Recent content by k!rl

Thanks for the explanations, I can't believe I've read this far while misunderstanding this point.

The book is about humans comming into contact with intelligent life on a neutron star, who due to their homeworlds massive gravity evolve incredibly fast relative to the human time frame in higher orbit. It's written by Robert L Forward, a physicist, however shouldn't higher gravity cause time...

I was wondering if time on a planet which is exactly twice the mass of the Earth would pass exactly twice as slow relative to Earth time? So after a year on this big earth, two years would have passed on earth? Thanks

I asked this question a number of times but only recently got a satisfactory answer. When you cut/shave it grows right back to it's previous length where it seems to stop again. As hairs are dead and don't communicate their length back to the cell I wondered how this was the case too. The...

In regards to question 4, if the building is sufficiently high and the cillinder sufficiently wide, meaby air resistance or drag could slow you down so much that you'd lose your speed and thus your "weight" before hitting the ground? Especially when using wings, which should function normally...

Thanks for the link telecomguy. I've seen some of Walter Lewins lectures before, I like his style!

Thanks for clarifying everybody, seems sort of obvious in hindsight as always. Someday interstellar jue de buoles will be the favourite past time in the space resorts! =) When the mass in such a gravity room is unevenly divided it may cause the spacecraft to wobble though.

Thanks for the great little anim, however it's a bit confusing too because I'm not sure how the ball got to the center at the start of the movie. Was it thrown up by someone sitting at -90 degree from the orange dot? Or is it comming down aftersomebody at +90 degree from the orange dot threw...

So once you're spinning with it, would you keep spinning with it (no drag)? Would it be safe to grab hold of the outer edge from a relative standstill (assuming the outer edge is spinning with a speed that equals 1g)? What happens if you throw a ball up into the air to about the center of...

Every time I see a SF pic which has some simulated gravity by spinning I can't imagine this actually working. The latest SF I watched (mission to mars) had a wide rotating cillinder somewhere in the middle of a much longer cillinder which formed the main ship. Now imagine yourself moving from...

Thanks for the analogies and the extra clarifications, so my summary was pretty much spot on when I said: "It is true, but the speed due to expansion is not actual velocity relative to the space it is in (it's frame of reference)". Or is there some fundamental difference in the other...

Awesome, thanks for the right term to search!

After seeing a description on the exapnsion of the universe, I wrote a very simple program to see how the universe is expanding faster the further it is away from us (wherever we are). Playing with that got me thinking that at some distant point, planets and everything would be moving away from...

Thanks for the answers! I was going to ask why the frequency would change but the animation answered that very well, so thanks for posting those Janus. It's interesting the doppler effect happens with sound for entirely different reasons.

I thought the speed of light was constant independent of the motions of the observer and light source. So I don't understand how the doppler (blue-red) shift can be observed on incomming or receding astronomical light sources? Speed also varies depending on the medium it travels through, so...