Just passed by a train with a hundred or so cargo crates. how do they start? I understand how they continue moving, but how do they overcome the inertia of starting it? It has to be like thousands of tons, and I can’t imagine a bunch of coal being able to start moving that. unless of course it can, in which ELI5
In: Engineering
Here’s my five year old answer that might put a good image in your head: take a string and tie a bunch of objects to it roughly every six inches for, let’s say, ten feet. I want this to be long enough for you to really see. Scrunch all the objects close together in a straight line. Now, hold the front of the string and slowly start pulling. Notice what happens. The first object starts to move, then, once the line between it and the second one is taut, only then will the second one start to move. The first object is moving at your pace now, so it’s not resisting very much, it’s basically joined your system, so most of your energy is going toward getting the second object moving. The other objects, again, may as well not exist until the string is taut again.
Trains…. trains is kinda like that.
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