Mail*Link(r) SMTP               Heavy boots
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> HEAVY BOOTS
> 
> About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of
> Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching
> assistant was explaining Descartes. He was trying to show how things don't
> always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen
> always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let
> go of it on the Moon.
> 
> My jaw dropped a little. I blurted "What?!"  Looking around the room, I
> saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the
> TA's statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like "What's your
> problem?"
> 
> "But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly," I
> protested.
> 
> "No it wouldn't." the TA explained calmly, "because you're too far away
> from the Earth's gravity."
> 
> Think. Think. Aha! "You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the
> Moon, didn't you?" I countered, "Why didn't they float away?" "Because
> they were wearing heavy boots." he responded, as if this made perfect
> sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who's had plenty of logic
> classes).
> 
> By then I realized that we were each living in totally different worlds,
> and did not speak each other's language, so I gave up.  As we left the
> room, my friend Mark was raging. "My God! How can all those people be so
> stupid?"
> 
> I tried to be understanding. "Mark, they knew this stuff at one time, but
> it's not part of their basic view of the world, so they've forgotten it.
> Most people could probably make the same mistake." To prove my point, we
> went back to our dorm room and began randomly selecting names from the
> campus phone book. We called about 30 people and asked each this question:
> 
> 1. If you're standing on the Moon holding a pen, and you let go, will it
> a) float away, b) float where it is, or c) fall to the ground?
> 
> About 47 percent got this question correct. Of the ones who got it wrong,
> we asked the obvious follow-up question:
> 
> 2. You've seen films of the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon,
> why didn't they fall off?
> 
> About 20 percent of the people changed their answer to the first question
> when they heard this one!  But the most amazing part was that about half
> of them confidently answered, "Because they were wearing heavy boots."
> 
> 
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