tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post3523777650627865377..comments2024-02-20T17:22:43.089-06:00Comments on The Literary Assassin: story idea, rubber scienceHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-59773627781293856902007-04-16T00:46:00.000-05:002007-04-16T00:46:00.000-05:00SG here.Doggone it!The more I think about this, th...SG here.<BR/>Doggone it!<BR/>The more I think about this, the more it seems like a Rube Goldberg device. Ee-ville magacorporation is into making profits. The expense of obtaining a degenerate mass, "machining" it to fit specifications, and hauling it to a parking orbit would generate some humongous cost overruns, cutting deeply into the obscenely bloated salaries of the CEO's. The easiest way Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-63728342980550048582007-04-15T10:44:00.000-05:002007-04-15T10:44:00.000-05:00Don't flatter yourself, wiseguy, you're one of abo...Don't flatter yourself, wiseguy, you're one of about four morons I can name off the top of my head.<BR/><BR/>Go squat somewhere else. And learn to read for content before jumping into a conversation in progress.Hollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-79269977674745814792007-04-15T01:36:00.000-05:002007-04-15T01:36:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-70294271871882910752007-04-15T01:01:00.000-05:002007-04-15T01:01:00.000-05:00Hmmm... typo in that paper (no, not to worry, the ...Hmmm... typo in that paper (no, not to worry, the OCD is really quite mild, honest)...<BR/><BR/>'a fifth (as opposed to a five hundredth...' right at the end, should read 'a fiftieth (as opposed to a five thousandth...<BR/><BR/>...tho', actually, the point comes out the same. But I'll fix it.AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-41808732144707755132007-04-15T00:56:00.000-05:002007-04-15T00:56:00.000-05:00... oh. And you're very welcome, Holly. Was a bit ...... oh. And you're very welcome, Holly. Was a bit of entertainment, thinking it through.<BR/><BR/>I'm pretty sure, now, too, that the smaller holes <I>would</I> spark fusion in infalling matter for which any remaining feasible fusion reaction remains, same as you get in the accretion disks around the bigger ones. And yeah, there'd be x-ray emissions, all the fun stuff you get with bigger holes, AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-65560740966255682122007-04-14T23:53:00.000-05:002007-04-14T23:53:00.000-05:00SG again. Putting a spin on the hoop, which has no...SG again. <BR/>Putting a spin on the hoop, which has no material connection to the mass providing the gravitational effect, would contribute counteracting forces to that of the degeneracy. The super-engineers of the far future would have figured out how to balance the two.<BR/>Again, it isn't necessary to maintain one earth gravity on the station, just enough to counteract loss of bone mass. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-9007417809470205722007-04-14T23:44:00.000-05:002007-04-14T23:44:00.000-05:00Believe you mean 'agreeing'... as I'm not known fo...Believe you mean 'agreeing'... as I'm not known for consenting to much.<BR/><BR/>As to the statement on acceleration being misleading, note that that it specifically describes <I>gravitational</I> acceleration (see... it's right there in the sentence you quoted). That would be the acceleration due to the gravitational field of the attracting mass... Centripetal forces aren't gravitational forces.AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-17609877393741372252007-04-14T23:17:00.000-05:002007-04-14T23:17:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-57491318571254854932007-04-14T21:17:00.000-05:002007-04-14T21:17:00.000-05:00Shirley is not weird. A couple centuries back, a ...Shirley is not weird. A couple centuries back, a year or two before my time, the ability to spin thread was a requirement for the ordinary housewife.<BR/>SGAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-13647082290199574852007-04-14T20:55:00.000-05:002007-04-14T20:55:00.000-05:00Yo, Captain Anonymous---post your name, and cite s...Yo, Captain Anonymous---post your name, and cite some sources for your speculations, or be deleted. You have 24 hours. Maybe less.<BR/><BR/>Take it easy, SG, all of this stuff is food for fodder, whether it makes it into the story or not. Who was it said, only about 10% of your research should actually make it into the story?<BR/><BR/>Shirley, this is turning my brain to pudding, too, but it's Hollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-38141541774996160822007-04-14T19:12:00.000-05:002007-04-14T19:12:00.000-05:00SG here.Let's cut to the chase, chillun.Yup, if we...SG here.<BR/>Let's cut to the chase, chillun.<BR/>Yup, if we have an earth mass in that chunk of degenerate matter, be it black hole, neutron star, or white dwarf, we'd need a station with earth radius for the same gravitational effect.<BR/><BR/>Why not make a planet?<BR/><BR/>Unlikely!!! Ee-ville megacorporation has a habit of carving up planets and carting the mineral resources elsewhere to Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-23563742184737293622007-04-14T18:11:00.000-05:002007-04-14T18:11:00.000-05:00I'm very glad that Holly has you uber-geeks (said ...I'm very glad that Holly has you uber-geeks (said with the utmost respect for your abilities to comprehend and explain physics and math concepts). Just reading what you folks have written has my mind considering turning into a hypermass itself. As such, it should <I>certainly</I> be small enough for Holly's station engineers to manage! I felt bad when she proposed something about which I could Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-77903202436344741252007-04-14T10:29:00.000-05:002007-04-14T10:29:00.000-05:00And for clarification, by 'gradient' I mean the ch...And for clarification, by 'gradient' I mean the change in the gravitational force with distance. So think of it this way: you actually get the same force twice as close to a mass 1/4 the size... but moving a metre from the latter mass is much larger proportional change in distance tham moving a metre from the former, so it makes a bigger difference in terms of the force felt after you move that AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-78049025406513756662007-04-14T10:25:00.000-05:002007-04-14T10:25:00.000-05:00Ummmm... as respectfully, I'm not even sure quite ...Ummmm... as respectfully, I'm not even sure quite what you're dissenting from. But you might just try it with the equation for the law of univeral gravitation and see what you get.<BR/><BR/>Again, that's F = Gm1m2/d^2. Try substituting with F=ma where m is the test mass, m1 is the test mass m2 is the mass of the singularity, and you'll see what I mean, I think. Or I hope.AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-80749687775724745392007-04-14T09:25:00.000-05:002007-04-14T09:25:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-45314993658192921372007-04-14T08:23:00.000-05:002007-04-14T08:23:00.000-05:00...a black hole with the mass of the earth and cor...<I>...a black hole with the mass of the earth and corresponding Schwartzchild radius would create the same gravitational potential as the earth for distances greater than the earth's radius...</I><BR/><BR/>Quite... two objects of the same mass create the same gravitational potential energy on another object of a given mass at a given distance regardless of the first object's density... and that'sAJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-72839984006486308922007-04-14T02:35:00.000-05:002007-04-14T02:35:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-80275471792947452182007-04-14T02:31:00.000-05:002007-04-14T02:31:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-67960194852138406232007-04-13T23:37:00.000-05:002007-04-13T23:37:00.000-05:00To become a black hole, an object, a star, must ha...<I>To become a black hole, an object, a star, must have at least three solar masses; to become a neutron star, at least 1.4 solar masses...</I><BR/><BR/>... quite true, for black holes that form from stars (as already noted above... see again the Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit). But that's because the mechanism by which the required density is initially achieved is gravitational collapse, and that's AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-25054061263566407062007-04-13T21:46:00.000-05:002007-04-13T21:46:00.000-05:00Yup, AJ does have the straight of it. If the acce...Yup, AJ does have the straight of it. If the acceleration caused by gravity is considered a constant, then the mass of the desired object varies directly as the square of the distance. Halve the distance, and the mass required is one quarter of the original. Halve distance again, the mass needed is one quarter of that, or a sixteenth of the original, and so on.<BR/><BR/>Radius of earth is Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-61074432434248695572007-04-13T16:03:00.000-05:002007-04-13T16:03:00.000-05:00Dude. You are such a geek.I mean that in the best ...Dude. You are such a geek.<BR/><BR/>I mean that in the best possible way, of course.<BR/><BR/>I'll digest this for a day or two and get back to you. I'm having to exhume entire lobes of math and physics that haven't been touched in 15 years. <BR/><BR/>Sad...Hollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-74900776205328743872007-04-13T15:07:00.000-05:002007-04-13T15:07:00.000-05:00Thinking it through, it's pretty simple.F=ma. We w...Thinking it through, it's pretty simple.<BR/><BR/>F=ma. We want acceleration same as we get with Earth's mass and distance to the centre, at 9.8 m/s^2. F=Gm1m2/d^2, so for constant a, m/d^2 is constant... whether it's the mass of the Earth and it's radius in the figure or our hypothetical station and singularity... ergo...<BR/><BR/>The mass of the object you want is the Earth's mass times the AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-9505090267033235882007-04-13T14:40:00.000-05:002007-04-13T14:40:00.000-05:00You'd probably need it substantially smaller for i...You'd probably need it substantially smaller for it to be practical.<BR/><BR/>To use an object the mass of the Earth, and to get Earthlike gravity, you'd have to be about as far from the singularity as we are from the centre of mass of the Earth... so the station would have to be about the circumference of the Earth... and with that much matter anyway, why make a space station...<BR/><BR/>When AJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997146731281514599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-24794345093593009042007-04-13T14:22:00.000-05:002007-04-13T14:22:00.000-05:00Here's a sort-of answer...According to the Wiki ar...Here's a sort-of answer...<BR/><BR/>According to the Wiki article about the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius" REL="nofollow">Schwartzchild radius,</A> the size at which the earth collapses into a gravitational singularity is about 9 milimeters.<BR/><BR/>So in order to imbue my fictitious station with Earth-gravity (1-G) my speck of hypermatter could be as small as this: Hollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6736414.post-12809920533462275192007-04-13T11:42:00.000-05:002007-04-13T11:42:00.000-05:00Seems to be a case in which size definitely matter...Seems to be a case in which size definitely matters.<BR/><BR/>That's why I said I don't have the math. I need to find some geek to compute the minimum size I can make this station and still have it viable. I wonder if in all of Silverberg's essays he had something applicable....Hollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17764623327385255044noreply@blogger.com