Parables and parabolas

So,  there I was, armed with the vertical staff of assistance, the stilt. About to transform it into an upright projectile, with just enough force to lightly ‘nudge’ the kite free from the clasping hold of the tree. To ensure I did not apply so much force that the kite could be struck or damaged. This is again where knowledge of real physics could have assisted.

I was planning (in my head I will add), a motion as sophisticated as any future space docking, and even more importantly un-powered. For, once released from my grasp there was no further control save the stored energy and motion caused by the action of the caber movement. I was mentally calculating an action to achieve maximum apogee (a word I learnt in later years) in that anticipated parabola with the surface of the earth at the very point of contact with the kite. A moment when the stilt would achieve a fractional weightlessness with the ground before surrendering itself again to the effects of gravity and plunging back to the grassy earth …….having achieved its planned mission (or so I thought).

I ensured everyone was back behind me…. Several steps back as, like any NASA sky-shot, there was a certain amount of apprehension as to the initial accuracy of that first throw. Even I was fairly sure my maths would not come out right the very first time. I took hold near the base of the stilt, I raised it straight up, supporting its perpendicular position momentarily with my other hand. I visually gauged the distance to the tree limb where our kite lay forlornly, its motion in the gently swaying tree adding further significant calculations to my aim. I tensed and prepared to exchange my stored energy into the stilt (did your physics class ever sound like this?), which, just as I began the downward motion, prior to the upward acceleration, my guiding hand releasing from the stilt’s side, like a fuel cable falling away from a Saturn V rocket, in that moment, the stilt……immediately and rapidly over balanced and fell to the ground.

Collective laughs burst out from those behind me, in a breathless release of tension and the immediate shout from one or two standing there to, “Let me try!”, “Let me!”. “No!” I insisted. “It’s my idea, so I’ll do it!” (how I would regret that insistence).     

(continued tomorrow)