Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Jeff Schwab wrote:
>
>> So what's the "double mistake?" My understanding was (1) the misuse
>> (ok, vernacular use) of the term "free fall," and (2) the association
>> of weight with free-fall velocity ("If I tie an elephant's tail to a
>> mouse's, and drop them both into free fall, will the mouse slow the
>> elephant down?")
>
> I presume his point was that physicists have a specialized meaning of
> "free fall" and, in that context, the answer is wrong.
>
> My point was, and still is, that if this question without further
> context is posed to a generally educated laymen, the supposedly wrong
> answer that was given is actually _correct_. After all, surely the
> technical physics meaning of "free fall" came _after_ a more common term
> was in use, just as with other terms like "force" or "energy" that have
> technical meanings in physics, but more abstract or general meanings in
> the general parlance. "Free fall" means something specialized to
> physicists, but it means something more general to non-physicists.
>
> A lot of these kind of "gotcha" questions intended to trick even
> reasonable people into demonstrating technical ignorance have precisely
> the same problem: The desired technical context is not made clear and
> so that the supposedly-wrong answer is not only unsurprising, but often
> arguably correct. This kind of stuff is little more than a semantic
> terminology game, rather than revealing any deeper concepts.
Fair enough!
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