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Subject: Re: More on Cold Bottles of Coke
Message-ID: <378@abnjh.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Jan-84 13:19:17 EST
Article-I.D.: abnjh.378
Posted: Wed Jan  4 13:19:17 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jan-84 04:20:45 EST
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In fact, the area of contact of a skate blade with the ice it is
skating on is very small indeed.  10 inches long by 1/16th inch wide is not
even a good estimate.  The actual area of contact is one or the other
of the sharp edges of the blade, not the flat surface.  Schematicly,
it looks like this:

       \    \					|     |
	\    \		not like this:		|     |
	 \    /					|     |
	  \  /					|     |
-----------\/-------------		--------+-----+-----

[[Boy, that's the last time I try to use VI for drawing pictures.]]

That's why a 'dull' skate does not move as smoothly or as fast.

I don't know how to even guestimate the true area of contact, but
you can see it will be very much smaller than 0.625 inches.

Rick Thomas
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