An experience model for anyspeed motion

Abstract

Simple airtrack simulations, like those now possible with web-based 3D environments, can provide explorers of any age with experiential data sufficient to formulate their own models of motion. In particular, with a compressable spring, two gliders, a moving clock and two gate pairs with timers (pre and post collision), Newton's laws (or one's own version thereof) may emerge (or be tested) in the lab. With a high speed simulation, one may find instead Minkowski's spacetime version of Pythagoras' theorem (the metric equation) in the data, along with ``anyspeed'' expressions for momentum and kinetic energy.