"On the Shoot the Monkey Demonstration" 
Regarding an intuitive explanation to the shoot the monkey demonstration.  One 
of your class mates (Daniel M. Drucker) has provided one of sufficient merrit that I quote 
it for you below.
 D. Drucker 2/2000  "If I fire the gun at the monkey with g=0, the bullet will 
travel along a straight line. The trajectory always points towards the monkey, because the 
monkey doesn't fall under g=0.
Now, I add some gravity, which applies equally to the monkey and the bullet. 
Watch the trajectory again, and while the bullet doesn't travel along a straight line with 
respect to the hunter's reference frame, it *does* travel along a straight line with respect 
to the MONKEY'S reference frame.
To put it another way, consider the bullet to instead be a guided missile pointed at 
a monkey in zero gravity (poor monkey!). We give the missile an initial X velocity by 
firing it from the gun. As soon as the missile is
fired, the monkey says "uh oh!" and takes evasive action by accelerating in the Y 
direction. But the missile is *smart* -- it sees the monkey's escape, and (instantly) starts 
firing its Y-axis engines to match the monkey's acceleration.  The downward-component 
of the monkey's Y-motion is always matched by the downward-component of the 
missile's Y-motion (even when the missile's upward-component is greater) and thus the 
monkey is blown to ...."   Daniel Drucker 

Note added by M. Croft 2/2000
	The above explanation utilizes an accelerating (or "non-inertial") reference frame.  
Such reference frames are typically (perhaps too often) avoided since, to paraphrase 
Einstein, the laws of physics must be the same in all inertial reference frames.  Keeping 
Newton's Second Law (F=ma) "the same" requires that one avoid accelerating reference 
frames (no extra accelerations or "fictitious forces" introduced due to the reference frame).  
However, how the laws must be modified to jump to an accelerating reference frame are 
well defined and sometimes very useful as illustrated by the shot the monkey discussion. 
	Let us take this discussion one step farther.  Suppose one is abducted by aliens 
and taken (sedated) into deep space, far from any gravitational force sources.  If the space 
ship is at rest, or in constant velocity motion, you (and all inside) would feel weightless.  
Now suppose the aliens want to wake you up and observe you while fooled into thinking 
you are still on earth.  They carefully set up a shoot the monkey demonstration.  At the 
instant just after the bullet leaves the gun and the "monkey" lets go of its tree the aliens 
:fire their rocket motors to impart precisely a=+9.8m/s2; and wake you up instantly.  You 
feel your weight (-mg) you see the monkey fall with g = -9.8m/s2, you see the bullet 
follow a parabolic trajectory (consistent with g = -9.8m/s2) and strike the "monkey" just 
as in your old physics class.  You think you are confused but on earth.
	Of course, an observer outside the space craft sees the monkey remain motionless 
(he let go of the branch before the rocket fired), and the bullet travel in a straight line (it 
had cleared the muzzle just before the rocket fired ) to hit the monkey.  The observer sees 
you, and the floor on which you rest, accelerating at a=+9.8 m/s2 upward toward the 
monkey and the bullet.
	This is a classic example of Einstein's Equivalence Principle from which he 
formed his theory of General Relativity (the theory of gravity in terms of the curvature of 
space).  The Equivalence Principle basically says that, experiments in the presence of 
mass and a gravitational interaction must be equivalent to those carried out with no 
gravity, but in a reference frame having the precise acceleration needed to simulate the 
gravitational field.  In this formulation the path of light, the quanta of which (photons) 
have no mass, also follows a curved path in a gravitational field as they must in an 
accelerating reference frame.  Thus the intuition involved here is the kind that Einstein 
used to revolutionize physics at the beginning of the 20th century. .