If it is a 50 mph per hour wind and you drive your car at 50mph downwind, if you stick your head outside would you feel the wind?

I can see where you are coming from and in simple theory no you wouldn't because you would be travelling with no relative difference in speed to the wind.

However, life isn't that simple in reality. Obviously it is nigh on impossible to get a car exactly aligned with a constantly changing wind in terms of both speed and direction, but let us assume that you did.

Because the wind is in a prevailing direction, the net movement of air molecules is in that direction, however, the direction of an individual molecule willnot necessarily be in that direction, just that the average movement is. Similarly, the speed of all the air molecules will not all be exactly the same, as they get buffeted about by each other and tiny local differences in pressures and temperatures and so on.

However, it is unlikely that your skin pressure receptors are sensitive enough to pick up on minute differences in direction and speed at an atomic level. What is likely is that you would feel the passage of air that occurs due to the change in pressures and air movements caused by the movement of your car through the air in front.

There was an episode of Top Gear that demonstrated the speed at which hairpieces came off in a convertible car with the roof down. Now, contrary to what you may expect, the hairpiece wasn't whipped off backwards, it was actually blown forwards, in effect accelerating faster than the car (and occupants) were. This is because the shape of the car and it's movements through the molecules of air in front of it alters the aerodynamic properties of the air itself - as the car displaces the air it passes through, the movement of these displaced air molecules produces new aerodynamic forces that act on the area surrounding and behind the car. These new forces and movemetns of air would be felt by you if you stuck your head out, so the real answer is actually yes, you would.

More Questions. Additional questions in this category.

ANSWERBAG BUZZ