A friend and I have been having an ongoing debate for years. We were at a pub on a wharf, watching shipping container ships and cruise ships come into dock, and he posed the question. With no wind, no waves, perfect conditions, could he move the ship at all?
In: Planetary Science
Drag force scales with velocity at all speeds, so if the ship is *completely* stationary (just to be clear, this is a “spherical cow in vacuum” kind of scenario, the ship will never be that still IRL), the drag is zero and you can push the ship. Reeeaaaaallyyyy slowly, though.
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