two runners, running toward each other, pass each other with a separation of 90cm, their individual speeds are 18km/h, the speed they pass is a total of 36km/h. They experience something of the reality of their individual kinetic energy, and going back to toddler age they probably have experienced examples of combined kinetic energies of moving people that collide.

say they intuit something of kinetic energies up to the combined speeds of two running people that might collide head on.

now take a two-lane road that is for traffic both directions, vehicles pass each other at a total of 220km/h.

take an alternate hypothetical now, in which case I suspend your body (no vehicle) and propel it at 110km/h, then another person at 110km/h and have you converge and pass each other with a separation of 90cm at a speed of 220km/h.

doing this being suspended and steered by wheels as part of a capsule you call a car doesn’t freak you out, but the magic hypothetical way probably would.

at this point I ask which example is more informing of the physics, the reality, the dangers?

to answer the question you’d have to ignore that being magically suspended, accelerated, propelled so would freak you out anyway, if unaccustomed to it.

which brings me to how people become accustomed to speed, the predilection for unsafe velocities to humorously quote from Star Trek.

specifically the question is does traveling in a vehicle insulate you from the realities of speed and kinetic energy?

it’s sort of motion without effort, or perhaps disproportionately less effort. The effort of running, including coordinating the mass of the body, these inform of physics, there’s no escaping it.

if traveling in a capsule is a shared experience with social status associated, i’m wondering what other things shared of social experience similarly insulate from the realities of the world, not just of basic physics, but maybe more broadly of organic reality.

and my final question is of the capsule of culture, things humans aspire to, norms, that elevate and propel, that magic.

> does traveling in a vehicle insulate you from the realities of speed and kinetic energy?

No. Experience does. New things are frightening, familiar things that have occurred safely many times before are not frightening.

Even so, I find driving frightening, particularly if nearby vehicles are driving erratically. Mrs mollwollfumble is overtaken by fear at least 2-3 times every time I drive her anywhere.

which brings me to how people become accustomed to speed, the predilection for unsafe velocities to humorously quote from Star Trek.

You don’t notice it most of the time, I pay no attention on the train as like you mentioned it is isolated from the rest of the world and everyone seems to use it for me time. Cars you notice it when looking at the road as it’s blurred and acceleration and deceleration remind you. Inertia no matter the means of transport would be a reminder of speed, so if like in Star Trek you have a inertia dampener you have no idea you were moving unless you looked out a window

The closer I am travelling to another object at a high relative velocity, the less I like it.

In accounting terms it’s called “downside risk”, the likelihood that something really bad will happen.

Is there a velocity other than a relative velocity, an absolute velocity maybe?

mollwollfumble said:

> does traveling in a vehicle insulate you from the realities of speed and kinetic energy?

No. Experience does. New things are frightening, familiar things that have occurred safely many times before are not frightening.

Even so, I find driving frightening, particularly if nearby vehicles are driving erratically. Mrs mollwollfumble is overtaken by fear at least 2-3 times every time I drive her anywhere.

you and I may have lost some of the excitement for motion, exhilaration you know, that endorphin pump or whatever that rewards for having escaped serious injury/death.

i’d expect being in a moving vehicle does insulate from the realities of kinetic energy, of typical driving anyway, being a smaller part of a larger mass. Sensory correspondence becomes subordinate in a way to the larger mass, rests within it.