The Sarabite: Towards an Aesthetic Christianity


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Easter Bouquet For AG

Third Lily

The time rate of change of velocity. Since velocity is a directed or vector quantity involving both magnitude and direction, a velocity may change by a change of magnitude (speed) or by a change of direction or both. It follows that acceleration is also a directed, or vector, quantity. If the magnitude of the velocity of a body changes from v1 ft/s to v2 ft/s in t seconds, then the average acceleration a has a magnitude given by Eq. (1):
(see above)




Morri Creech

A minor disappointment not to find

angels pushing the planets around their courses

as Leibnitz believed. A shame, but not a great one,

that the universe seemed less and less to hang

glimmering from God's chain like a golden fob,

although a pendent weight shaped Newton's thought.

Sitting alone there in that storied orchard,

he'd seen the apples drooping from their boughs;

until one formed, unplucked, a grand conclusion.

The apple fell because it had to fall,

as objects move toward objects, in accord.

It struck a dizzying tune into his head.

The clockwork of the heavens may make music,

but it was a grave music that he heard,

the whirl of mass, the hum of centrifuge,

and calculations on the page would prove

such motion both a falling and a flight.

Thus bodies spin each other round in space.

And gravity, too, becomes a kind of grace.

-from "Some Notes on Grace and Gravity", from the collection Field Knowledge


At 7:50 AM, Blogger AG said...

Um, I don't see it mentioned that acceleration is the derivative with respect to time of velocity, and the second derivative of position. Or that the acceleration of gravity on Earth is -9.8 m/s/s. Don't be lazy, A.V.!

And with apologies to Creech, Newtonian mechanics has several limitations when dealing with "heavenly bodies." The most obvious example of this is that Newton's third law lacks time as a variable: in the most common example, if the sun suddenly ceased to exist, the earth would not simultaneously go out of orbit, as it takes light, the speed limit of the universe, 8 seconds to get from the sun to the earth. The forces don't reciprocate simultaneously.

But a noble first effort, thank you!


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