Originally posted by AThousandYoung So what if both ends were attached to the floor/wall by a wheel connected to some sort of track?
That's a damn good question. I know that it's possible to make such an assembly, and let the ladder fall, and that no part of the ladder will approach the speed of light (otherwise NASA would be lauching warp-drive for at home use).
My first thought would be that on a real ladder/track assembly, the ladder would eventually be pushed off the wall just a little bit, bouncing against whatever is holding it to the track, then rebounding. This would make the equation invalid after that point, same deal as before. Any thoughts?
Originally posted by PBE6 That's a damn good question. I know that it's possible to make such an assembly, and let the ladder fall, and that no part of the ladder will approach the speed of light (otherwise NASA would be lauching warp-drive for at home use).
My first thought would be that on a real ladder/track assembly, the ladder would eventually be pushed off the wall just a li ...[text shortened]... ing. This would make the equation invalid after that point, same deal as before. Any thoughts?
Just a thought, what about the Lipschitz Condition?
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LipschitzCondition.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LipschitzFunction.html
Any function with a bounded first derivative must be Lipschitz.
Mathworld has once again confused the hell out of me with a definition but perhaps this will be useful.