Originally posted by SaburoS
No. This isn't about giving up.
At no point does the question allow a greater force to be used. It is to match the wheel's speed. Unless the aircraft moves forward the wheel's speed is zero and the conveyor's counter speed is zero.
Unless the aircraft is accelerating the conveyor won't accelerate. Once you grasp that, you'll see where I'm coming from and why I see your reasoning as flawed.
We're not talking about a car that gets its forward movement from its wheels.
The plane flies.
The conveyor fights the losing battle for it has to react to the plane's forward movement for its speed. No forward movement/acceleration, no conveyor speed.
You just haven't grasped the fact of all the forces involved.
You keep confusing ground speed to wheel rpm speed.
Plane flies.
You are getting hung up on the semantics and precision of the word exactly and how the control mechanism could work. Maybe by exactly it anticipates the power output of the engine/prop and responds at the same instant. Maybe it has a tolerance of one mm.
The point is that the conveyor could push the plane back, even if the plane is at full power. The point is that the question forces a solution that is counter intuitive and hard to imagine, even by very bright people.
In the version of the question where the conveyor matches the plane’s speed, I think most children would have trouble understanding why the plane would fly. It’s still a good question though. This question appears to put a twist on that one; it appears to be geared to be understood by some adults. It really is a higher level question. Rabbidrabbit indicated that he intentionally put the twist on it. If he did so with an understanding of this solution; I’d say it was a moment of brilliance.
