Aritifical Gravity Devices

Screenbert writes "This article talks about simulating gravity for space missions. However this article also spawned deeper and darker questions. Go with me on this for a minute.... If you spin something around really fast and you are on it, you get pushed to the edge of the spinning object. IE, a merry-go-round. Gravity is a side-effect of mass. Since the earth is spinning, it pushed everything out from it, thereby having a counter-effect of mass. So if the Earth where to stop spinning, would we become mushrooms?&"

Comments

The link broke

[MrScience]

ARGH, thank's slashdot. You'll have to cut/past it. http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/highschool/swirt/science /physics/lesson/03circ/centrif/centr.htm l

And of course it's adding another space after the last l. Hmph.

'Aritifical'

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

It's bad form to point bad spelling, but it's so visible!

Hemos types too fast.
__

How much do you weight at the north and south poll

[Big Torque]

You will tip the scales more but not by much, but because the circumference of the earth is so large an the arc of travel is " strait enough" to counter act any huge difference if you ware travailing as fast on the moon it would have a much greater affect..

You don't really get pushed away from the center.

[Siqnal 11]

It's an illusion. The floor is pressing against your feet. The radial acceleration in circular motion is always directed towards the center of the motion.

When you are turning a corner in a car, it seems like you are being pushed to the side away from the center. Actually, your inertia is tending to keep you going in a straight line and your car is accelerating towards the center of the curve.

--

if the Earth stops rotating...

[Tumbleweed]

We'd have more to worry about than being heavier, to put it mildly. First off, those of us who don't die by freezing on the dark side, or frying on the light side, will probably have to deal with flooding from the now-deeper oceans. I don't know what effect this would have on tides & plate tectonics, but I bet it might not be too pretty. Sure would make for a stronger human after several generations, though, I bet! :^)

Re:How much do you weight at the north and south p

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

If peoples' votes tallied with the SAME weight at the polling stations, then we'd not have the mess with the presidental election!

I am SO bored...

"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."

You'd appear heavier if earth stops rotating

[esonik]

A rotating system is a special case of an accelerated system and therefore "virtual" forces appear due to inertia. In a rotating system this force is directed radially outwards and is dependent on the angular velocity w of the rotation and on the distance r to the rotation axis:
F = m * w^2 * r = m * a

where w = angular velocity = 360 deg/day
and r = radius = 6000 km (approx!)

If you put in the numbers you get a = 0.03 N/kg (at the equator)
At latitude theta the force is F = m * a * cos(theta)

In the case of earth, gravity keeps you from flying tangentially outwards into space: F = m*g, g = 9.81 N/kg

As you can see, a is much smaller than g: it's only about 0.3 % of g.
If earth stopped rotating you would experience an additional weight (force not mass!) of 0.03 N/kg or 2.4 N for an 80 kg human, if you stand somewhere on the equator.

Right, there is no such thing as centrifugal force

[MrScience]

As you can see, it is all an illusion spawned by centripetal force. Centrifugal force is just a name for an apparent byproduct that the layman latches onto due to lack of understanding.

Scroll down past all the math, and watch the roll of tape slide on the dash. Very illustrative.