The educating Internet

There are a few sites I visit very regularly: YouTube, Fark, icanhascheezburger... but those sites have a tendency to send me off to other corners of the Internet to find out more (well.. maybe icanhascheezburger is a bit less likely to do so)

A comment in the hover text of the latest XKCD led me to look up this thought experiment:

A plane is standing on a large treadmill or conveyor belt. The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyor moves in the opposite direction. This conveyor has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyor to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?

Which led me to lots of argument, the inevitable Wikipedia article, and a comprehensive explanation from an exasperated blogger.

So you see it's worth reading these sites so often. They lead me to further edumacation!

Although again, perhaps icanhascheezburger is a bit of an exception.