From: rockbrentwood@gmail.com   
      
   On Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 5:07:50 AM UTC-5, fortuna wrote:   
   > When the photons reach A and B, they release the mechanism that holds   
   > the ends in place, so that the spring (no longer fixed) can contract.   
      
   No it doesn't.   
      
   All the parts of the spring between the ends stay put   
   and don't change at all,   
   until the "I was released" signal reaches it,   
   the signal being conveyed by the action of the spring, itself.   
   It doesn't get to that part of the spring any faster   
   than the speed of sound in the spring, whatever that may be.   
      
   Until that sound signal reaches that part of the spring,   
   it remains in the whatever state of compression it was in   
   as if nothing had happened to the ends.   
      
   Your intuition is wrong.   
   It is grounded in small objects, where you don't see the propagation.   
   You've never worked with huge objects, by which I mean objects   
   hundreds or thousands of meters in length.   
   Even large trees exhibit this delayed reaction and response -   
   as those of us who are out and about all the time know full well.   
      
   No spring acts as a cohesive unit at all; there is no such thing.   
   That's an illusion borne of being of size too small for you to see its   
   fluidity.   
   You have to treat it as a fluid, for all intents and purposes.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)