TangerineSteve17
Well-Known Member
Stuuuuuu said:
tut. Of course! Ah well, people ask silly questions sometimes. That didn't occur to me, it makes perfect sense. derder.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
space questions
- Thread starter Le Havre Oswald
- Start date
tut. Of course! Ah well, people ask silly questions sometimes. That didn't occur to me, it makes perfect sense. derder.
TCIB
Well-Known Member
As long as there is mass there will be gravity, yes the two are inseparable.
The effect of gravity would decrease if we started ejecting rock and soil yes in the sense your getting at.
If we were on a larger rock it we would be heavier and vice versa.
Remember what is here is just recycled Steve so we may at one point have 10 billion humans, the difference will be offset elsewhere i.e. a few less trees. The only additional mass is that of little comets and such.
The effect of gravity would decrease if we started ejecting rock and soil yes in the sense your getting at.
If we were on a larger rock it we would be heavier and vice versa.
Remember what is here is just recycled Steve so we may at one point have 10 billion humans, the difference will be offset elsewhere i.e. a few less trees. The only additional mass is that of little comets and such.
TangerineSteve17
Well-Known Member
TCIB said:As long as there is mass there will be gravity, yes the two are inseparable.
The effect of gravity would decrease if we started ejecting rock and soil yes in the sense your getting at.
If we were on a larger rock it we would be heavier and vice versa.
Remember what is here is just recycled Steve so we may at one point have 10 billion humans, the difference will be offset elsewhere i.e. a few less trees. The only additional mass is that of little comets and such.
Aye, I got there in the end :) for some reason I didn't realize at the time of questioning that new people aren't a miraculous creation of new mass. :/
Good to know my first point was, in a way, feasible.
Blue Maverick
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 22,163
Yes I appreciate things like microwave ovens, non stick pans etc have come from actual manned space exploration, what is was getting at is looking for black holes etc really at this time are quite insignificant I'd rather the money was used firstly on curing cancer and then on space travel in our own solar system, I know some of these would go hand in hand as many experiments are done in zero gravity which can't be performed on earth, so I'm all for that. I just don't think looking that far into the universe benefits us that much at this moment. I'm all for gathering knowledge but let's not get ahead of ourselves, I believe Stephen Hawking said it would be a bad idea to contact ET as they may not come in peace.TCIB said:Well one day we will have to leave this rock if we want to persist as a species.
We need a good propulsion system for that and looking so far out may present habitable planets, gas clouds to refuel and a whole load of stuff we have not even thought of.
The reality is not much money goes to funding telescopes and other imaging hardware and associated projects.
If you think for example of the usa's military spending, if SETI had a fraction of that cash they could search so much more for example.
Half our modern conveniences we take for granted could trace their roots back to the space program.
It is human ingenuity and engineering at it's best. Yes war demands invention but that has the slight bad point of seeing millions die.
IanBishopsHaircut
Well-Known Member
I love all this shit...seriously
I really wish i'd paid more attention in Physics class
I find nothing more interesting than astrophysics...It's mind blowing
I really wish i'd paid more attention in Physics class
I find nothing more interesting than astrophysics...It's mind blowing
Elbow beards
Well-Known Member
By studying black holes and how they work, they could may be in the future figure out how to create on in a lab to harness it for cheap, clean reliable fuel, it's the unexpected things they find out that count.Blue Maverick said:Yes I appreciate things like microwave ovens, non stick pans etc have come from actual manned space exploration, what is was getting at is looking for black holes etc really at this time are quite insignificant I'd rather the money was used firstly on curing cancer and then on space travel in our own solar system, I know some of these would go hand in hand as many experiments are done in zero gravity which can't be performed on earth, so I'm all for that. I just don't think looking that far into the universe benefits us that much at this moment. I'm all for gathering knowledge but let's not get ahead of ourselves, I believe Stephen Hawking said it would be a bad idea to contact ET as they may not come in peace.TCIB said:Well one day we will have to leave this rock if we want to persist as a species.
We need a good propulsion system for that and looking so far out may present habitable planets, gas clouds to refuel and a whole load of stuff we have not even thought of.
The reality is not much money goes to funding telescopes and other imaging hardware and associated projects.
If you think for example of the usa's military spending, if SETI had a fraction of that cash they could search so much more for example.
Half our modern conveniences we take for granted could trace their roots back to the space program.
It is human ingenuity and engineering at it's best. Yes war demands invention but that has the slight bad point of seeing millions die.
IanBishopsHaircut said:I love all this shit...seriously
I really wish i'd paid more attention in Physics class
I find nothing more interesting than astrophysics...It's mind blowing
Physics and astrophysics are like incest, it's all relative(s)...
TangerineSteve17 said:This maybe a completely ridiculous question. But as I can not understand General Relativity, no matter how many times I read it, I'll have to ask it.
This all relies on Gravity being related to mass. (if it doesn't, please don't read on it will be embarrassing).
Though we often like to point towards the relationship between gravity and mass, it's not really understood properly. Gravity isn't a force, it is the curvature of spacetime. Just like if you were to put a bowling ball in the middle of a trampoline, the resulting sagging around isn't a force it is just a consequence of having weight on top of it. That's why gravity is seen as an attractive force - just a rolling a marble on that trampoline near to the bowling ball would cause it to fall into the bowling ball. Same idea.
Could we chip away at the earth and fling out small amounts of the rock at a time (I assume it wouldn't require much energy to propel say 20kg of useless rock past our gravitation pull
It would take lots and lots of energy to do that. Look at the size of the living quarters in a spaceship and look at the size of the rocket.
. If we kept doing this wouldn't we decrease the mass of the earth over time? Thus gravity would eventually be altered and it'd be easier to fly off into space? Even better why not just fill up containers of ocean water, and catapult them off out into space. Is this feasible?
Well not really because the gravitational pull of the Earth would suck them back into it. Remember that the Moon is 400,000 km away from the Earth and is huge and that is in orbit.
Also, (if that wasn't enough!) the population is 7billion or so. That's a lot of weight in bodies. When there was just a few thousand people on earth, was gravity different? And if we continue to spawn at this rate, are we steadily increasing gravity? Or are these numbers minuscule in scale of things?
Yes to all questions.
The effects of gravity actually changes the closer to the equator you get. It is up to 0.5% stronger at the poles than the equator due to the centrifugal force of the planet. It's one of the reasons why they like to launch rockets from round there there
Stuuuuuu
Well-Known Member
I agree with Hawking. Do you think we would go to other planets in peace? Would we fuck. We would treat the inhabitants just as badly as we treat non-human species on Earth.Blue Maverick said:Yes I appreciate things like microwave ovens, non stick pans etc have come from actual manned space exploration, what is was getting at is looking for black holes etc really at this time are quite insignificant I'd rather the money was used firstly on curing cancer and then on space travel in our own solar system, I know some of these would go hand in hand as many experiments are done in zero gravity which can't be performed on earth, so I'm all for that. I just don't think looking that far into the universe benefits us that much at this moment. I'm all for gathering knowledge but let's not get ahead of ourselves, I believe Stephen Hawking said it would be a bad idea to contact ET as they may not come in peace.TCIB said:Well one day we will have to leave this rock if we want to persist as a species.
We need a good propulsion system for that and looking so far out may present habitable planets, gas clouds to refuel and a whole load of stuff we have not even thought of.
The reality is not much money goes to funding telescopes and other imaging hardware and associated projects.
If you think for example of the usa's military spending, if SETI had a fraction of that cash they could search so much more for example.
Half our modern conveniences we take for granted could trace their roots back to the space program.
It is human ingenuity and engineering at it's best. Yes war demands invention but that has the slight bad point of seeing millions die.
casualdeyna
Well-Known Member
it doesn't matter how many humans there would be on Earth as the weight is nothing compared to the mass of the Earth, especially as the closer you get to the middle the pressure gets greater and greater, so much so that iron is liquid. This liquid iron is what gives up a magnetesphere, North and South poles and stops us being wiped out by solar storms.
Also if you were to eject loads of mass from the Earth you'll have to send it far enough away very quickly so that the gravity of Earth doesn't just pull it back again, you could try and put it in to orbit but you are just creating another satellite and you see the effects the moon has on our tides. Also it's the heavy bit in the middle you'd want to shift if you wanted to see any noticeable difference, we're all just living on a wafer thin crust, so getting rid of rocks and the seas again is small fry to what is going on in the core.
Once interesting thing I have seen recently is that some scientists believe the Universe is circular and what is outside of this circle "doesn't exist" (until the expanding universe enters it) so if you could travel to the edge of the Universe and step across would you come out at a corresponding place at the opposite side of the Universe, so like a computer game when you go off the edge of the screen you come back on opposite side. If this is true presumably if you had a powerful enough telescope you could look at the back of your own head! (but have to wait billions of years due to spacetime!!)
Bill Bryson short history of nearly everything is a must read if this kind of thing interests you, don't be put off by its size it is an amazing read and what got me in to it. I believe I have a decent grasp on things but still can't get my head round quantum mechanics at all as essentially gravity doesn't exist, it's what this search for the Higgs Boson and particle accelerators are all about.
Also an electron, that "orbits" a neutron and proton, can exist everywhere at once and nowhere at the same time?!? Best way to explain is basically it is that "fast" if you were to "watch" it, it would seem instead of it travelling in a path it just disappears and reappears somewhere else. So "fast" if you were to take pictures on some pictures there would be more than one electron (even though it is the same electron) and in other pictures none at all. Partical physics is a very mind bending science!!
Also if you were to eject loads of mass from the Earth you'll have to send it far enough away very quickly so that the gravity of Earth doesn't just pull it back again, you could try and put it in to orbit but you are just creating another satellite and you see the effects the moon has on our tides. Also it's the heavy bit in the middle you'd want to shift if you wanted to see any noticeable difference, we're all just living on a wafer thin crust, so getting rid of rocks and the seas again is small fry to what is going on in the core.
Once interesting thing I have seen recently is that some scientists believe the Universe is circular and what is outside of this circle "doesn't exist" (until the expanding universe enters it) so if you could travel to the edge of the Universe and step across would you come out at a corresponding place at the opposite side of the Universe, so like a computer game when you go off the edge of the screen you come back on opposite side. If this is true presumably if you had a powerful enough telescope you could look at the back of your own head! (but have to wait billions of years due to spacetime!!)
Bill Bryson short history of nearly everything is a must read if this kind of thing interests you, don't be put off by its size it is an amazing read and what got me in to it. I believe I have a decent grasp on things but still can't get my head round quantum mechanics at all as essentially gravity doesn't exist, it's what this search for the Higgs Boson and particle accelerators are all about.
Also an electron, that "orbits" a neutron and proton, can exist everywhere at once and nowhere at the same time?!? Best way to explain is basically it is that "fast" if you were to "watch" it, it would seem instead of it travelling in a path it just disappears and reappears somewhere else. So "fast" if you were to take pictures on some pictures there would be more than one electron (even though it is the same electron) and in other pictures none at all. Partical physics is a very mind bending science!!