Tomorrow we head to Canada for a week of fishing, so you won't be hearing from me for a while. Don't distribute any tongue weight while I'm away.
Ron
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Ron, while were on the subject of fishing, did you ever think about what is involved in distributing the lure weight.
Let's say your lure weighs 1.8 grams as it hangs downward off the end of your fishing pole. You know this because you weighed it first and after attaching it to your line you feel its mass.
Next you recoil your pole and cast your lure as hard as you can. You are now distributing that lure weight across the lake. Now the object would normally be considered a projectile, but the definition of a projectile is an object upon which the only force acting is gravity. Unfortunately now the lure is also subject to the drag placed on it by your reel in addition to gravity. This reel drag slows the lure's inertia and it moves downward by the force of gravity sooner than if it was a true projectile.
It is not long before your lure hits the water. Because the lure has a specific gravity of greater than 1, it starts to sink. Gravity still acts on the lure and its weight is now distributed downward but it falls much slower than it would had it been falling straight down in the air. This is because of the density of the water in the lake. Although the density of water varies somewhat with temperatue and pressure, and is higher for salt water than fresh water, you can use about 62#s per cubic foot for its weight density in English units.
If you tried to weigh your lure while in the water, it would weigh its weight in a vacuum minus the weight of the fluid it displaced. The density of a material is its mass per unit volume. The ratio of the density of an object compared with the density of water is defined as the material's specific gravity.
The lure continues falling through the water at about 9.8 meters per second squared of course slowed by the buoyancy effect and friction. Finally the lure hits the bottom of the lake and comes to rest. So even as the lure's weight was distributed through the air and water and was acted upon by many forces, it still weighs the same its just in a different place. :B
