These problems are for thought and discussion. I will try to post one problem each week.
28 Aug: How far does a car travel before a one molecule layer of rubber is worn off the tires?
8 Sep: If you have a spaceship that accelerates at 0.1 g (a = 1/m/s^2), how long will it take to get to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star? (Alpha Centauri is approximately 4 light years = 4 10^16 m from the sun.) How does this compare with the four months Pathfinder took to get to Mars?
29 Sep: How much potential energy do you gain climbing Mt Everest (h = 29,000 ft)? How much is this in Joules? In Big Macs?
28 Oct: Why do helicopters have one large horizontal main rotor and one small vertical tail rotor?