Quite a long time ago, when I was in my early teens, I had a classmate who expressed what even then I understood to be a rather odd misconception about forces, in particular about gravitational forces. We had recently been taught about gravitation in class, and how, curiously, every single object exerts a gravitational pulling force onto every single other object (even though with everyday objects this force is staggeringly minuscule).
We were one day outside, and he was commenting on this fact. We were looking at two hills, and he commented that (paraphrasing) "that hill is exerting gravitational force onto that other hill". He then expressed the really odd misconception: He thought that meant that the two hills were moving towards each other, even if it happened really, really slowly.
Even back then I understood that didn't make any sense, and he was misunderstanding the whole concept. Just because two objects may be exerting a gravitational pulling force to each other doesn't somehow automatically mean that they must be moving towards each other. In this case, the hills are affixed to the ground and don't move with respect to each other. There's like a thousand other forces keeping them in place, counteracting the minuscule gravitational pull they may exert on each other. Just because you eg. push on a building, exerting a force onto it, doesn't mean that the building inevitably moves. A force being applied onto an object doesn't automatically mean it must move.
But he really did think that, explicitly. I tried to object to his misconception, and from the ensuing conversation it became clear that he had this strong notion (ie. that a force implies movement, no matter what), and for some reason wouldn't let go of it, no matter what counter-arguments I gave. Yes, he was being completely serious.
I find this misconception a bit strange to grasp. How can it be so hard for someone to understand that multiple forces acting on an object may cancel each other out? That a force being exerted on an object does not automatically imply movement in that direction? Or, moreover, that a stronger force in one direction may counteract a weaker force in the other direction so much that the object actually moves to that first direction, not the second one? This seems like it ought to be a really simple concept to understand, but apparently for some people it's not.
Ok, this was just one person. An oddity. Except that I have been finding this very misconception among many flatearthers.
While Poe's Law is, once again, in full effect here, it appears that some flatearthers are seriously making the argument that gravity doesn't exist because they can jump upwards, and helium balloons go up. They seem to share this very misconception that a force towards some direction implies movement towards that direction and, thus, if the movement of the object is towards another direction, that must mean there is no force in the first place. (They also don't seem to grasp the idea that forces actually cause acceleration, rather than just movement.)
I think it requires a particularly childish mind to not understand what a force is, and to think that a force must cause movement, or else it doesn't exist. Force and movement are not the same thing.
We were one day outside, and he was commenting on this fact. We were looking at two hills, and he commented that (paraphrasing) "that hill is exerting gravitational force onto that other hill". He then expressed the really odd misconception: He thought that meant that the two hills were moving towards each other, even if it happened really, really slowly.
Even back then I understood that didn't make any sense, and he was misunderstanding the whole concept. Just because two objects may be exerting a gravitational pulling force to each other doesn't somehow automatically mean that they must be moving towards each other. In this case, the hills are affixed to the ground and don't move with respect to each other. There's like a thousand other forces keeping them in place, counteracting the minuscule gravitational pull they may exert on each other. Just because you eg. push on a building, exerting a force onto it, doesn't mean that the building inevitably moves. A force being applied onto an object doesn't automatically mean it must move.
But he really did think that, explicitly. I tried to object to his misconception, and from the ensuing conversation it became clear that he had this strong notion (ie. that a force implies movement, no matter what), and for some reason wouldn't let go of it, no matter what counter-arguments I gave. Yes, he was being completely serious.
I find this misconception a bit strange to grasp. How can it be so hard for someone to understand that multiple forces acting on an object may cancel each other out? That a force being exerted on an object does not automatically imply movement in that direction? Or, moreover, that a stronger force in one direction may counteract a weaker force in the other direction so much that the object actually moves to that first direction, not the second one? This seems like it ought to be a really simple concept to understand, but apparently for some people it's not.
Ok, this was just one person. An oddity. Except that I have been finding this very misconception among many flatearthers.
While Poe's Law is, once again, in full effect here, it appears that some flatearthers are seriously making the argument that gravity doesn't exist because they can jump upwards, and helium balloons go up. They seem to share this very misconception that a force towards some direction implies movement towards that direction and, thus, if the movement of the object is towards another direction, that must mean there is no force in the first place. (They also don't seem to grasp the idea that forces actually cause acceleration, rather than just movement.)
I think it requires a particularly childish mind to not understand what a force is, and to think that a force must cause movement, or else it doesn't exist. Force and movement are not the same thing.
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