Quote:
Originally posted by BlueSky:
For the plane to move forward, 2πR MUST be greater than the distance the treadmill moves backward, but the scenario says the belt matches the plane's speed, so the result can't be greater than zero.

On a runway of course, there's no counter-motion backwards so 2πR is always greater than zero, resulting in forward motion.
Now you have a serious problem...See this scenario I posted and you've been ignoring...
Quote:
The conveyor is set up to match the airplanes speed, so if the airplane is moving at 10 mph, so is the conveyor in the exact opposite direction.

The originally scenario does not say that the planes causes the conveyor to move, but that the conveyor is moved by some other control to match speed of the plane.

So if the plane is off of the conveyor on hard ground moving towards the conveyor at 10mph, then the conveyor is still going to move at 10mph in the opposite direction...Now, an Airplane has front wheels and rear wheels, so what happens when the airplane moves onto the conveyor?
Now revisiting what you said - the wheels of the plane on the conveyor have a counter motion from the conveyor, so the result is always zero (no motion) whearea the wheels of the plane on a runway have no counter motion, and thus always have a result of greater than zero (forward motion)

Now the problem is that the length of the plane and the distance bewteen the wheels remains a constant, and based on what you posted: The the front wheels of the plane on the treadmill have a counter motion and so the result can't be greater than zero, so there is no forward motion; yet the rear wheels (on the solid ground) have no counter motion, so those wheels are moving forward...

How can the rear wheels be moving forward if the front wheels are not moving forward when the distance between the wheels remains constant? That is physically impossible!
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Jeffrey
I'm just trying to put my tires on the rocks of life.