SoylentNews

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.wired.com/story/electric-ford-f150-pulls-a-train-friction-physics/ [wired.com]

In a recent stunt, a Ford crew hitched an all-electric F-150 pickup truck to a freight train filled with 42 more F-150s. Then a driver hit the throttle, and the pickup truck towed the 1.3 million-pound train. This raises some interesting questions. How hard is it for a truck to pull a train? Is that even possible? Could a normal truck do this? Of course it's an impressive feat—but the real limiting factor is friction.

Let's start with a more idealized situation. That's what we do in physics—when something is potentially complicated, we make the scenario less complicated to make sure we are on the right track.

Original Submission