| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 10:55:57 AM | | I was driving home from the mountains the other day and a fly was circling around in my car. I was going 85 MPH. Flies cannot go upwards of 85 MPH (can they?)--so how is it that the fly could fly around in my car, and not be splatted against the back window? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 11:05:54 AM | | The air inside the car was traveling at 85 MPH and the fly was being carried along with it. . . 85?! Slow down girl!! | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 12:05:20 PM | ha ha we have LOTS of room out west--I was in the slow lane! Now answer my question! | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 1:29:11 PM | Well, the fly starts off (in relativistic terms) already going 85 MPH in the same direction that the car was going.
It's no more going to be hindered in circling around your car than your hair would be blown backwards by your forward motion relative to the road, or the coffee in the cupholder blown backwards all over your back window and seats.
If you hit something, that fly will get sudden deceleration just like everything else in your car, and it'll decorate the inside of your windshield. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:05:56 PM | Estimating the airspeed velocity, well it depends.
Was it african or european? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:26:48 PM | | Yea ive always wondered Why when your in a plane going 400 mile an hour you can jump and Land in the same spot.. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:51:11 PM | Well luckily it works that way or traveling 600 mph in an airplane would really suck.
And thats because you are traveling the same speed as the airplane. Again if that didn't happen when we jumped on earth and did not match the atmoshperes speed we would land hundreds of miles from our origional launch | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:57:01 PM | Yeah, the plane thing makes sense to me since we're touching the ground, so my intertia is the same as the plane's. But the fly is flying, not touching the car at all. If you've ever jumped OUT of a plane, you know you fall out and *seemingly* backward, once the inertia from the plane dissipates (or whatever the term is).
This sort of reminds me when the Road Runner is falling out of a box off a cliff, and at the last moment, he steps off and is fine--the box shatters.
========
And can you explain what that has to do with this? I'm asking for explanations, not observations.
VVVVVVVV | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 2:58:03 PM | ...and let's not forget that the earth is rotating on its axis at many hundreds of miles per hour... and the earth is revolving around the sun at about 70,000 miles per hour... and the sun in revolving around the galactic center... ... ... | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 4:46:04 PM |
Flies cannot go upwards of 85 MPH (can they?)
In the car is one thing..
but I have had deer and horse flies circle my head as I am doing 40 K on a 4x4 bike.
They are absolutly evil...take chunks of meat when they bite.
If you ever see a moose charge out of the woods or standing in deep water
normally thats why. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 9:08:39 PM | | The first guy justwantono had the right answer. Nobody reads! The fly is flying around in the air being transported (at 85 mph) inside your car. If you want to see what happens to the fly if he has to deal with the air outside, put your top down (yeah the car top, though you can do what you want with the other one), and watch as he tries to fl...where did he go? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 9:11:52 PM | | Oh, I get it--the air bubble is travelling at 85 as well. Thank you, that makes some sort of sense. Justwanttono is a smart chick. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 9:24:55 PM | No, no, no! That's all wrong.
When your car goes 85 mph, you and your pet fly are actually stationary. The wheels of the car are forcing the planet to accelerate to 85 mph underneath. Problem solved. I was wonderng why the flies in my neighborhood were all crashing against houses, though, but that's a lesson for another day. I assume you were on the road then.
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 9:41:06 PM | thats right. Do you know of Einsteins relativity? All motion is relative. Anything that is in the car is at rest, from its perspective. You cant run 85 miles an hour either, but you can easily jump from the back seat to the front seat. And if you toss an apple to someone in the back seat, it doesnt hit their face at 85 miles per hour. It hits their face at whatever speed you threw it. Only when you are accelerating or decelerating do you feel that you are not at rest. As long as you move at constant speed, you are at rest, according to you.
In fact, if, instead of being in a car, you were in a closed box travelling at 85 miles per hour, you would have NO WAY of detecting you were in motion at all. No scientific method whatsoever exists that can detect the constant motion of an inclosed space without looking at the outside world.
Incidentally, if you were to hit the breaks really hard, do you know what the last thing that would go through the flies mind would be when it hit the windshield?? Its arse. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/12/2009 11:14:40 PM | just an interesting thought experiment....say, you are driving down the road in a school bus with all the seats taken out. In the middle of the bus are three objects. A rubber ball, a balloon filled with helium, and an ice cube hanging from a string.
You come to a SUDDEN stop. Which direction to those things move in relation to the bus?? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 3:36:01 AM |
Which direction to those things move in relation to the bus??
I always suspect a trick in these kind of questions... and since I like tricks, I'll have a go!
Intuitively speaking, and assuming you, as the necessary observer haven't already got off the bus through the front windscreen (you and the bus come to a sudden stop together) the rubber ball would roll forward - the ice cube hanging on a string would swing through an arc - and the helium filled balloon... mmm.
I'm not sure that that would move very much at all? It would be pinned to the roof of the bus so it would probably oscillate a bit before settling fairly close to where it was in the first place, while, relative to the balloon, the helium wouldn't move at all.
But! If there was a moth in the empty bus also - how much time would elapse, given the interior volume of the bus and how long it would take the moth to cover every part of it flying at normal moth speed, before the moth flies into your face?
The expected amount of time? Or far less? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 7:04:10 AM | Thank you, Igor. Op picked up on the speeding, but not the answer.  | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 8:04:54 AM | Hey, I never said I was smart! I have evidence on other threads to prove it...
OK, so what if there is a vacuum inside the car (ha--like my car's ever seen a vacuum!)--then the objects inside go splat?
I don't know why, but the answer to time travel seems to be associated with the fly in the car. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 8:17:28 AM | ^^^ If there is a vacuum inside the car, it won't make a difference to things going splat.
It will make a difference in your ability to breathe. It also should make the car be able to accelerate, decelerate and turn better as there is less mass being moved.
Many people forget that air has mass too.
This is why you can improve your fuel mileage by drafting/slipstreaming the vehicle in front of you because the car in front is speeding up the mass of air in front so that your car doesn't have to expend as much energy pushing air out of the way.
This is a well-known technique in racing.
And the lack of air in space is why we have probes launched into space over 20 years ago still moving away in relation to Earth.
I suggest you read the book The Physics of Star Trek which goes into great detail with issues like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Star-Trek-Lawrence-Krauss/dp/0060977108 | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 8:32:32 AM | | Yes hear that one.. I have still not seen anybody on here answer the whole question of flies in a car or 600 miles in a airplane with one word that answers all your questions.. Its called inertia people.. Come on guys where are the smarts here.. If you want to learn something check ouy my subject on Metaphysics.. Later.. Ladies, and gents.. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 11:08:41 AM | | the helium balloon should move backwards. The air in the bus is denser than the helium. So the air will rush to the front, pushing the lighter helium balloon back. | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 11:24:03 AM | The way the question is usually presented on school tests is: "If you have a helium filled balloon on a string, and the string is attached to a seat in the car, which way will the string tilt when the car accelerates?  | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/13/2009 10:50:06 PM | | I've always wondered what flies think when they've travelled along in my car for many, many kilometres and they finally make their way back out of the window to find that the landscape they were in previously has totally changed. Do you suppose they freak out? | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/14/2009 8:55:24 AM | i just vacuumed my car today and tried to get rid of the odd hover flie as it was sucked through my air vent as i tried to keep cool..
made me think what pointless lives these creatures live...they only live a few days (apparently)
sometimes i see them together and think "they do "it" more than me | |
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| Flies in your car
Posted: 8/14/2009 9:31:41 AM | I think travelling in a car for flies might be like time travel for us. I wonder if they have different "languages" in different parts of Colorado. I wonder if they are shunned by their own kind because of xenophobia. I wonder if they find "the one", and why s/he is always in the same air vent they are?
Maybe I'm just projecting. | |
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