Warm-Up Exercise 6

Due 8:00 am, Friday, May 16

Physics 105, Spring Term, 2008

Which has greater linear speed, a horse near the outside rail of a merry-go-round or a horse near the inside rail?
outside horse
inside horse
both the same

Which has greater angular speed, a horse near the outside rail of a merry-go-round or a horse near the inside rail?
outside horse
inside horse
both the same

Ralph told me that he is confused about radians. In the textbook, the angle in radians is defined as s/r. Both s and r are lengths, so they should both have units of meters. These units should cancel out in the ratio s/r. This should leave us with no units. It seems that the units of radians just appear from nothing. Could you help Ralph understand radians better?