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steve-V8s

Original Poster:

2,901 posts

249 months

Saturday 15th August 2015
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This will be simple for someone that has been to school more recently than me.

Whilst sitting in my armchair I am presumably acted on by a force of 1G. If the floor suddenly disappears I and the armchair will accelerate downwards at roughly 64ft per sec/per sec because of the 1G force.

So if I have a G sensor what will it read before and after the floor disappears.

I guess it will read 1G in both cases but in opposite directions.

steve-V8s

Original Poster:

2,901 posts

249 months

Saturday 15th August 2015
quotequote all
DocJock said:
~32 ft/sec/sec, not 64
Yes quite so.

steve-V8s

Original Poster:

2,901 posts

249 months

Thursday 20th August 2015
quotequote all
The 64ft/s error is the sort of thing that happens when you get old and stupid.
I was considering that if I fitted rockets to my armchair and accelerated horizontally and measured in a horizontal plane a distance of 64ft would pass in 2 seconds if I was achieving 1G so had 64ft on my mind. However that is not the point.

As people have suggested the measuring device I have is an accelerometer.

When measuring in a vertical plane the device will read 1G even though I am not accelerating. When I remove the floor and accelerate downwards it has to read something different, at the centre of the earth the acceleration will stop and after a bit of an overshoot the slightly warm seat will presumably settle in a zero G region, here the reading again has to be something different.

My feeling is it has to read -1G initially as the floor is pushing upwards on the chair , +1G as I fall and the 0G when suspended in the centre.