Talk:2153: Effects of High Altitude

I don’t even know where to begin. “That Guy from the Netherlands” (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Is that because in the netherlands you do not have any experience with the effects of high altitude? --Lupo (talk) 08:10, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Can anyone verify if the baseballs and golf balls actually fly further? I'd assume it's due to lower air density and therefore resistance, not weaker gravity as someone else had written. Cgrimes85 (talk) 18:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Both parts (air resistance and gravity) play a role here. 172.68.51.106 18:17, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

At 1 mile altitude the acceleration due to gravity is only about 0.05% less than at sea level, so I don't think it's important relative to the lower air resistance. Cgrimes85 (talk) 18:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The difference in gravity due to being 1 mile farther away from the center of the earth is negligible and due to having more mass(aka mountains) under them Denver actually has a slightly higher Local Gravitational Acceleration at 9.81112m/s^2 than say Los Angeles at 9.80636m/s^2. wolfram alpha source Decreased air resistance is the reason for flying further. Stickfigurefan (talk) 19:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Note however that the spin-induced lift would be lower in the thinner air which would somewhat counteract the reduced gravity and air drag.108.162.241.4 12:40, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a fairly commonly recognized phenomenon. Many golf publications reference this. e.g. Titleist postOhFFS (talk) 21:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

This is also commonly recognized in baseball. For example, [this paper[1] argues that after the spin-induced lift reduction ball will still fly 5% farther in Denver than in Boston due to altitude.108.162.216.172 14:08, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Considering the negligible effect of gravity on balls distances (and boiling temperatures and sunburns for that matter), should we not just remove any references to gravity from the main explanation?162.158.154.241 09:34, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd say the last frame is a reference to 5 o'clock time for drinks. On urban dictionary there's a reference to 4:20 being the time to 'smoke the reefer' Palmpje (talk) 18:17, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

It's definitely about weed, not liquor. See Wikipedia article on 420. Barmar (talk) 18:36, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The frame says it's about marijuana. How is this one in question? OhFFS (talk) 21:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Although the comic relates to nuclear war neither the original German text nor the English reworked text (it's definitely not a direct translation) refer to nuclear war. Both refer to unidentified objects however so I've adapted the explanation to that end. Palmpje (talk) 19:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

There appears to be some debate around the UFOs. In my opinion the original German text should prevail (I'm Dutch, not German). The original lyrics state "hielt man für UFO's aus dem All"

which means "thought they were UFOs from space". The English lyrics are not that definite. Anyway - a large 99 (or is it 94 at altitude?) year war broke out just because of some hyper-tense generals. Palmpje (talk) 19:45, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The comic refers to "red" balloons, which which are only present in the English version. The original German text doesn't mention the color of the "Luftballons", so it's not so obvious that this version should prevail.141.101.107.240 13:47, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

The "420" mile marker on Interstate 70 in Colorado was replaced by a "419.99" marker because it kept getting stolen. [2]. Probably not Douglas Hofstadter (talk) 14:46, 23 May 2019 (UTC)