News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by tbrownaw on Sunday June 09, 2024 @08:19PM (#40628750)
Stick an imaginary sheet of paper between the two cars. If they're perfect mirrors of eachother hitting perfectly head-on, it will be undisturbed just like if you stuck it to an indestructable wall that one of the cars was run into.
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Sunday June 09, 2024 @08:34PM (#40628843)
If you do that then you're considering 2 collisions, ie. you're considering 2 cars, both hitting a brick wall at 50mph. The assumption therefore is that the force felt by the wall is not great enough to overcome the inertia of the wall, therefore each vehicle does not exert any force on the opposing vehicle.

It's the same as saying that if you drive 2 cars into the same wall at 50mph the force felt by each driver is not the same as driving a single car into a wall at 100mph.

That is true obviously.

However if there isn't a perfectly immovable "piece of paper" in between the 2 cars, then you can't just ignore the force acting on each car, from the other car.

F = ma

Also, Newton's 3rd law states that forces generate equal and opposite forces.

So if you punch a wall, you are exerting a force on the wall, and the wall is exerting an equal and opposing force on your hand.

When car A hits car B going 50mph, the force is the mass of the car times the acceleration required to stop the car (ie. deceleration, acceleration in the opposite direction).

However that force is matched by a force in the other direction PLUS the force of each car attempting to decelerate the other car.

You have 2 forces for each car: the force felt by car A as car B tries to accelerate it in the direction car B was travelling, and the force felt by car B from car A that opposes that force, and vice versa.

So if we assume the cars are driving in an Elon Musk hyperloop tunnel under Vegas in a straight line then yeah, the forces felt by the drivers in each vehicle is the same for a car driving 100mph into a "brick wall" (or more accurately a big pile of bricks the same size and shape as a car with equivalent mass).

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by Aloisius on Sunday June 09, 2024 @10:48PM (#40629653)
> or more accurately a big pile of bricks the same size and shape as a car with equivalent mass

This is an odd assumption.

If someone asked me what kind of wall cars are most likely to run into at 100 mph, I'd have assumed something like a freeway barrier wall that are fully anchored to the ground or the reinforced concrete walls they use for crash tests - something with a mass substantially greater than a vehicle.

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by indigo0086 on Sunday June 09, 2024 @09:37PM (#40629279)
Peak Hackernews reply thread
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Sunday June 09, 2024 @09:40PM (#40629301)
Well that’s what you get when Milton Friedman’s son comes out as being as confidently wrong about physics as his dad was about economics
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by s1artibartfast on Sunday June 09, 2024 @11:27PM (#40629855)
The irony is that he is correct about the physics.

Some people in this thread think that you can take two cars and double the kinetic energy acting on both of them. If this were true, you could create infinite energy by repeatedly colliding cars.

Perhaps it isn't surprising that people who think this is true also disagree with his economics.

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Monday June 10, 2024 @01:15AM (#40630398)
> The irony is that he is correct about the physics.

He definitely isn’t

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by s1artibartfast on Monday June 10, 2024 @01:17AM (#40630411)
He absolutely is, which just makes it all more funny.
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:31AM (#40631116)
Yep okay I retract my "confidently wrong about physics" statement, someone else explained it and I get it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40631089

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by shxuw on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:18AM (#40631643)
Ah, perhaps you might reconsider your epistemic status on the economics of Milton Friedman.
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:10AM (#40632271)
Nope :)
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by quern on Monday June 10, 2024 @02:46AM (#40630888)
I agree he's correct about the physics but I disagree with his father's economics -- my thinking on economics is more in line with David's.
Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by dools on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:30AM (#40631110)
Yes I retract my "wrong about physics" assertion, I have had it explained to me and I get it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40631089

Although I still think Chicago school/libertarian economics is "confidently wrong".

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by quern on Monday June 10, 2024 @03:51AM (#40631210)
Evidently, but presenting that assertion without backing it up with any kind of argument isn't very constructive.

Of course I don't expect anyone to refute an entire school of thought in an HN post.

Re:On being brought up by libertarian economists by vundercind on Sunday June 09, 2024 @10:23PM (#40629537)
Yeah this is more on-brand than I could have imagined. I’m not sure I’d have dreamed up something this perfect if asked to parody the guy.