What matters most?

[Bill Ballard]

At 8:16 PM -0400 8/23/03, Mark Davidson wrote:
>Newton's equation of motion is
>
>force = mass * acceleration, (or torque = inertia * angular acceleration)
>
>Stanwood sets acceleration to zero. Then the forces neatly sum to zero.
>He never measures inertia, acceleration, or energy in the system directly.
>This does not make his system in any way invalid, but  he's still one
>step away from what is, in my mind, the ultimate goal, which is tracking
>where the energy from the pianist's fingers goes.

Stanwood's system of analysis is a static one, and is by far and away 
the best we have of that sort. The next step to which you refer is a 
dynamic analysis of the system. That is based on moments of inertia 
for every moving part in the lever train, each one of them requiring 
its own integral to define it. Integrals upon integrals. Steven 
Birkett has done this, but not without a grant of sizable funding. 
Are we likely to see something like this which we can buy for under 
$200 and which will fit in our tool box? Not likely, although each 
year pigs learn more about flying.

>So here's the question: for a given setup, what is the terminal hammer
>velocity for a 100g (or any other) DW?

I'd love to be able to have questions like that one answered. The 
means might have been available to us in the form of software on a 
laptop, if the P.T.G. had taken advantage of Steven Birkett's grant 
proposal back 6-8 years ago. Now the means belong to someone else.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"I go, two plus like, three is pretty much totally five. Whatever"
     ...........The new math
+++++++++++++++++++++