eli5: At constant speed and no vision, are you supposed to be able to tell if you are travelling forward or backwards? How?

Question

Was on the train and it was pitch black outside. Thought I was sitting facing the direction of travel but turned out I wasn’t.

Even when I felt the acceleration/decelerating, I didn’t know which it was.

In: 16

Answer 1

You use your memory.

You can detect the acceleration and deceleration in the direction of motion–sideways acceleration will be due to turns.

I’ll up you one…

If you are a windowless box, how do you tell if the box is sitting on a planet or if it is accelerating through space at a constant rate?