[philip]

Originally Posted by Vansquish Originally Posted by graywolf624 However, in the real world, there is drag, and items will obviously fall at different speeds, and the more aerodynamically efficient ones will fall quicker. Still, weight will not be relevant. Right? Let me say first that I have very little background in fluids. In terms of modeling it with physics, your starting to get over my head when you get into drag. That being said I am sure the mass of the object falling is important, but other aspects are as well. With aerodynamic drag there are so many factors you probably could not get the same result with 2 runs of the same object. Some of these include the surface area of the object, shape of the object, and speed of the object. Then you have density of the air, temperature of the air, pressure, direction of air flow, etc (which are all interrelated.) The air provides a force to the object pushing up.. the object pushes down on the air. Remember from the equations above the force of the falling object is f=m1a where a is a constant 9.8 m/s^s. So now we pick a heavier m1. The force of the heavier object falling is now higher since we just showed its non earth relative acceleration is constant. This means if it hits the air and encounters the same friction force (aka all else equal), the net force pushing downwards afterwards will be higher then that of a lighter object. A great F with the same mass means a greater acceleration. Thus a heavier object all else being equal will have a higher resistance (momentum) to the slowing effect of the airodynamic drag. Info on calculated drag and the like. http://hypertextbook.com/physics/matter/drag/ ... Sounds about right to me (says the physicist). As far as Schroedinger's cat is concerned... The infamous Schroedinger's cat problem is a thought experiment that has applications to quantum mechanics and various other high-level strains of physics. Basically it is this: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox: the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that it can never be known what the outcome would have been if it were not observed.

Thanks for explaining the cat. Your explaination was better that what I read on line.