fatherpierre

Are you bored today?

Suresh

Nothing to do with gravity - its about air pressure, as are aircraft wings. It wouldn't work in a vacuum. I take it they didn't try it 'outdoors' then?

mart360

If they launched it outside the ISS, it would travel off in the direction they threw it due to the kinetic energy imparted from the throwing action.

However as there is no air to act against its surfaces, it would travel in a straight line until it either was affected by gravitational pull from another mass, or the kinetic energy from the launch was spent, (possibly never?)


Mart

Boro

iTrader: (1)

LMAO, since when did a boomerang come back because of gravity anyway?

If gravity was the force needed to bring it back, it would travel the same as when throwing a stone. Up, then down lol.

SJ_Skyline

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Yeh gravity plays the part where you throw it UP and it comes DOWN. Not, you throw it FORWARDS and it come BACK.

Suresh

Are they planning to release this mysterious video on a Tuesday?
My guess is that they'll be going for 01/04/08...

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Those links don't say to me that they tried it "outdoors". I would be amazed to see a boomerang come back if it were thrown in a vacuum.

Removed.

It's the aerodynamic lift caused by the wing shaped cross-section that causes it to turn, the spin action helps stabilise it, and I seem to remember that you throw it in a vertical orientation for best performance. If you throw it in a horizontal fashion it acts a bit like a helicopter, the climb rate increases exponentially, and then it stalls and comes back down. Vertically, it turns the corner, if you see what I mean. So no atmosphere, no lift, no turn. As Mart 360 says, chuck it "outdoors", and it will just keep going, and going, and going, until some external force, such as gravity affects it, or it runs out of energy. Space is not a perfect vacuum, it's got al sorts of dust and random matter in it, albeit spread extremely thinly, so collisions on a microscopic level will eventually slow it down. Either that or a sodding great comet will trash the antipodean bent stick!

LG John

Atmosphere is fluid in nature and a boomerang cuts its path through this fluid in the manner already described by other posters. A plane or helicopter work on the same principle. I simply cannot see any way for a boomerang to return in a perfect vacuum as there is nothing to act on its surfaces.

Sounds like BS to me.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Removed.

Mensa wouldn't have me, they don't take Scooby owners

Suresh

They do

Bubba po

But aerodynamically speaking, in a glide the gravitational (downward) force provides the power which is translated into a horizontal movement by an aerofoil interacting with the air. The special way in which a boomerang is thrown turns the straight movement of an ordinary glide into a circular path, the power for movement being supplied by the thrower. It should work in zero gravity but not in the absence of air.

I think.

Daz34

The majority of boomerangs are not designed to return to the thrower. They are used for hunting.
So technically I guess, one of these would work in space