Had reservations at a Hotel in Lincoln city for the night before the eclipse (made them almost a year ahead) as I lived in Portland, which was North of totality. I had been living in the the path of totality in '79, But except for a a brief glimpse during partiality through a gap in the clouds that closed up quickly (a friend and I actually chased that gap in a car,), I wasn't able to see it. This was extremely disappointing as I had been anticipating it for years. I was also into photography at the time (I even had my own darkroom set up), and had hoped to get a picture.
We started to get warnings of the possibility of hours long traffic jams due to the influx of people coming to see the eclipse. They were telling people that you should pack extra water, food etc, in case you got stuck on the road. Just in case, we left extra early Sunday morning and packed a cooler. It turned out not to be needed as traffic was light to and In Lincoln City. (actually lighter than normal for a weekend). It seems that all the warnings scared people away. It was sunny when we arrived, clouded up later in the afternoon, but cleared off again in the evening.
We went to bed early to have time for breakfast before the show started (partiality started around 9:05 AM). We woke to heavy fog. The Hotel clerk had said the day before that high winds were predicted for Monday that they should blow things clear by eclipse time. We at breakfast and went out to find a good view to the Southeast. It was still foggy by the time the Moon first started to cover the Sun, and the we kept losing sight of it in the fog. For a while I saw some blue sky overhead which gave me hope that the fog was starting to clear. Then the wind freshened a bit. But instead of blowing out of the fog it blew it in more thickly.
With twenty minutes to totality, it was beginning to look like weather conditions were going to get the bet of me again. Then I heard a voice behind me say "Excuse me". I turned to see a sanitation truck driver who had come over from his truck parked in the Hotel lot.
" You know that its not foggy everywhere"
He then told us that if we just drove down the highway a bit, turned left and drove up the road for 3/4 of a mile, the sky was clear. I grabbed the camera and the tripod, and we jumped into the car. Sure enough after following his directions we soon saw blue sky and sunlight. We came across a pullout with other cars in it and with room left for our car. I got the camera and tripod set up again. I didn't have a solar filter for the camera (it wasn't designed for them), but I got a couple of shots off by holding my eclipse glasses in front the lens.
As totality got closer, we started to notice that the fog we thought we left behind was staring to drift in from the West. Everyone at the pull out were basically trying to will it to hold back for just a bit longer. It must have worked, because the Sun's photosphere finally slipped behind the Sun and the corona burst forth. I snapped of a couple of quick shots, just pausing long enough to see if I got anything. Then sooner than I wanted, the Sun poked out from behind the Moon, we saw the diamond ring effect, and it was over. I went over to check on what I had captured on the camera. A handful of people came over to ask if I got anything. I showed them what I got and ended up with a collection of e-mail addresses and requests for copies. They had all tried to get photos with their cell phones and none of them had turned. In the end, with the aid of a helpful stranger, I got that eclipse photo that I had missed out on over 38 years later.
What's a bonus?
My employer has never given out bonuses, and never will.
But, since I don't expect one, it's not a let down. I suppose it's different if you're relying on getting one.
The Outer Limits episode was not based on the Isaac Asimov collection of Short stories.
Instead it was based on a 1939 short story of the same name written by Otto Binder. This story had the distinction of being the first story written as if by the robot.
Asimov did not write the first of his robot stories until 1940. The rest were written over the years that followed. In 1950, the individual stories were collected and published as I, Robot. The title was against Asimov's wishes, as he felt it should have been reserved for the original short story. The publishers went ahead and did it anyway.
As it turned out, The good doctor's fears were well founded; As almost everyone now associates "I, Robot" with Asimov, and few are even aware of the existance of the ground-breaking story by Binder.
Friction between the Earth and water, drags the tidal bulge a little bit ahead of the moon. This, in turn, cuases an unbalanced pull that slows the Earth's rotation and transfers angular momemtum to the Moon.
The result is that the moon moves about 3.8cm further form the Earth every year and the Earth's Day increases by about 1.5 ms per century.
Tidal power plants would increase this drag and slighty speed up this process, (very, very very slightly, not enough to make much of a noticealbe difference, but a difference none the same.)
In effect, tidal power plants derive their energy from the difference between the Earth's period of rotation and the Moon's orbital period. Pulling extra energy from this system slighty hastens the day when the Earth eternally shows only one face to the Moon.(Not enough to worry about, though)
Columbus's trip actually had a justifiable business purpose - he was looking for a more economical trade route to India (hence the whole "indians" misnomer that's plagued us ever since). My understanding - which may be incorrect on a few points - is that it was well-known by the aristocracy that the earth was round (and so that such a trip was theoretically possible), but it was thought that the ships of the time wouldn't be able to make such a long trip (and they might have been right; Columbus only had to make it part way around before finding the New World).
Yes, it is true that it is well known that the world was a sphere at the time that Columbus sailed and that the distance was considered too great to sail.
What made Columbus sure that he could sail to India was that he thought that the world was smaller than it actually is. He accepted a figure of 15,000 miles for the circumference of the Earth rather than the correct 25,000 mile value(The value accepted by just about everyone else).
He made such a nuisance of himself pushing his plan to Sail to India that he was finally given three broken down ships and a crew of convicts and sent on his way. It was a win win situation. If by some fluke, he was right, a new trade route was established; If he was wrong, at least they were rid of him.
As it turned out, He was wrong, but had the good luck of running into the Americas.
To his dying day, Columbus would not accept that he did not sail to India.
That formula is only accurate if the the orbiting bodies mass is very small compared to the body it is orbiting.
For a circular orbit it can be obtained by taking the formulas Fg = GMm/d and Fc = vm/r, Assuming that d=r and solving for v when Fg = Fc:
Then take this obtained orbital velocity and the distance traveled in one orbit: 2r(pi) you get the period formula.
But, d does not equal r. For m, r = =dM/(M+m)
When M >>> m, then M+m almost exactly equals M and r almost exactly equals d. But if m is a respectable fraction of M, then you must take this into account.
In 550AD, and again in 2600AD and 3880AD, for a while it will become a true satellite of our planet, in effect Earth's second moon, although technically it will remain under the gravitational control of the Sun.
Technically, Our "first" moon is under the gravitational control of the Sun. If you calculate the force of gravity acting between the Moon and the Sun, you will find that it is about twice that of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and Moon. Orbitwise, this means that the Moon's heliocentric orbit always curves towards the sun. This is a situation unique to the Earth moon system( At least to recent knowledge).
We should be looking to send a manned mission to Venus before sending a manned mission to Mars. Venus is 10 million miles closer to Earth than Mars is.
Unfortunately, Venus is deeper into the Sun's gravity well than Mars is. It is actually cheaper, energy wise, to send a ship outwards to Mars even though it is further, than to send a probe inwards to Venus. It is a matter of orbital mechanics.
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Had reservations at a Hotel in Lincoln city for the night before the eclipse (made them almost a year ahead) as I lived in Portland, which was North of totality. I had been living in the the path of totality in '79, But except for a a brief glimpse during partiality through a gap in the clouds that closed up quickly (a friend and I actually chased that gap in a car,), I wasn't able to see it. This was extremely disappointing as I had been anticipating it for years. I was also into photography at the time (I even had my own darkroom set up), and had hoped to get a picture. We started to get warnings of the possibility of hours long traffic jams due to the influx of people coming to see the eclipse. They were telling people that you should pack extra water, food etc, in case you got stuck on the road. Just in case, we left extra early Sunday morning and packed a cooler. It turned out not to be needed as traffic was light to and In Lincoln City. (actually lighter than normal for a weekend). It seems that all the warnings scared people away. It was sunny when we arrived, clouded up later in the afternoon, but cleared off again in the evening. We went to bed early to have time for breakfast before the show started (partiality started around 9:05 AM). We woke to heavy fog. The Hotel clerk had said the day before that high winds were predicted for Monday that they should blow things clear by eclipse time. We at breakfast and went out to find a good view to the Southeast. It was still foggy by the time the Moon first started to cover the Sun, and the we kept losing sight of it in the fog. For a while I saw some blue sky overhead which gave me hope that the fog was starting to clear. Then the wind freshened a bit. But instead of blowing out of the fog it blew it in more thickly. With twenty minutes to totality, it was beginning to look like weather conditions were going to get the bet of me again. Then I heard a voice behind me say "Excuse me". I turned to see a sanitation truck driver who had come over from his truck parked in the Hotel lot. " You know that its not foggy everywhere" He then told us that if we just drove down the highway a bit, turned left and drove up the road for 3/4 of a mile, the sky was clear. I grabbed the camera and the tripod, and we jumped into the car. Sure enough after following his directions we soon saw blue sky and sunlight. We came across a pullout with other cars in it and with room left for our car. I got the camera and tripod set up again. I didn't have a solar filter for the camera (it wasn't designed for them), but I got a couple of shots off by holding my eclipse glasses in front the lens. As totality got closer, we started to notice that the fog we thought we left behind was staring to drift in from the West. Everyone at the pull out were basically trying to will it to hold back for just a bit longer. It must have worked, because the Sun's photosphere finally slipped behind the Sun and the corona burst forth. I snapped of a couple of quick shots, just pausing long enough to see if I got anything. Then sooner than I wanted, the Sun poked out from behind the Moon, we saw the diamond ring effect, and it was over. I went over to check on what I had captured on the camera. A handful of people came over to ask if I got anything. I showed them what I got and ended up with a collection of e-mail addresses and requests for copies. They had all tried to get photos with their cell phones and none of them had turned. In the end, with the aid of a helpful stranger, I got that eclipse photo that I had missed out on over 38 years later.
What's a bonus? My employer has never given out bonuses, and never will. But, since I don't expect one, it's not a let down. I suppose it's different if you're relying on getting one.
The Outer Limits episode was not based on the Isaac Asimov collection of Short stories.
Instead it was based on a 1939 short story of the same name written by Otto Binder. This story had the distinction of being the first story written as if by the robot.
Asimov did not write the first of his robot stories until 1940. The rest were written over the years that followed. In 1950, the individual stories were collected and published as I, Robot. The title was against Asimov's wishes, as he felt it should have been reserved for the original short story. The publishers went ahead and did it anyway.
As it turned out, The good doctor's fears were well founded; As almost everyone now associates "I, Robot" with Asimov, and few are even aware of the existance of the ground-breaking story by Binder.
Actually, It would.
Friction between the Earth and water, drags the tidal bulge a little bit ahead of the moon. This, in turn, cuases an unbalanced pull that slows the Earth's rotation and transfers angular momemtum to the Moon.
The result is that the moon moves about 3.8cm further form the Earth every year and the Earth's Day increases by about 1.5 ms per century.
Tidal power plants would increase this drag and slighty speed up this process, (very, very very slightly, not enough to make much of a noticealbe difference, but a difference none the same.)
In effect, tidal power plants derive their energy from the difference between the Earth's period of rotation and the Moon's orbital period. Pulling extra energy from this system slighty hastens the day when the Earth eternally shows only one face to the Moon.(Not enough to worry about, though)
Columbus's trip actually had a justifiable business purpose - he was looking for a more economical trade route to India (hence the whole "indians" misnomer that's plagued us ever since). My understanding - which may be incorrect on a few points - is that it was well-known by the aristocracy that the earth was round (and so that such a trip was theoretically possible), but it was thought that the ships of the time wouldn't be able to make such a long trip (and they might have been right; Columbus only had to make it part way around before finding the New World).
Yes, it is true that it is well known that the world was a sphere at the time that Columbus sailed and that the distance was considered too great to sail.
What made Columbus sure that he could sail to India was that he thought that the world was smaller than it actually is. He accepted a figure of 15,000 miles for the circumference of the Earth rather than the correct 25,000 mile value(The value accepted by just about everyone else).
He made such a nuisance of himself pushing his plan to Sail to India that he was finally given three broken down ships and a crew of convicts and sent on his way. It was a win win situation. If by some fluke, he was right, a new trade route was established; If he was wrong, at least they were rid of him.
As it turned out, He was wrong, but had the good luck of running into the Americas.
To his dying day, Columbus would not accept that he did not sail to India.
That formula is only accurate if the the orbiting bodies mass is very small compared to the body it is orbiting.
For a circular orbit it can be obtained by taking the formulas Fg = GMm/d and Fc = vm/r, Assuming that d=r and solving for v when Fg = Fc:
Then take this obtained orbital velocity and the distance traveled in one orbit: 2r(pi) you get the period formula.
But, d does not equal r. For m, r = =dM/(M+m)
When M >>> m, then M+m almost exactly equals M and r almost exactly equals d. But if m is a respectable fraction of M, then you must take this into account.
In 550AD, and again in 2600AD and 3880AD, for a while it will become a true satellite of our planet, in effect Earth's second moon, although technically it will remain under the gravitational control of the Sun.
Technically, Our "first" moon is under the gravitational control of the Sun. If you calculate the force of gravity acting between the Moon and the Sun, you will find that it is about twice that of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and Moon. Orbitwise, this means that the Moon's heliocentric orbit always curves towards the sun. This is a situation unique to the Earth moon system( At least to recent knowledge).
We should be looking to send a manned mission to Venus before sending a manned mission to Mars. Venus is 10 million miles closer to Earth than Mars is. Unfortunately, Venus is deeper into the Sun's gravity well than Mars is. It is actually cheaper, energy wise, to send a ship outwards to Mars even though it is further, than to send a probe inwards to Venus. It is a matter of orbital mechanics.