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It was the 70s. It was junior high science fair. It was something to do for a teenage boy who built model rockets.
I put a mouse in the nosecone compartment of a model rocket and fired the rocket to a reasonable height. Estes rockets of the day were a fabulous way for a growing mind to absorb the physics of the world around them through a fun hobby.
Shooting mice up into the sky was just a guy thing.
I shot the mice up with a B-engine and in my adolescent mind I imagined the "experiment" would net some interesting results on the mouse. I postulated in my theory that the short flight would have some noticeable physical affect on the mouse. So, this was a physiology experiment as well as a physics experiment.
The mouse and rocket floated back to the Earth on a parachute and the mouse was none the worse for the experience.
That was not satisfying. Obviously the acceleration the mouse experienced was well within the mouse's physical ability to endure with no visible signs of discomfort. I didn't want to hurt the mouse but I needed something to report about my mouse flight.
A model rocket engine does not burn at the same rate for the whole time the fuel is burning. so I couldn't have said for sure what kind of forces the mouse experienced. However, Estes published information on what was the average thrust and maximum thrust for an specific engine. The engine thrust would be the same thrust felt by the mouse. Remember Newton's 3rd Law: equal and opposite reaction. And thus the mouse would experience the acceleration due to the thrust of the engine.
I was able to determine the maximum altitude of the rocket using the same process described in the vCalc equation:
Remember, this was in the days before injuring a mouse might be considered a less-than-socially-acceptable application of the scientific method. I calculated one approximation of the force on the mouse by using the primary thrust reported by Estes described for their engines in their engine literature. I also assumed separately a constant acceleration for a distance with the height the rocket achieved. It was a crude prediction of the force felt by the mouse. I don't remember what force on the mouse I calculated. The math was more to satisfy the science fair judges. I wouldn't become as fascinated with the math of such things until much later in my education.
So, having little to write about in my notes on the rocket flight, I thought about the effect of centripetal force on the mouse and I built a centrifuge, a device with a compartment made of -- again -- a rocket body tube on the end of an arm extending from a central motor. I put the poor mouse in the tube and spun him at a fairly rapid rate for a minute. I did the math and determined an approximation for the centripetal force on the mouse and noted calculated force and duration. All my math came from junior high text books, as I had nothing like vCalc to refer to. There was no Internet. You had to look something up in a book you had on hand. Google has changed the world of learning.
Centripetal Force using angular rate