But it's not moving linearly.

A component of its motion is.

debatable, it's a circle.

And at its lowest point its entire motion vector points straight backward.

You wouldn't describe it's motion as linear

Ok, we can nitpick on that point but it's still kind of neat.

that's more of a riddle

If a pebble stuck on that part of the wheel came unstuck at that moment it would in fact fly backward.

Yes.

I said it was just for fun :-)

Yes, but that's a translation event, the motion it's experiencing translates.

translation isn't the right word.

It's just a neat kinematics riddle bud.

ya.

fine.

got me.

The kind of thing us lowly engineers love ;-)

I've turned myself into more of an electrical engineer than I started off as.

Oh yeah? What kind of physics do you do?

I like thermodynamics

It’s fun

(I'm a non-practicing ME)

failure analysis on electronics that go to space.

Sweet

Even though I failed the first time.

So, radiation effects on electronics, chemical methods of failure, electrical methods of failure, etc..

Thermo is interesting stuff but yeah it can be pretty involved and counterintuitive Sal. Good thing you CEs don't need it for much of anything.

Well.... that depends. Lol

Thermo is awesome, because it's simultaneously the hardest part of physics to intuitively get, but also has the laws of physics that are least likely to be overturned.

Not for structural, but wastewater treatment you need a little bit

Ah yeah for flow effects I guess.

Nothing to fancy though

@Jeremy-Retard agree, thermo is pretty amazing once you 'get it'

Mostly for modeling biological treatment

Kind of gives you that I HAVE THE POWAH feeling when you can model a whole power plant.

i'm sure that's a satisfying feeling.

Movement of water through pipes can be modeled with other equations

Yeah Navier-Stokes but you need some thermo if you're working with hot/compressible stuff

Turbines, pumps etc.

That rarely happens with municipal wastewater. I don’t know about industrial wastewater

I never ended up needing any of it in my brief stint as a practicing engineer but I did enjoy it in school.