It's a common experience when we are in some vehicle like a car being accelerated we can feel the "invisible push/pull" or acceleration caused due to the change in velocity I assume we can always trust this ability of ours to decide if we are being accelerated whether in car/bus/train/rocket whenever our velocity changes we can feel it. In physics lectures you often hear professors saying that when a body say a closed box is freely falling (ff) say towards the earth, the man (or whatever) inside can never tell if he is in ff or somewhere in quiet space away from all matter with no gravity around.  But now you can see the problem in former the man's velocity is increasing by $9.8~\mathrm{m/s}$ every second now if I give a super-car and you put on the accelerator definitely your friend sitting besides, even if blind and deaf can tell if he is indeed accelerating or not. So now here is my question why the man inside the ff box can't feel the acceleration and (his velocity is changing wildly) and how is his state identical to that of a man standing still in deep space with no gravitational pull around.  I was seeking a intuitive answer which doesn't involve relativity theory as I don't understand it yet and which could be explained by classical mechanics.
121441
Earth's orbit is a slight ellipse, so to conserve momentum its speed increases when it is closest to the Sun. If the speed changes there is an acceleration. If there is an acceleration there is a force. Even if the change is small and gradual, wouldn't we experience a force because the Earth is so massive?
71958
We know that it takes no energy to change the direction of a vector, we know also that it takes no energy to displace a body in motion if a push is applied exactly at a right angle on its center of mass.  Considering that, if that is true, can you explain why a simple change of direction without any increase of speed is considered an acceleration?
6794
They say that gravity is technically not a real force and that it's caused by objects traveling a straight path through curved space, and that space becomes curved by mass, giving the illusion of a force of gravity.  That makes perfect sense for planetary orbits, but a lot less sense for the expression of gravity that we are the most familiar with in our day-to-day lives: "what goes up must come down."  Imagine that I hold a ball in my hand, several feet off the ground, with my fingers curled around it, and my hand is above the ball.  Then I open my fingers, releasing my grip on it, being very careful to not impart any momentum to the ball from my hand as I do so.  An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.  If the ball is not moving (relative to my inertial reference frame), it has no path to travel that's any different from the Earth's path through space.  It should remain at rest, hanging there in the air.  And yet it falls, demonstrating that an outside force (gravity) did indeed act upon it.  How does curved space explain this?
93292
Edit : Added a picture for better understanding of my querry. All the texts I have studied has used an non-inertial frame to explain the phenomenon. But every time I see something explained with pseudo forces, I try to realize in real forces.   But in this case I tried to explain it in a frame which is centered in Earth's center and not rotating. But I couldn't explain what happens to the tangential component (to the point on Earth's surface where $g$ to be measured) of centripetal acceleration in this scenario. It doesn't cancel out.   But then I thought the tangential component is so low that practically it would have no effect.  Is my explanation wrong?
11114
Possible Duplicate:          Layman alert...I last did physics in high school, and am just trying to understand something my son is working on.   To keep a box moving across the floor at a constant velocity I need to apply a force equal and opposite to that of the  force working on it.  If I start applying a force greater than the kinetic friction force, the box will speed up. Will it keep speeding up indefinitely, or will the kinetic friction force I need to overcome increase as the box gets faster?
104656
So, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity is not a force instead it is a consequence of objects with mass deforming spacetime, right? And so, according to him, there is no difference between standing on a platform accelerating upwards at 9.81 m/s^2 and standing on Earth, right? But, there is a difference. At least, I think it's a valid difference. If you drop two apples from a high altitude on Earth, not only will they accelerate downwards at 9.81m/s^2 but they will also slightly move towards each other because the Earth is a sphere and gravity acts radially inwards pulling the two apples closer to each other. But if you drop the apples from the same height above the accelerating platform, the apples will only appear to accelerate downwards at 9.81 m/s^2 but will not move towards each other like they would on Earth. Why is this true? Is this even a valid difference? If it isn't, why isn't it?
112974
It's been happening to me for years. I finally decided to ask users who are better with "practical physics" when I was told that my experience – that I am going to describe momentarily – prove that I am a diviner, a psychic, a "sensibil" as we call it. The right explanation clearly needs some electrodynamics although it's "everyday electrodynamics" and theoretical physicists are not trained to quickly answer such questions although each of us has probably solved many exercises that depend on the same principles.    When I am biking under the power lines – which probably have a high voltage in them – I feel a clear tingling shocks near my buttocks and related parts of the body for a second or so when I am under a critical point of the power lines. It is a strong feeling, not a marginal one: it feels like a dozen of ants that are stinging me at the same moment. It seems almost clear that some currents are running through my skins at 50 Hz. I would like to know the estimate (and calculation or justification) of the voltage, currents etc. that are going through my skin and some comparison with the shock one gets when he touches the power outlet.  Now,    my bike that makes this effect particularly strong is a ; the speed is about 20 km/h and the velocity is perpendicular to the direction of the current in the power line; the seat has a hole in it and there is some metal – probably a conducting one – just a few centimeters away from the center of my buttocks. It's plausible that I am in touch with the metal – or near touch; my skin is kind of sweating during these events and the liquid isn't pure water so it's probably much more conductive than pure water; the temperature was 22 °C today, the humidity around 35%, clear skies, 10 km/h wind;  may be between 22 kV and 1 MV and at 50 Hz, the altitude is tens of meters but I don't really know exactly.   What kind of approximation for the electromagnetic waves are relevant? What is the strength? How high currents one needs?   Does one need some amplification from interference etc. (special places) to make the effect detectable? (I only remember experiencing this effect at two places around Pilsen; the most frequent place where I feel it is near Druztová, Greater Pilsen, Czechia.)   Is the motion of the wheels or even its frequency important? Is there some resonance?  Does the hole in the seat and the metal play any role? Just if you think that I am crazy, other people are experience the effect (although with different body parts), see e.g.  and .  seems to suggest that the metals and electromagnetic induction is essential for the effect but the presentation looks neither particularly comprehensive nor impartial enough.  An extra blog discussion on this topic is here:
15829
As of this writing it has been made clear to me that classical physics' Luminiferous aether was a terriblly poor discriptor of space. With the advent of Special Relativity and General Relativity, that aether ceased to be applicable. Today I began reading on the Higgs boson, and the Higgs field. How are those theories different from or similar to the seemingly irrational Luminiferous aether?  P.S. I am a first year student at Bakersfield Community College. If this question seems naive, you now have an explanation.  (EDIT) To me the similarity rests upon their fundamental influences regarding static positions in space. I currently only accept models in which static spacial positions are impossible. Contrastingly relative positions seem quite reasonable. In my humble opinion my naivatisms inhibit me from absorbing and understanding the Higgs boson. If they actually are similar, public protest would probably be more apparant. However, I have put forth my best effort to pose an direct question here.  P.S. The questions Where does space go when it falls? and What happens to time lost when matter accelerates? come much earlier in my studies, and they seem relevant.
9157
I understand that you can (in principle) measure whether "free particles" (no forces) experience accelerations in order to tell whether a frame is inertial. But fundamentally, what determines which frames are inertial (i.e. what principle selects in which frames free particles will not appear to accelerate)? I've been told that the cosmic microwaves determine the ultimate rest frame of the universe, but that doesn't make sense to me, since one can still ask why that frame is an inertial frame.  Also, I understand that there are no real inertial frames in general relativity, but it seems like there certainly exists approximate inertial frames and we can ask why those frames are approximately inertial and not others. For example, in the frame of a person riding a merry go round, free particles appear to greatly accelerate; while in the frame of someone standing next to the merry go round there are no such great accelerations. Why does the guy (or gal) on the merry go round see free particles accelerating while the other guy doesn't.   And if you're gonna tell me that it's "the rest of the stuff in the universe" that determines whether the person on the merry go round sees free particles accelerate, I'll ask how you know that all that stuff is not spinning.  I hope this question sort of makes sense, it's been bothering me for a while and my study of relativity (most of special relativity and just the outline of general relativity) hasn't really clarified it for me much.
116893
In science documentaries that touch on general relativity, it is often said that gravitational pull isn't an actual a pull (as described by classical physics), but rather one body travelling in a straight line on the curved space around another massive body.  I don't know if I misunderstood that or if it's just an oversimplification meant to help the uninitiated understand the concept better, but something doesn't seem to follow. If the Earth travelling around the Sun is just moving along a straight line in the curved space, shouldn't light also be trapped in orbit around the Sun?  I expect the actual equations in the theory also take into account a body's velocity, not just the curvature.
92256
If an object falls into a Schwarzschild black hole and a distant observer watches, they see the object fall slower and slower as it approaches the event horizon, until it is "frozen." (To the observer, it never stops accelerating.) The observer never sees the object cross the event horizon in finite time.  So, with this, how is information about the object lost? Shouldn't the observer have the ability to observe the object indefinitely? To them, shouldn't the object appear "on this side" of the universe indefinitely? Shouldn't the object's light, mass, and charge remain observable "on this side?"  Question: Where does information loss in this setup occur, i.e., which aspects about the object are lost; and—if it makes sense to ask such a thing—when does it occur, i.e., when (with respect to the observer) during the object's approach does the observer lose the ability to measure all of the information about the object?  (If the two questions are not related enough to be asked at the same time, please let me know so I can break this up into multiple questions, Thanks.)
118791
If object A is moving at velocity $v$ (normalized so that $c=1$) relative to a ground observer emits object B at velocity $w$ relative to A, the velocity of B relative to the ground observer is  $$ v \oplus w = \frac{v+w}{1+vw} $$  As expected, $v \oplus 1 = 1$,  as "nothing can go faster than light".  Similarly, $v \oplus -1 = -1$. (same thing in the other direction)  But what if object A is moving at the speed of light and emits object B at the speed of light in the exact opposite direction? In other words, what is the value of $$1 \oplus -1?$$ Putting the values in the formula yields the indeterminate form $\frac{0}{0}$. This invites making sense of things by taking a limit, but $$ \lim_{(v,w)\to (1,-1)} \frac{v+w}{1+vw}$$ is not well-defined, because the limit depends on the path taken.  So what would the ground observer see? Is this even a meaningful question?  Edit: I understand $1 \oplus -1$ doesn't make sense mathematically (thought I made it clear above!), I'm asking what would happen physically. I'm getting the sense that my fears were correct, it's physically a nonsensical situation.
60355
"We have focused our discussion on one-dimensional motion. It is natural to assume that for three-dimensional motion, force, like acceleration, behaves like a vector."- (Introduction to Mechanics) Kleppner and Kolenkow  We learn it very early in the course of our study that Force is vector; But, if I were the physicist defining the the Newton's second law (experimentally) and analysing the result F=ma, how would I determine whether Force is vector or scalar(especially in 3-D).   Actually, when I read the aforementioned sentences from the book, I wanted to  know why do the authors expect it to be natural for us to think that in 3-D "Force" behaves like a vector. I know a(acceleration ) is vector and mass a scalar and scalar times vector gives a new vector but is there another explanation for this?
82411
I'm talking about this nonsense:   Now, I'm aware that there are problems with the practicalities (or possibilities) of methods involving exotic matter with negative mass, and that kind of thing has been addressed here:   But in this case my question is different and more specific. Sweeping all the other problems of constructing such a beast under the rug, wouldn't this violate causality?  SR says that the simultaneity and relative ordering of events is dependent on the relative motion of the observer, but that no matter how it works out, if event A causes event B, no observer will see B first. One of the many problems with FTL travel (or signals) is that if any information is sent faster than light, there will exist an inertial frame in which the signal arrives before it is sent, a blatant violation of causality. (I think we can all agree, can we not, that the threshold should be extremely high before breaking assumptions that we're in a causal universe?)  So how is any scheme to travel faster than light, even if it may locally satisfy the equations of GR, not a blatant violation causality according to SR?  Is my understanding of GR incomplete and there's something in it that obviates the causality implications of SR? Or am I correct that FTL claims should be dismissed with extreme prejudice on this basis alone? (Pending a serious replicable experiment showing causality to be breakable.)
32462
I'm trying to understand the conservation of momentum in general relativity.  Due to the curvature of space-time by matters and energy, the path of a linear motion appears to be distorted.   Therefore from the frame of reference of an observer who is at a not-so-curved region of space-time, it appears that the velocity vector of an object that is moving along a straight line in a very-curved space-time is changing?   Does that imply that from the observer's frame of reference (in a not-so-curved space-time) momentum of that object (in the very-curved space-time) is not conserved?   In this sense is momentum not always conversed in general relativity or did I misinterpret something?
37464
Could someone judge my (stoner) hypothesis that the speed of light has changed over time -- i.e. as the universe has expanded in volume light has slowed down, perhaps going so far as back to the big bang when it was infinitely fast and there was no time because everything happened at once etc. Thinking that the speed at which information can propagate through the universe is linked to the size of it seems intuitive to me. My question -- is there an easy disproof of this? Would Einstein have to be wrong? Does it violate anything supposedly more fundamental such as quantum or string theories? Do any current experiments invalidate it? If not can you show me in any case why you think its unlikely.   Edit 8/24  I'm accepting Mark M.'s answer but will post this here because there is a character limit on comments  @Mark M thanks, good answer but as someone who has only read some popular physics, and should leave this to the experts, I'm still muddled in my personal theory. I don't see why you should need two units to measure the speed of light. The thing I have a hard time wrapping my head around is the relation of time and distance. They seem like they could fundamentally be the same thing. If you say time is measured fundamentally by the vibration of so and so quantum object in space... why can't we just measure that vibration distance as the constant... I'll repeat myself to try to be clear... there is a certain minimum distance that particles have to go to interact with each other... if it wasn't vibrating there wouldn't be time,its what creates the illusion of time...so instead of talking about speed or c as distance/time.... can't we simply talk about that distance a quantum object vibrates....I'll lead up to my point.....perhaps there can need be only one constant here, and that is the physical size of the universe. a tiny metal tuning fork doesn't appear to be vibrating at all but if you blew it up to the size of the empire state building the metal rods would move from window to window. perhaps as our universe expanded in size the length of that minimum vibration (perhaps infinite at point zero) would have expanded, and therefore created the illusion of time and the speed of light, which, as the universe expands, will continue slowing down. perhaps we are like a big balloon and we have been blown up and all the fields/particles-without-size are vibrating more and more in that space.. am i missing something obvious here?
59395
This might be a very vague and unclear question, but let me explain. When an object at rest moves, or moves from point $A$ to point $B$, we know the object must have had some velocity (1st derivative of position) during that trip. It's also true that the object had to have accelerated to gain that velocity (2nd derivative)... if we extend this argument, is it logical to say that the object must have experienced jerk (3rd deriv.) to gain that acceleration? And so on and so forth... 3rd, 4th, 5th position derivatives? Or is my logic flawed somewhere?