[CLOSED] The Laws of Flight (among other things)

[noasark]

Who: Spyro and Noa
Where: Valhudor Common Room
When: Early May
What: S T U D Y TIME

After merely a month, it is difficult to say one can be 'settled' in a magic school- but Noa nonetheless thinks he's getting fairly close. He's by no means entirely familiar with how Adelai thinks of course; nor is he able to completely come to terms with the fact not all of the instructors here necessarily want him there. The first class for Thaumaturgy was certainly an eye opener.

But Noa thinks he's off to a pretty great start. Spare clothes and uniforms? Check. School supplies in the form of notepaper and writing utensils? Check. Not to mention access to the library. For all that it's a culture shock, it's enough of a shift from his entire world that he can't even be too mad about anything especially 'insulting'.

It's enough to make someone try....something new. Something challenging.

Something stupid, honestly.

Noa sets down the books, the papers, and pens in the dorm at a small table, and glances toward the doorway. Any minute now...

It's time to tutor a dragon.

Comments

[holdyourhorns]

[Give the young dragon a moment as he digs through his bag, which is clean yet not very organized either. After shuffling through some papers in a specific pocket he digs out a couple of sheets of half-hearted notes. The actual material is at less than a page and a half of slightly smudged writing.

... Formulas and what certain variables are supposed to mean and what the entire equation is supposed to represent is a pain.]

I might've missed a thing or two.

[Thanks to nodding off in brief intervals. Still, it's kinda better than absolutely nothing.]

[noasark]

Ah.

[Yes, yes he may have. He looks over the notes a fair bit, squinting and nodding.] We'll just have to start from the top then. You've gotten most of the formulas down at least...Were you able to retain what each one is used for?

[holdyourhorns]

'F' is supposed to represent force... and then the different forces have a different little subscript.

[Also, that weight is being represented into the curriculum's equivalent of "Newtons".]

Which isn't getting into all these "free body diagrams" or the word problems making us solve for an object's force, mass, or acceleration.

[noasark]

Hmmmm...Think of it like this.

When you're flying, [He assumes the guy can fly,] do you simply continue going up, or do you need effort to do so?

There's 'force' placed on you.

Let's see one of these word problems- perhaps if we rephrase it, it'll work more easily.

I thank Khan Academy for teaching us both this stuff

[holdyourhorns]

[Something seems to register in him a bit].

Hm.

[Yay for math. The first problem presented on the homework is:

The van of Hans and Frans is stuck on slippery ice, so they must get out and move it by hand. Hans pushes rightwards with force magnitude (Fh) and Frans pulls rightwards with force magnitude (Ff). The van has a mass of (m).

What is the correct expression for the horizontal acceleration magnitude (a) of the van?
The van experiences no friction. Consider rightward as the positive direction.]

wheezes thanks free class info,

[noasark]

[Noa will give him a bit of time, looking over the problem himself.] Oh...they could have written this a bit better, direction-wise... [He mutters, squinting.]

Regardless- you have one pushing, and one pulling- and there's no grip for the vehicle. What are your thoughts?

[holdyourhorns]

That they're both still moving it in the same direction?

[He peers over at one of his notes about how Force = mass x acceleration. And it seems they're not using actual solvable numbers yet.]

[noasark]

If they're located on the same side, they certainly are~

This is where the difference in numbers would be key- that difference would affect what direction the vehicle moves in...or whether or not it moves at all for that matter. In this case, if it's equal force, pushing and pulling in the same direction, they're going to be stuck there for a long time.

[He pauses, adding-] But you need to prove you can sort that out with the formula now.