To travel in a circle requires acceleration toward the center, which requires a force in that direction. A ship or yacht generates lateral force on the hull/keel by having an angle between the direction the vessel is pointing and its veolcity vector. It points inward relative to the circle, so the bow travels a smaller radius and less far than the stern. Brent Meeker On 6/24/2013 2:50 PM, James Propp wrote:
I intended this to be an applied math question, not a pure math question. So I'm asking about real yachts, not models thereof, and the only assumption I'm making is that reasonable people can agree on what counts as a yacht and what doesn't.
Jim Propp
On Monday, June 24, 2013, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
What assumptions are you making?
--Dan
On 2013-06-24, at 1:55 PM, James Propp wrote:
Do the front and back of a yacht travel the same distance?
(Let's assume that the earth is flat for purposes of this problem.)
Here's a question that I think is equivalent: If a yacht travels in a circle, do the front and back ends of the yacht travel on circles of the same radius?
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