Why Do We Feel Acceleration, But Not Constant Speed?

As a skill site , it ’s easy to get bogged down in questions like " Is there life on Enceladus ? " and " Where are all the aliens ? " , when hoi polloi are struggle with more basic ( but fun ! ) questions like " Why ca n’t wepower our cars with magnets ? " and " If you fall from a skyscraper on the Moon , would you dieor otherwise get badly hurt ? "

Another basic interrogation people have been ask : why do we experience acceleration , but not speed ? One person recently effectively asked this in the " Physics Is Fun " Facebook chemical group .

" While travel in a flight which is flying at a height of 30000 foot [ 9,144 time ] , we feel as if we are sitting stationary ( unmoved ) , " the Facebook userwrote . " How come it gives us such a feeling when the aircraft is cruising at 700 [ kilometer ] per hour [ 435 miles per hour ] ? "

The short reply is that you only sense a force when a force is being apply to you . This only materialise during speedup , when the aeroplane ’s engines agitate the airplane frontwards . You feel that push via the seat , as you are speed .

When you reach the cruising speed , however , force is not being lend oneself to you via your buns . You are in a res publica of inactiveness , or the propensity for objects in question to remain in motion in a straight line at the same velocity unless another personnel play upon it .

Since the plane remains at the same f number , you carry on at that speed unless something acts upon you , like speeding up or slowing down of the aircraft .

An easy way to think about this is to imagine what would find if the plane were to short stop while you were not wear off your seat belt as the trajectory attender give notice . The answer is that you would remain the journeying onward that you ’ve been position upon until you are rapidlydecelerated to restby ( for example ) the chair in front of you . If they were to swing a left or right-hand , of course , you would sense the motor forcefulness , which is n’t literal , but let ’s not perplex things for now .

If youwereto find the speed and not the speed of a plane or gondola , that would be really , really weird , considering that the car is only going along at 110 kilometer per hour ( 68 geographical mile per minute ) while the major planet orbit the Sun at107,000 kilometers per hour(66,500 nautical mile per hour ) , and the Sun thrust through the Galax urceolata at828,000 kilometers per hour(514,500 naut mi per hr ) . Let ’s just say it ’s skillful affair that we only feel acceleration .

An early version of this article was publish inJanuary 2024 .