The two lines that really bothered me in the movie were this: "These are known as fictitious forces" and "If you believe in the law of inertia". I'm not completely crazy, I have my reasons.
First of all, the fact that the forces are called "fictitious" implies that there is a possibility that they are not real. So am I wasting seven periods every week learning about something that might not even be real? And what about that ridiculous line, "If you believe in the law of inertia"? Yeah, and I believe in unicorns, too. What does that say about the law of inertia? That it's just a work of fiction and belongs in a fantasy world? For all I know, in 20 years scientists could prove this so-called "law of inertia" completely false.
During this rant that took place in my mind, and while I was trying to figure out exactly why I ever took physics, I was amazed to realize that this issue of physics and all its uncertainties, is very relatable to another topic that everyone has studies since probably the 6th grade: Greek mythology. The ancient Greeks and Romans used myths and stories to explain things that they could not otherwise explain. They would wonder: "Why is the sky suddenly filled with lightening?" and their answer would be: "Because Zeus is angry, duh!" Their myths aren't real. They made for some pretty great Disney movies, but they're not real. I feel as though physics is trying to achieve the same purpose as Greek mythology; it's simply trying to explain the world around us.
There is a force that pushes up on us from the ground. We can't see it, but according to physics, it's there. If we can't actually see it, how do we know for sure that it's really even there? I guess that's the annoying thing about all sciences. Everything in science is just a theory, nothing is certain and it is constantly changing. It makes me think of the discussion we had in class today. How real can science actually be? During the 1800s, scientists supposedly found numerical data that concluded African Americans are inferior to whites. The scientist basically found the numbers he wanted to find, and manipulated the information to suit his purposes. It was a way of justifying slavery, because according to science, it was true. And apparently science never lies. FALSE. Again, the scientist was trying to explain why things were the way they were. And that's all science is. It's simply an explanation. Not necessarily the truth, but an explanation. Can science ever be completely truthful?
During this rant that took place in my mind, and while I was trying to figure out exactly why I ever took physics, I was amazed to realize that this issue of physics and all its uncertainties, is very relatable to another topic that everyone has studies since probably the 6th grade: Greek mythology. The ancient Greeks and Romans used myths and stories to explain things that they could not otherwise explain. They would wonder: "Why is the sky suddenly filled with lightening?" and their answer would be: "Because Zeus is angry, duh!" Their myths aren't real. They made for some pretty great Disney movies, but they're not real. I feel as though physics is trying to achieve the same purpose as Greek mythology; it's simply trying to explain the world around us.
There is a force that pushes up on us from the ground. We can't see it, but according to physics, it's there. If we can't actually see it, how do we know for sure that it's really even there? I guess that's the annoying thing about all sciences. Everything in science is just a theory, nothing is certain and it is constantly changing. It makes me think of the discussion we had in class today. How real can science actually be? During the 1800s, scientists supposedly found numerical data that concluded African Americans are inferior to whites. The scientist basically found the numbers he wanted to find, and manipulated the information to suit his purposes. It was a way of justifying slavery, because according to science, it was true. And apparently science never lies. FALSE. Again, the scientist was trying to explain why things were the way they were. And that's all science is. It's simply an explanation. Not necessarily the truth, but an explanation. Can science ever be completely truthful?
Just a bit from the frames of reference movie
"First of all, the fact that the forces are called "fictitious" implies that there is a possibility that they are not real. So am I wasting seven periods every week learning about something that might not even be real?"
ReplyDeleteActually, the fictitious forces the entire video was referring to were tricks of the mind we think are there but aren't actually there, the video was not actually referring to actual physical forces that you are studying in physics that are significant. The purpose of the video was to sort of blow your mind and get you to see that some of the ideas in our minds based on our senses or aristotelian logic are actually false, and that's why it's important to learn about things like centripetal motion.
An example of a fictitious force is how people think about a specific roller coaster. This specific roller coaster is a cylinder that simply spins. The people in the ride stand inside the cylinder, backs against the circular wall without being fastened to it. The circular walls start spinning, and as the spinning increases in speed, people feel pushed back in to the walls. The floor under the peoples' feet is then lowered away, leaving people plastered to the metal walls as if there is some force pushing them in to the walls that is keeping them from falling.
However, there is no force pushing people against the wall, that is a fictitious force created by the mind because their senses make them feel like they are being pushed back. In reality, the circular spinning walls of the roller coaster are pushing them in tangential lines away from the center of the circle (a right angle from the radius). What's actually holding the people against the wall is the force pushing them towards the center of the cylinder, and the competition of forces between the walls pushing outwards and the centripetal force pushing inwards is what holds people against the walls.
For the sake of further explanation, a similar thing happens when you quickly stop a car. You may feel like you're being flung out of your seat, but really, no force is acting upon you except for the seatbelt holding you back. Any move forward you make is newton's first law of motion, your natural tendency to continue moving forward.
Your comparison to mythology refers more to fictitious force than it does the law of inertia, at least in the human frame of reference. Fictitious forces are false things we create in our minds to explain things, like mythology. The law of inertia, however, is in direct contrast to a fictitious force. It is measurable in the human frame of reference-- the macro scale outside the realm of quantum mechanics. However, you're right, after a certain point, Newton's laws completely break down. Einstein's theory of relativity actually implies that in some cases, even real forces on our scale can be indistinguishable from fictitious forces when looked at from a different perspective. From there, humans' ability to measure truth is sort of shot. Our most accurate way of measuring things changes on the scale, and our senses make it impossible to immerse ourselves into smaller scales, so we can't really know or measure everything completely truthfully, and we are likely missing the big picture. What physics class gives you, at the very least, is the ability to better differentiate between fictitious forces and real forces that actually do apply to us on our scale in every day life. They can't be proven to be absolutely true, but there's a limit to how much truth we can have to comprehend the world around us.
Dear god, the length... D: sorry about that I should have edited it down.
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