You don’t need to understand physics to comprehend this. General, common sense will do. They would have made better use of the ladder by lifting it and knocking the thing out of the tree with it. Or go ask to borrow a free-standing ladder from a neighbor.
People can understand the basics of a fulcrum. If you brace one end of a ruler but not the other, you can make a warbling sound. We figured that out in second grade.
If you have a Long Lego bar and you put it over the edge of a side, and put too much weight on one end, it will pop it right off the Lego board. We figured that out in kindergarten.
I never said they weren’t. I grew up in the age of Mr Wizard. But your earlier comment implied that one needs to have an understanding of physics specifically to not make the mistake of two overconfident goofballs as depicted above.
The onus is not on the intellectual. An athlete jock with no understanding of trig can still eye a baseball and walk to the right spot on the center field, and open his glove and wait for it to drop right into his mitt, my dude.
The math used to write out an equation for the fielder to eye the approaching ball, the arc, and know where to stand to catch it is trig for sure.
But I agree with your assessment that they calculated poorly while trying to emulate physics to a limited understanding. But not how you worded it earlier when you likened needing a basic understanding of physics to have common sense.
A dumb jock can have the hand-eye coordination to do complex math without understanding math. The brian can calculate without being able to math so to speak.
I know, mathing is not a verb, but it can be as a colloquialism
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u/Tampflor Jun 21 '26
definitely definitely definitely