
      Oh god. Feathers and dust don't float away because they're weightless. They float away because air currents exert forces on them that are greater than their weight. Eventually, in a still-air environment, the feather and the dust will settle to the ground. You can verify this by going to your nearest attic.
      - cousin_it 13y ago
        To be fair, your nearest attic might have dust on the walls and ceiling as well, though maybe not as much...
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - pjc50 13y ago
      See the famous video of one of the lunar astronauts dropping a hammer and a feather at the same time. Both of them drop fairly rapidly to the surface.
MrBuddyCasino 13y ago
This was a pretty entertaining read. First I thought I would sense a smug sense of superiority of natural science over the humanities, but then I realized he performed the same test on his physics students.
- pothibo 13y ago
  I always sucked in tests. In the first question, I would have hesitated between b) and d). The reason for choosing b) would have been that the moon's gravity being weak, the earth's gravity nullified the moon's thus having a floating pen. The reason for choosing d) would be because Moon's gravity is stronger than Earth's. This is why I think tests are stupids. If I had chosen b) instead of d) I would have gotten a wrong answer. Even though my thought process would be correct. Just missing the right information (which could have been easily found outside a test environment).
  - mikeash 13y ago
    The relative strength of gravity mostly does not matter. If the Earth pulled on you harder than the moon, you'd still fall towards the moon, because the moon is just as strongly affected by that gravity as you are (momentarily ignoring tides). So no, I'm pretty sure your thought process wasn't remotely correct.
    - dennisgorelik 13y ago
      His thought process is correct, but his "pen on the Moon" model is missing vital element (that Moon is in free fall/orbiting Earth). If Moon was hanging on a stick connected to Earth (instead of orbiting Earth) and Earth gravity forces on a pen were stronger than Moon's gravity forces, then pen would fall in Earth. Of course you and I know that there are no such strong materials for that Earth-Moon stick, but that's yet another level of complexity that most people don't have to know about.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        >If Moon was hanging on a stick connected to Earth (instead of orbiting Earth) and Earth gravity forces on a pen were stronger than Moon's gravity forces, then pen would fall in Earth. Technically that's true, but it would require a completely different scenario. Earth's gravity is miniscule at that altitude. For the moon to have a weaker force it would have to be so small that it would likely not even qualify as a moon any more.
masklinn 13y ago
>Article is mainly just a reposting of http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html though... That is an unfair characterisation, I think. The article does indeed reproduce heavyboots in its 725 words entirety (according to pages's word count for what that one's worth), but tacks a further 930 words afterwards. And these 930 are interesting indeed as they're further explorations of the phenomenon and discussion on its underlying reasons.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
  Fair enough - I've changed the wording a bit. Personally, though, I thought that the follow-on discussion didn't add much beyond what was mentioned in the original heavyboots article.

gametheoretic 13y ago

Thanks for posting that. Not one to complain about blogspam, but that's one of the all-time great "internet motherfucker" posts. Neither Sciencegeekgirl.com (lol, brand yourself harder) nor anyone else can do much to add to it.

brazzy 13y ago
Actually, Sciencegeekgirl.com adds VERY MUCH to the article, namely a highly interesting discussion of WHY students give these wrong answers. No, it's not because they're stupid or ignorant.
- enko 13y ago
  > it's not because they're stupid or ignorant They may not be stupid, but that's pretty much the definition of ignorance.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    Obviously, anyone who answers a question incorrectly is ignorant of the correct answer, but the point is that in many cases the wrong answer seems to be logically based on a wrong mental model of how gravity works. Just like Aristotelian physics. And Newtonian physics as well. Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? The interesting part is the discussion of what these wrong mental models look like and how you can teach a correct one.
    - plorkyeran 13y ago
      > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? By modern standards, absolutely.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? By your definition they're ignorant, but not stupid?
    - mbrutsch 13y ago
      > Would you call Aristotle and Newton ignorant? Absolutely. There was much they did not know, as is true of anyone. "Ignorant" is not an insult, it simply means you do not know something. Would you say Aristotle and Newton knew everything about everything? If not, then they would be, by definition, ignorant of the things they did not know.
    - almosnow 13y ago
      There's absolutely no way to justify a student attending a physics class and not knowing that the Moon does have gravity as well.
      - brazzy 13y ago
        The problem is that they may know that the Moon has gravity, but they don't understand what that concretely means when it comes to questions like this.
        tene 13y ago
        I would dispute the validity of calling that state of mind "knowing that the moon has gravity". I would instead call it "memorized a couple of correlated keywords".
- gametheoretic 13y ago
  No. Where writing is concerned, 2+2 is greater than 4.

nailer 13y ago

'Heavy boots' is actually a reasonable answer in that it doesn't preclude the moon having gravity.

brazzy 13y ago
On its own yes, but if combined with the previous statement that a pen would float away, it just exhibits a piecemeal and inconsistent understanding of physics.
- judk 13y ago
  Why? On earth, heavy boots hold you down, but dust and feathers float away. The moon has less gravity than the Earth, so a pen is like a feather. Blah blah atmosphere electro-magnetism blah, the universe is big ad complicated.
  - na85 13y ago
    Oh god. Feathers and dust don't float away because they're weightless. They float away because air currents exert forces on them that are greater than their weight. Eventually, in a still-air environment, the feather and the dust will settle to the ground. You can verify this by going to your nearest attic.
    - cousin_it 13y ago
      To be fair, your nearest attic might have dust on the walls and ceiling as well, though maybe not as much...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjc50 13y ago
    See the famous video of one of the lunar astronauts dropping a hammer and a feather at the same time. Both of them drop fairly rapidly to the surface.

MrBuddyCasino 13y ago

This was a pretty entertaining read. First I thought I would sense a smug sense of superiority of natural science over the humanities, but then I realized he performed the same test on his physics students.

pothibo 13y ago
I always sucked in tests. In the first question, I would have hesitated between b) and d). The reason for choosing b) would have been that the moon's gravity being weak, the earth's gravity nullified the moon's thus having a floating pen. The reason for choosing d) would be because Moon's gravity is stronger than Earth's. This is why I think tests are stupids. If I had chosen b) instead of d) I would have gotten a wrong answer. Even though my thought process would be correct. Just missing the right information (which could have been easily found outside a test environment).
- mikeash 13y ago
  The relative strength of gravity mostly does not matter. If the Earth pulled on you harder than the moon, you'd still fall towards the moon, because the moon is just as strongly affected by that gravity as you are (momentarily ignoring tides). So no, I'm pretty sure your thought process wasn't remotely correct.
  - dennisgorelik 13y ago
    His thought process is correct, but his "pen on the Moon" model is missing vital element (that Moon is in free fall/orbiting Earth). If Moon was hanging on a stick connected to Earth (instead of orbiting Earth) and Earth gravity forces on a pen were stronger than Moon's gravity forces, then pen would fall in Earth. Of course you and I know that there are no such strong materials for that Earth-Moon stick, but that's yet another level of complexity that most people don't have to know about.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      >If Moon was hanging on a stick connected to Earth (instead of orbiting Earth) and Earth gravity forces on a pen were stronger than Moon's gravity forces, then pen would fall in Earth. Technically that's true, but it would require a completely different scenario. Earth's gravity is miniscule at that altitude. For the moon to have a weaker force it would have to be so small that it would likely not even qualify as a moon any more.

masklinn 13y ago

>Article is mainly just a reposting of http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html though... That is an unfair characterisation, I think. The article does indeed reproduce heavyboots in its 725 words entirety (according to pages's word count for what that one's worth), but tacks a further 930 words afterwards. And these 930 are interesting indeed as they're further explorations of the phenomenon and discussion on its underlying reasons.

andyjohnson0 13y ago
Fair enough - I've changed the wording a bit. Personally, though, I thought that the follow-on discussion didn't add much beyond what was mentioned in the original heavyboots article.