Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums General Topics Miscellany Sparks
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
I suspect it's a [modified] section of a parabola, so short that it's hard to differentiate it from a straight line.
A flying spark is a piece of incandescent metal or other matter ejected from some glowing object; we see its trajectory because it's hot enough to give off light. When/if at some point it bursts into pieces, still glowing, each piece is thrown out into its own path. After they cool off we don't see them, but [except for air resistance] they're all still just falling bodies with an initial velocity, and the paths are all parabolic. "S = 1/2 a t squared" or some variation of that.
[Of course air resistance can be considerable for objects that small, so the deviation from a true parabola may be quite significant.]
Edit: On rereading, I suspect you weren't asking for the name of the shape of the line at all...but I think the gist of what I said covers what you were getting at, so maybe I did answer the question after all.
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted ![]()
Sparks
Jackie 10/01/02 11:36 AM ![]()
brightly, brightly
wofahulicodoc 10/01/02 11:51 PM ![]()
Re: brightly, brightly
FishonaBike 10/02/02 10:41 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
wsieber 10/02/02 05:29 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
jmh 10/02/02 06:03 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
Jackie 10/02/02 01:16 PM ![]()
Re: Sparks
lapsus linguae 10/03/02 03:49 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
Wordwind 10/03/02 08:47 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
RhubarbCommando 10/03/02 02:13 PM ![]()
Re: Sparks
Jackie 10/03/02 11:36 AM ![]()
Re: Sparks
wwh 10/03/02 01:27 PM ![]()
Re: Sparks
AnnaStrophic 10/03/02 01:54 PM ![]()
Re: Sparks
musick 10/07/02 06:48 PM
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,915Posts229,991Members9,198 Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members testawad, Bill_L, achz, MAGNVSTALSMA, Burlyfish
9,198 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 0 members (), 1,062 guests, and 3 robots. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 16
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 10,956tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,954Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org