> @ those arguing over the frisbee gif: I'm really curious to know how much you guys would score on a typical undergrad mechanics test.
Are you commenting on a position of being informed, or just to insult? Because if it is the former, I am sure we would all like to hear your qualified and educated opinion on the "argument" that hasn't been mentioned for 5 days.
Well I just saw it today, I don't think it matters when it was held. I wasn't trying to be smug or anything, but reading some of the post made me facepalm big time. I'm two inches away from my bachelor's degree in physics and I'll be starting my master's next month. I agree with rumborak.
Mechanics of spinning objects are difficult to begin with, but when they are in a fluid (air) it gets really messy. Because of the various forces involved, a frisbee will (like the wing of an airplane) generally experience lift when it is spinning. But unlike an airplane wing, a frisbee is not really streamlined. Which means a lot more turbulence, which means we can mainly only guess as to what is REALLY going on. There is still debate as to what causes the lift on an airplane wing, so I would imagine that frisbees would experience the same problem (even though I haven't really looked into it).
The fact of the matter is, like rumborak said, there is no way you could even begin to describe the frisbee moving along the wall using just newtonian physics.
It could certainly be fake, but to me it looks like it could happen.
sorry if I offended anyone, I just get a little 'passionate' when reading stuff like that.
edit: just found this:
https://people.csail.mit.edu/jrennie/discgolf/physics.pdf haven't completely read it but it seems like a good basic treatment of the forces at play. Just skip to section 3 if you don't want to read it all, it's mostly text from there on.