
Changing Earth's Orbit Proposed 371
SEWilco writes "This BBC story points out that a team of astronomers have found a way to adjust the orbit of the Earth. They suggest moving a large asteroid past Earth and using its gravity to pull us out to a slightly different orbit. Their concern was how to keep the Earth cool as the Sun ages and warms up in a billion years. It's nice to see someone thinking of the long term."
what is the world coming to? (Score:2)
It'll lead to nothing but trouble I tell you...
*grumble grumble*...
Has anyone considered? (Score:2)
What will happen to the atmosphere? Wouldn't a gravitational pull this strong, also rip part of the atmosphere away? Or how about the oceans? We'd friggin' flood ALL costal areas! (Of course, some people don't like New York anyway...) How about the Earth's molten core? Wouldn't such a gravitational force destabilize the core, thus resulting in massive volcanic activity, thus resulting in tidal waves, thus compounding the initial tidal problem, thus wiping out EVERYTHING except maybe mid-(pick your continent)?
Deceptively simple?! Yeah right!
Too much Dr. Who (Score:2)
Besides, you can always just time loop the sun...
opposite (Score:2)
i'm thinking that this might be slightly (in a relative sense) more urgent due to an asteroid doing precisely the oppposite of what they have in mind - pulling us closer. i can't help but think this sort of foresight is a good thing but maybe we've got other, more statistically probably life-ending scenarios we should be paying attention to.
just food for thought.
My .02,
whoooooaaaaaaaa.... (Score:2)
--
Re:EM Lenses (Score:2)
--
Re:I got a better idea. Get off this rock. (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
Right... (Score:2)
riiiiiiiight.
--nick
Let's decide on units up front this time, please!! (Score:2)
Kill The Scientists (Score:2)
http://www.badassmofo.com [badassmofo.com]
Re:Are you kiddin' me?!? (Score:2)
I find such long-term thinking refreshing. Of course, in addition to a 1 billion year view, it would also be good to be thinking 10, 50, 100, and 1000 years ahead - both technologically and socially.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
And then... (Score:5)
Larry Niven Did something like this (Score:4)
uh huh (Score:2)
And yes my crack habit is going strong.
"Me Ted"
Re:How about just a piece of the earth? (Score:2)
Whoa, check the killer waves!
Is this really news? (Score:2)
You're not 100% correct sir... (Score:2)
Trust... (Score:2)
Seriously though, in response to those who ask 'how would we move something big enough to move the Earth?" Well, we'd do it the same way. Move a pebble, that slingshots another larger pebble into a course that influences a big rock to go by a boulder, past a mountain, etc. At least that way we'd get 10 or 12 slingshots to make sure our calculations tend to be accurate before the next one.
Kevin Fox
incredible vanity, incredible hubris (Score:2)
Don't let NASA do it (Score:2)
I don't think I want scientists trying to move the planet just yet, let alone, sending 100km wide asteroids any closer than they already are. If they can test it out on, say Titan, first, and get it into it's own orbit, and maneuver it around for a few hundred years without doing any damage, then maybe.
But hey, what do we care? We'll all be dead and gone before anyone even writes the check to research this.
Pete Davis
Re:Who needs an asteriod when we have the Chinese? (Score:2)
Actually, you could include everyone as long as they jumped off at noon local time. we could have this earth moved wherever we wanted it in a jiffy!
Click here for $50! [dangifiknow.com]
Some scientific information (Score:4)
1) Our sun is not big enough to go Super Nova, so don't worry about that. A Nova is a different thing that occurs in binary star systems so we don't have to worry about that either. What we do have to worry about is when the sun enters the Red Giant phase and begins to expand. That is what these scientists are pondering.
2) Any 3 body gravitational system is chaotic. A chaotic system does not mean that is is wild and out of control. It means that it is very difficult to predict because the system is very sensitive to initial conditions. However, this is often a benefit because a chaotic system can exhibit a large range of behavior, whereas a non chaotic system is stuck in it's stable behavior. Also because of the chaotic nature of a 3 body system very small perturbations can eventually greatly effect the system. This means that we would not need a very large asteroid to move the earth, a small one that approaches just right would do the trick, and it would happen over a very large time period (millions of years). However because of the chaotic nature of the system we cannot exactly predict exactly where the earth would end up (we could eliminate the possiblity of it plunging into the sun, or being ejected from the solar system). To pull this off we would probably need a series of asteroids to occasionally redirect the earth slightly (perhaps every few thousand years). Since the forces involved would be small the effects of tidal forces and effects on the environment would be small and gradual.
3) The earth already is moving away from the sun, because the sun is losing mass to the solar wind. My guess would be getting the mass loss of the sun correct would be the most difficult thing to work into the calculations since it isn't totally constant, and probably will become much more erratic as the sun begins to approach the red giant phase.
4) My guess is the thing people of the future would have to worry about isn't the sun expanding and heating the earth too much, but the sun will probably become much less stable as far as radiation output causing rapid heating (several degrees over a few hundred years) followed by rapid cooling. This kind of variability will probably wreck havoc on the environment. (This is all assuming we haven't already screwed things up ourselves).
5) This study is more relavent than you might think. While it will probably never be used to actually move the earth, the same techniques could be used to move things (spacecraft, asteroids for raw materials, etc..) without vast expendature of fuel as is currently done, where much of what we do is the brute force method. I read a paper that described how to get a spacecraft to the moon using less energy than a homan transfer (the most efficient way we currently change orbits). The method used the fact the earth, sun, moon system is a chaotic 3 body system. The drawback was that it took years to get the spacecraft to the moon.
Sorry that was so long winded.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
"If you could replicate a star ship, you wouldn't need to."
There are lots of ways to move the earth... get a long rope; get a really long lever; put every nuke we (planet-wide) have in Topeka and detonate them...
Of course, scientists still debate how far out the sun's corrona will extend in it's red giant phase. Will the earth be inside, on the surface, or outside the sun? The discussion is, of course, moot since the planet will have been long incinerated before then (during the expansion.) So, how many astroids will it take to pull us out to about Jupiter's orbit? And what will a shift in our orbit do to the rest of the planets?
(Sometimes you have to wonder why we pay these people to think up these sorts of things.)
Re:Thundarr the Barbarion? (Score:2)
Remember,..the moon base..
Think of the childeren (Score:2)
Re:Couldn't we just... (Score:2)
Click here for $50! [dangifiknow.com]
Re:A bit pointless? (Score:3)
Re:Larry Niven Did something like this (Score:2)
Earth's orbit is already decaying... (Score:2)
There's some more on the receding moon here [infidels.org] Be warned that the site that URL points to is an anti-creationist site. Not that you'd find me sharing any daft ideas with creationists, but its probably blocked if you live in certain less than enlightened states of the USA.
One way of fixing this is to dam the worlds oceans. That's one heck of a barrier..
An alternative would be to steal a moon off another planet. Scientists have pointed at Europa as a 'suitable' satellite.
Personally I don't plan on being about when they try and insert Europa into Earth orbit; if they miss, the results could be, err, sorta messy.
Re:EM Lenses (Score:2)
Click here for $50! [dangifiknow.com]
Slight oversight (Score:2)
This is the very first thing I though about when I read the brief on /. In fact my co-worker brought this up as well. What are the chances that we would get this asteroid to go exactly where we want it to?
Think about it, one extremely miniscule miscalculation of an angle can have catastrophic effects. Knowing our current ability of screwing things up royaly, how are we gonna manage such a feat?
I guess the same rule applies here, the higher the risk the higher the payoffs. Well if they do pull this off it would be cool as hell....but by then I think that most if not all of us would be dead. Unless you get your head placed in a jar like they do in Futurama =)
Geologic stability (Score:2)
--
Re:Larry Niven Did something like this (Score:2)
--
Dr. Alexander Abian, is that you? (Score:2)
Ah yes, that was it
Re:Couldn't we just... (Score:2)
--
www.letsjust*build*aplanet.com (Score:2)
Couldn't we just... (Score:2)
Don't worry... (Score:2)
Re:Other effects? (Score:2)
f(g)= G*M(1)*M(2)/r^2
How about we get off the planet first? (Score:2)
Seriously, in a billion years mankind will have reached beyond the scope of mere planets and possibly even galaxies or we will have died out like the dinosaurs. A billion years almost gives enough time for reptiles to evolve and leave the planet as well.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
(I'm being sarcastic too
Re:This isnt his joke or idea. (Score:2)
It's actually quite an old (and not racist, but humorously flawed) proposition.
Click here for $50! [dangifiknow.com]
close, but no cigar (Score:2)
The biggest error is that THE MOON IS NOT GRAVITATIONALLY BOUND TO THE EARTH. Do the math - the gravitational attraction from the sun is twice that from the earth. The moon is unique in this, and one reason why many people call the earth/moon system a double planet.
To be sure, as a first approximation you can treat the earth-moon system as a binary system and get reasonable results - you can treat the sun's gravitional attraction as a uniform field that can be ignored. But if you want to do any long-term predictions you have to include the tidal forces from the sun - the moon is just a little bit squeezed towards the earth when half-full, and just a little bit pushed away from the earth when new or full. Tidal forces tend to circularize the moon's orbit, but this solar tidal force is "pumping" the moon to a higher orbit at the cost of the earth and moon moving a tad closer to the sun.
In the long run, the sun will win. The moon will "break free" of the earth's orbit *long* before tidal locking occurs. It's been years since I read the details, but I think the earth's day maxes out at under 30 hours/day when the moon escapes, and it won't happen for another billion years or so.
I also seem to recall that the tidal bulges lag the moon, and are slowing it down. But this situation is very odd - everywhere else in the solar system tidal friction cause the orbit to decay to the Roche limit (then you'll get rings as the satellite breaks up). Here the solar tidal forces are actually pumping the moon into a higher orbit.
P.S., I believe I once read that the day was about 23 hours when dinosaurs were walking around. 14 hour days occured shortly after the collision 4 billion years ago, back when the moon would have filled the sky.
Re:Don't worry... (Score:2)
--
www.subtleracism.com (Score:2)
Remember bas 70's tv?? (Score:2)
Won't we feel stupid. (Score:2)
Then again, an asteroid could hit us where we are now. And who's to say that the asteroid 'tow truck' won't hit us.
Hopefully they've considered the posibility that this could drastically alter the Earth's climate.. But I'd take an Ice Age over incineration.
How I think it would work (Score:2)
If asteroids were to be used in this manner, then the best time to zoom them past the Earth would be when the Earth is at aphelion, the furthest point in its orbit around the Sun. This has the effect of increasing the perihelion distance, thus making the orbit more circular. Scheduling the asteroid flybys for perihelion is less effective, because the Earth will not incease its perihelion distance, and the orbit will become more elliptical. This is obviously less desirable.
Another way of controlling the climate would be to reduce the mass of the Sun. This is obviously more difficult, but if possible would probably involve using extraordinarily powerful electromagnets to pull matter out of the Sun.
If the Sun is going to increase in luminosity by 10% over the next billion years, then on average the Earth will need to increase the radius of its orbit by about 7 meters a year on average to maintain the same climate. ((sqrt (1.1) - 1) * 149,600,000 km / 10e9). Perhaps we should get started right away, given our current peril of global warming from greenhouse gases.
--
I hope they move it.. (Score:3)
(Hey where's my thumb??)
--
Re:Won't we feel stupid. (Score:2)
But think of the other applications (Score:2)
Re:Larry Niven Did something like this (Score:2)
Niven points out the dangers of this as well: 99% of the earth was scorched, uninhabitable deserts. The only places that could sustain life were the poles, and the south pole was a humid, tropical junge.
History Lesson (Score:2)
Umm. (Score:2)
Re:How about just a piece of the earth? (Score:2)
Someone already tried that 4.5 billion years ago. That's how the Moon was formed.
(Either that, or someone tried to move the Earth's orbit with a Mars-sized rock to compensate for the Sun changing from protostar to main-sequence body, and screwed up real bad ;-)
Re:Who needs an asteriod when we have the Chinese? (Score:2)
When they landed, they would push the Earth a little bit away from the Sun
You didn't study much Physics in school, did you? (Hint: Think conservation of momentum)
Who needs an asteriod when we have the Chinese? (Score:3)
Unanimous.... (Score:2)
Realize please that if the temperature of the earth goes down by more than like two ro three degrees, a lot of thigns will change. We could trigger an ice age! That's not exactly the best cure for an economic recession.
If this is ever going to be done, it would have to be a unanimous vote from every country, holding majority elections in the country to decide the nation vote. Because this could easily fuck up and you don't wanna fuck up the planet unless everyone agrees it will be fun.
Anyways, I'm going to restock my Y2k bunker and include a small micro-nuclear heating cell. Any beautiful women, ages 16-24, who are interested in repopulating the planet once it moves back into a stable orbit, drop me a reply. thanks
Because when God starts the sun expanding... (Score:2)
My favorite quote of all time applies here:
"Trust in God - but row away from the rocks."
heh (Score:3)
Re:It's worthy of attention (Score:2)
It is...and it *IS* "broke". In a billion years or so... no matter what we try to do locally, will be uninhabitable.
The Sun will begin to die out. It will get hotter, its output will increase...we WILL be incinerated.
Until I have a written copy of "Gods Great Plan" which states that this is a "Good thing", and necissary to the universe at large... I vote "Lets get this fucker out of the way"
Now... noone is saying we have to do it now. We have thousands of years before we have to DO anything. However, there is no point in refusing to talk about it and explore our options NOW.
I mean hell, assuming for a min that there is a "creator" (God, Gods, whatever) perhaps this is exactly what he would expecty us to do...I mean, any such being would be the same being that gave us the very intellect and resources that we need to solve such a problem...perhaps we are expected to solve it in time...maybe that is "the plan".
The fact is, we don't know what "His Plan" is, much less whether "He" is. (or at least, we can't all agree on it). So its insane to take "His Plan" into account...until we have a written copy in hand.
-Steve
Why not move Mars instead? (Score:2)
I'm just wandering, since we are hoping to colonize Mars someday, why not try to move it a bit closer to the sun, so it would be easier to terraform it?
Sounds like a good solution for global warming too (Score:2)
Seems a little arrogant (Score:2)
Re:And then... (Score:3)
-- gold23
Re:Earth's orbit is already decaying... (Score:3)
What is happening is the tidal bulge that is created by the moons gravity leads the moon slightly. This inhomogeneity gives a slight non-radial component to the gravitational force the earth exerts on the moon. Since the force is leading the moon, it pulls it along in its orbit just a bit, this speeds up the moon which in turn causes the orbit to move outward.
The moon however will not escape the gravitational pull of earth. The lunar orbit will eventually become stable. When it does the orbital period of the moon will be exactly equal to the rotational period of the earth (the same forces that are speeding up the moons orbit are slowing down the earths rotation - in fact a day on earth used to be much shorter - I think I remember reading that it was about 14 hours during the period of the dinosaurs). This matching of orbital period to rotational period is common, it is called a spin orbit coupling. The moon is already coupled to the earth - thus the orbital period of the moon is almost exactly equal to its rotational period, that is why one side of the moon always faces the earth. Mercurys orbital period is also coupled to it's own rotational period, in this case it isn't 1:1 but 2:3 (2 rotations every 3 orbits about the sun). Plutos orbit is also coupled to Neptunes, this is why despite the fact Plutos orbit crosses Neptunes, they will never collide, because there orbits are coupled in just the right way.
By the way when the earth moon system becomes stable a month will take exactly 1 day. However by then a day will be approximately 1000 hours. Just like one side of the moon always faces the earth, one side of the earth will always face the moon, and anything on the other side of the earth will never see the moon, and the moon will always be in exactly the same part of the sky for those that can see it.
Wrong approach (Score:2)
No, we want a slow long-duration force applied to the planet. Something moving us no more than perhaps a meter or so a day. That would give us a nice safe slow adjustment.
Now how do we acheive such a change? That's a good question. Perhaps we could do something magnetic, similar to how satellites can use tethers and electrical charge to push off the magnetic field? Perhaps we could tap into the solar wind in a novel way? Perhaps we could find a way to convert nuclear explosion energy into magnetic energy to push off of the earth's magnetic field?
No problem, just take Q's advice... (Score:2)
What do you mean, "how"? You just DO it!
Largest Asteroid isn't enough (Score:2)
But then, do really really want to live here after that?
Maybe move Mars or Jupiter to affect the Earth.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Roman Catholicism ain't what it used to be.
Re:ORBIT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LENGTH OF DAY!! (Score:2)
The earth rotates on its axis every 23 hours 56 minutes, rather than 24. You can check this by using the stars.
The 24 hour bit is caused by the fact that the earth is in orbit around the sun causing the sun to illuminate the earth from different angles at different times of year.
Basically the earths orbit ends up subtracting off a day from the year. Kinda like the same way that they lost a day if you've ever read "Around the world in 80 days." - the sun is moving east all th e time in the sky.
Therefore if the year's length changes the length of the day would change too, probably shorter by a minute or two.
How about just a piece of the earth? (Score:5)
I vote for California.
A Chip Off The Old Block (Score:2)
Time to relocate (Score:5)
Perhaps you ought to move off the planet, just in case. Oh, and take Alec Baldwin with you.
Re:Right... (Score:5)
However, the idea is that it comes by with the right velocity and angle that it shoots right past, and just kind of pulls out our orbit a little bit.
Basically... the asteroid would slow down, and we would speed up....but not enough so that it would actually come into our orbit or even hit us...it would continue right along its path.
-Steve
Re:How about just a piece of the earth? (Score:2)
Of course, the reverse of your theory is also true... get rid of the midwest and there's nobody to watch the $50 million blockbuster summer movies, and then
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Re:Who needs an asteriod when we have the Chinese? (Score:2)
Racism is not limited to words such as "chink," "wop," "Spic," "Nigger," etc. Racism is defining someone by their racial heritage... examples of racism:
"My buddy Joe is really cool for a black guy."
"I love to fuck chinese women, they're so EASY."
"I hate all you fucking whitebread american bastards."
Now, only my third example is the kind of thing YOU have defined as racism, but all three of my example statements involve classifying (or stereotyping) someone based on the singular criteria of their race.
It is just as much racism to say "White people are the best!" as it is to say "Black people are the worst!"
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Re:Couldn't we just... (Score:2)
When the people jump, the force of their jump applies an equal, but pposite, force on the earth. Causing it to get slightly closer to the sun. The CENTER of mass stays the same, and thus the net forces still cancel out.
-Steve
Re:A bit pointless? (Score:2)
Now I'm sure we take up vastly more fuel per capita than people in China, India, etc, but what about the real staples, like food and water? If we truely takeup so many resources, then you must also assume that the vast majority of those staples lie in those regions where the "excessive" consumers live, because very little is imported from places like India, China, Russia, etc.
I suspect people are measuring the "resources" by any number of backwards methods, like by GDP, imports and exports, commercial production, etc. They assume zero sum games, they assume that producivity would be as high in the near socialist environment required to make it vastly more "even", and so and so on. These are all invalid for any number of reasons, but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Who's to say that humans figuring out how to move the planet isn't what the Universe intended?
Re:It's worthy of attention (Score:2)
> required to think I'm just a product of
> extraodinary chance. What hope of a fulfilling
> life is there in that?
Reality exists the way it is completely without regard to your ability to accept it.
If you must participate in wild fantasy based on the speculations and ghost stories of ages past,to feel "Fullfilled" in your life... then enjoy I supose.
Do not, however, expect that everyone else will honor your ghost stories when it comes time to make decisions and shape plans to avoid the destruction of our home planet (which is currently the only one we have).
-Steve
What's wrong with the earth's orbit? (Score:2)
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Orbital Billiards isn't necessary.... (Score:2)
However there are limits to this -- Plants need a certain amount of fixable carbon in the atmosphere in order to grow. A critical CO2 shortage will be reached 500 million to a billion years from now. But life will (knock on wood) have already averted such a potential crisis many millions of years before this. The Trump card will be dealt by either our descendents in a few thousand years or by another intelligent tool user in the next 50-100 million years (assuming intelligent life wasn't just a fluke). OK so what the hell am I talking about? A Dyson Shell of course.
A Dyson shell is a HUGE solar collector that would be dynamically positioned by a level K2 civilization so that the maximum amount of solar energy can be harvested from the sun. (It would be constructed as two opposing geodesic half spheres using Iron and Silicon from Mercury and be positioned at a radius halfway from Sol & Mercury -- outward pressure from the solar wind will cancel inward gravitational forces -- the geodesic configuration will dampen changes in solar wind pressure)
To visualize a Dyson Shell think about this; Take a good sized grape fruit, cut a 2 cm slice through the 'equator' of it, hollow out the two halfs, separate them by 2 cm and try to image the sun as a small marble suspended within the center.
Normally, a Dyson shell would not be visible in the daytime sky of any planet orbiting within the equatorial plane (i.e. the sun would still be a very bright disk surrounded by blue sky). However, the equatorial edges of each half of the shell can be extended to block out any desired portion of the sun as seen from earth.
Presto! Climate control is built into humanities push to populate the solar system.
NOTE: A K2 civilization, is one that has substantially tapped the power of a star. Right now, our civilization is at about K(0.7) -- To attain K1 status we still need to substantially tap the energy available on and around the planet -- without causing significant harm to the worlds ecosystems.
Re:Unanimous.... (Score:2)
Nah, whomever can afford it will just do it anyway and everyone else can go screw themselves. That's how the world has worked up until now . . .
Suggestion: Move Mars In, Earth Out (Score:2)
EM Lenses (Score:2)
Another idea might be to put up EM lenses at the Earth->Sun libration points, to refract the bulk of energy around the earth, and allow 'normal' sunlight levels to intersect.
Either way, this tow-truck plan would just about flip the crust right over with earthquakes. imagine the corialis forces at work in the mantle and core going out of wack!
:)Fudboy
Ooops. You didn't need that planet, did ja? (Score:2)
What are these mooks smoking? Its faster and easier to just leave the dirt ball behind.
A bit pointless? (Score:5)
Re:Don't worry... (Score:2)
Possibly this was meant to be tongue in cheek, but ...
No, the tidal forces would not kill everything anyway. It would be done gradually, with the asteroid making many many multiple passes over a long period of time.
Re:It's worthy of attention (Score:2)
> from now. If we survive that long, why would
> we use a 1 million year old technology?
And noone is arguing that we should. All I am advocating is that this idea be researched, becuase when the time comes that it has to move, thats not the time to START the research.
Thats exactly the kind of thinking that caused the "Y2K Craze"... "Oh plenty of time, this stuff will be long since replaced by then, no need for us to store dates right now".
> At least my 'ghost stories' (which I take
> literally from the Genesis account in the
> Bible) have never been proven false,
Whats to prove false? Its a story. A story with an all powerful God that can change the entire universe at his whim... makes it very easy to explain away just about anything. How convinient!
I supose the dinosaur bones we find are just Gods little practical joke to test our faith then? Or maybe whoever recorded the story simply forgot about the monstorous flesh eating lizards?
> while you choose to believe in Big Bang theory,
> also based on faith.
The only faith in science is the faith that reality exists, and we are not brains in jars being fed a virtual universe (like the matrix).
And even then... science would still be valid within that universe. (unless the program suddenly changed all the rules).
The "Big Bang" theory is just the best theory we have so far. The one that fits the most of the empirical evidence. When new empirical evidence is found that contradicts it, a new theory will replace it.
No Theory is written in stone.
> technology a 10-20 years from now will
> undoubtedly have much better solutions to global
> warming than this.
This is not the same global warming that environmentalists are going around talking about. This is not about the earth holding in heat.
This is global warming due to the Sun begining to die out. As it dies out, it gets hotter. Its output increases drastically. When it happens, it will FRY this planet.
-Steve
Despite NASA's blunders... (Score:3)
Of course, there is no conceivable way anyone alive could imagine our technology in the year 1000002001. Maybe we won't have to move the Earth... we'll just turn down the sun!
Mr. Ska
I slit a sheet
A sheet I slit
Re:And then... (Score:2)
Re:Who needs an asteriod when we have the Chinese? (Score:2)
Click here for $50! [dangifiknow.com]
Re:It's worthy of attention (Score:2)
> fossils have not proven evolution, but rather
> a massive flood or other catastrophe. If you
> really want me to find a link
> for it online I will try to do so for you.
Yes a massive flood that killed off even the large dinosaurs that lived in the sea. That sounds very plausable.
No need to find a link, ive seen the pseudoscience before. Perhaps you would like to know how it all relates to the law of fives? Really fascinating stuff.
> At least I've got some solid ground to stand
> on for my beliefs both scientific and
> spiritually. It is an amazing story, but hey,
> I'm not God so it's not my job to understand
> it, just believe it.
I supose if that ground feels solid to you, then it must be solid. Even if it looks and feels alot like sand to me.
As I said before... feel free to believe what you want. Just don't expect your beliefs to affect my decisions on what types of research or plans of action to support.
-Steve
Almost useful (Score:2)
Re:Couldn't we just... (Score:5)
When a person jumps, they exert a force against the earth. Now...the mass distribution of the earth changes a bit...and thus the center of gravity changes...so if aenough people did this in a way that produced a net force, the earth would indeed move away from them. (it would take quite a few for this change to even be measurable.
However... unless they reach escape velocity... the gravitational force between them and the earth will pull them back... exerting exactly the same magnitude of force against both, but in an opposite direction.
Basically... the center of mass for a closed system (and in this case, we are indeed talking about a closed system) will not change. You need an EXTERNAL force to change the velocity, internal forces always cancel out.
Now...if you could get the entire population of china to jump AND reach escape velocity.... that would be quite a different story...however... they may not fare too well.
-Steve
Not Bloody Likely (Score:3)
Not bloody likely.
I don't there there is any law, proposal or suggestion that could get unanimous consent on this planet. Even the most obvious thing has to be debated by two "sides". Even when one side of the argument is just plain silly. (Certain Republicans come to mind...)
Re:And then... (Score:3)
Hello? (Score:3)
Asteroid hitting the earth,
Another Ice Age,
Global Warming,
Economic Recession/Depression,
"Grey Ooze",
World War,
etc...
These will all likely happen within a million years, and there are scientists worrying about stuff that will happen in a billion years?
My guess is, they'll all give themselves a coronary worrying about this stuff in about 2 years.
--
Ramifications, anyone? (Score:4)
Just because people read Larry Niven's books (which are generally very good, by the way) about the Puppetteers moving their homeworlds away from their sun, doesn't mean it can actually be done. There are perfectly good places to settle and colonize that don't involve moving planets and wreaking havoc.