Friday, July 27, 2007

Two Questions For Friday

Can the wind ever blow strong enough or long enough to make a flag blow straight without a single wave in it?

and

Have we associated winning the lottery with being struck by lightning so much that we actually think that someone who is struck by lightning is lucky?

5 comments:

the Book of Keira said...

Excellent! I say that being struck by lighting would be pretty interesting. I fantasize that t=it gives superpowers.

Rocketstar said...

No, I do not think any strength of (natural) constant wind can ever make a flag stick straight out w/out a wrinkle because the flag lacks any structure. Now maybe in a lab setting you could because you need to make sure that the force of the wind remains exactly constant and doesn't chnage in the up and down direction. Because if the wind strength is connstant and some of it has ANY upwrd direction, the flag will wrinkle.

Good question. I miss your questions...

We are actaully more likely to be struck by lightening than wint he lottery, but I would NEVER feel lucky if I was struck by lightening.

Brianinmpls said...

You are very close on the wind rocket. In order for a flag to fly perfectly straight the wind would need to blow in exess of 1000 miles per.

Wind does blow in a straight line but the rotation of the earth that occurs at a rate of roughly 1000 miles per hour means that the flag which is fixed to the eart is repositioning itself constantly against the wind which is not fixed to the earth making it an almost impossibility that it would ever fly straight although there is a possibility that the climate conditions could make that powerful of wind it is a very small chance.

Colette said...

I would definitely consider being struck by lightning unlucky. Plus, it would hurt like an SOB if you lived through it. Winning the lottery may relieve a lot if not all stress however, there's a pain in the ass with that too I'm sure.

Maggie Moo said...

The only way being struck by lightening would be lucky is if the crazy ass fireball that spit out of my hand landed in my worst enemies face.

Granted, I don't have any enemies that I know of, so this is strictly hypothetical, of course...