Don't put your little man on the treadmill, John
As, I suggested, the history is metaphorical, it is how the object got to be there. How else? This contrasts with your ideas that things need to be kept in frames, or they will run wild. Nothing happens until some thing acts upon it. As far as the molecules go, I was not suggesting some strict from of determinism.
Yes, the history is metaphorical, I see. Yes, also, there's no need to keep everything in frames so it doesn't run wild. Things do what they do.
We can perhaps forget inertial frames of reference for now. Please, also forget the DDWFTTW cart for now, and help me understand what you are saying, one last time. I presented the idea of just a person on the ground, then on a treadmill precisely so we could forget the complications of wheels, gears and props, and deal just with a surface and the wind (and an observer just to 'take measurements'). Numbers (not my strong point) and cart mechanics crept in again and confused me.
I find your mathematical descriptions impossible to follow, perhaps partly because you tend to use some sort of shorthand notation, and it has left me still unsure whether (as I would put it using frames) - w.r.t. the person on the belt - you consider there to be a down-belt wind or not. I know that there is one w.r.t. the ground, but we seem unable to reach an understanding that way about the thing I'm interested it.
We can probably forget frames of reference altogether (whew!) by just discussing what would happen in certain circumstances. Instead of a man, let me posit a small device, like a child's toy ladder for a doll, about 40 cm high, with rungs at 4 cm intervals, which I fix vertically to the ground, then to a moving surface. To each rung, I attach a small, light piece of tissue paper by its top edge like a miniature cat-flap, to indicate to an observer which way the wind is going past it, because it will move to the left or right.
I will keep the same directions as before - in 'real wind' the wind blows from left to right - and the moving surface (avoiding the t-word) will move right to left under a stationary mass of air (with the ladder attached).
We both agree - I am sure - what happens if this is standing up on the ground in a 'real wind' from the left. All the flaps will be pushed to the right by the wind. We also agree about the effects of friction - there will be a gradient of windspeed, slowest at the bottom, higher at the top, hence we can expect the greatest movement of the top flap, down to almost none perhaps at the bottom.
Please tell me what you would see if this contraption was then put on a moving surface (or indeed, it could have been on that very same surface already, but there is means to move it). The ladder is now moved with the surface, in still air.
As you will note, this, while completely familiar in essence, gets rid of specific measurements, calculations, moving observers, anemometers, frames of reference, and other complications. We can contrive whatever optics etc. are required to observe the paper. Could you please tell me which way the bits of paper flap at different heights? Thanks.
