
Are you saying freefall is the same as weightlessness? I see them occurring together here, but not the same phenomenon...

(Six paragraphs of nonsense snipped.) So in other words, Paul, all the water in all the world's oceans should be sloshing over to one side and pouring off, right? Because the Earth is orbiting the Sun, as you'll recall, but you just surmised you can't believe those explanations.comingfrom wrote:Sorry, I can't believe those explanations.
~Paul
Are you somehow unfamiliar with the shape of the earth and why it's so?comingfrom wrote:Do people weigh less in [sic] while riding the bullet train, or a supersonic jet, due to the forward velocity?
What makes you think that is the EU position? Please refer to the caveat at the top, the Forum Headliner:It's rubbish like this - people actually disputing the nature of an orbit - that can give the EU a bad name. Why does this happen?
The ideas and opinions expressed on this forum do not necessarily reflect those of T-Bolts Group Inc or The Thunderbolts Project(TM)
No, gravity works well at the surface, to hold all the water, and air, in place.JHL wrote:So in other words, Paul, all the water in all the world's oceans should be sloshing over to one side and pouring off, right?
No.Are you somehow unfamiliar with the shape of the earth and why it's so?
Rubbish like that article from Cornell University?http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about- ... termediate
It's rubbish like this - people actually disputing the nature of an orbit - that can give the EU a bad name. Why does this happen?
Thank you, Nick.nick c wrote:JHL,What makes you think that is the EU position? Please refer to the caveat at the top, the Forum Headliner:It's rubbish like this - people actually disputing the nature of an orbit - that can give the EU a bad name. Why does this happen?
The ideas and opinions expressed on this forum do not necessarily reflect those of T-Bolts Group Inc or The Thunderbolts Project(TM)
Now you are expressing your opinions, which is at odds with the typical EU views.JHL wrote:Expanding on my point above, any thoughtful person can realize that gravity is a per se placeholder for a phenomenon we don't understand. Pretty much everything is. Gravity is a mechanical record of that phenomenon, so to put it.
But it's fruitless to surmise that gravity is a phenomenon that escapes those mechanics, especially with terms relating to a local planetary scale - Neptune isn't a planet with a gravitational relationship with the primary? There's no gravitational component at the galactic level, dark matter fiction notwithstanding?
I first started pondering this question when I was a youth, in the days of Apollo, and Skylab, and MIR.It's one thing to question a phenomenon but it's a completely different thing to assert it to violate classic mechanics without any basis.
I hoped one would correct my misconception, if they surmised it to be nonsense.JHL wrote:Would? It's not even remotely apparent, Nick, that someone would ascribe fanciful notions to the EU. I didn't claim that. I said could - I simply divided sensible theory from surmised nonsense. You keep putting words in my mouth.
If you'd ask me directly, which you haven't, I'd say that it seems readily apparent that disputing conventional orbital mechanics without basis is akin to Martian artifact theory or flat-earthism, oddball ideas that, lacking basis, can be lumped in with EU thought in decidedly EU context such as this we're commenting in, in some cases even by EU proponents.
One hopes that stuff gets filed under an appropriate other category, regardless of disclaimers. Clear now?
Well, let me issue a disclaimer then.While you see fit to remodel my intent, Nick, I won't allow myself to do the same to yours: The EU disclaimer exists in much the same was as a commenter might (or should) disclaim bizarre notions presented within a serious, thoughtful community: That's why disclaimers and commentary exist. Which, if you actually think about it, is what I did. I can't see how you'd invert that into something it wasn't.
What about your nonsense, about Neptune not having a gravity relationship with the primary [I'm guessing you mean the Sun]?Kindly stop divorcing the one thing from another. I'd think you'd be a little less forgiving of nonsense than you are about calling it what it is.
Once again you seem to be missing some basics on orbital dynamics...comingfrom wrote:The way gravity was taught to me, it is what holds the planets in their orbits,
so, logically, unless you are perched precisely on the cusp where earth and Sun's gravities are equal, one should be accelerating either towards one or the other. But that is not what we see.
Oh goody.Once again you seem to be missing some basics on orbital dynamics...
Is it?Accelerating toward the "primary" or centroid of the system is exactly what we see happening.
An ellipse can be described as a bounce, or a wave motion.That is why, instead of heading off into space a la Newton's ideal first law, orbiting bodies [and ultimately all bodies are orbiting something], a satellite falls toward it's local centroid. It's falling motion is at a rate that exactly matches its tangential motion, so instead of falling "down" [following the gravitational vector] or flying away [following the tangential momentum vector], it happily and effortlessly takes the elliptical path described by Kepler's laws and is directly observed by us doing so [despite your fear to the contrary].
And yet, an astronaut in the space station is not attracted to anything in any direction.In fact, that lunar orbiter is not only accelerating toward the moon, it is also accelerating toward the earth, and toward the sun, and toward the galactic center, and while we're at it also accelerating toward the direction of the "Great Attractor" near Virgo.
I am not afraid.It is all the while under the influence of gravitation, and moving in a somewhat complexly curved path that we can observe [despite your fears].
I have seen the experiment with a bowling ball and a feather falling in a vaccum. It is mind bending, isn't it.As Galileo was first to observe [from his pendulum experiments], the acceleration due to gravity is independent of the mass of an object. Heavy objects and light ones both fall at the same rate.
So, what you are saying is, when the earth (or any orbiter) is at the closest point to the Sun, she puts on a spurt of tangential acceleration to increase her momentum, so she doesn't fall in. A bit later she takes her foot off the accelerator, so she doesn't end up flying out of the solar system?The ellipse is the result of the balancing of momentum and gravitation [a circle is a special case of an ellipse; no perfectly circular motion is seen in the universe, even in the rotation of the earth, except when limited to a peculiar point of reference].
That is sounding feasible to me now. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that mass is not a factor.The astronaut and the orbiting satellite are both under the influence of the same vectors, are both falling at the same rate, and thus weightlessness is equally perceived by both.
There are always outside forces. Ours is not the only planet in the system.Your observation about the planets not falling into the sun is based on the same physics. Orbits will continue as they are unless acted upon by additional outside influences, hence the EU [and my] interest in catastrophic interplanetary disturbances.
Because it flys in the face of the dust accretion and gravitational collapse model?Outside influences could be planetoid collisions or flybys, interplanetary medium, solar wind, and fluctuations in the electrical and magnetic environments between the planets and the sun. Interestingly however, and contrary to expectation, angular momentum in the solar system is greater at distance from the sun; this is the reverse of the nebular condensation model for system formation, which concentrates angular momentum toward the system centroid. This introduces additional stability to the outer planets, and raises the question of how the solar system came to be in this state?
By question of design, I'm guessing you mean, whether it is mechanically possible, or not.The Saturn hypothesis, which I don't particularly favor, is an alternative explanation for this phenomenon. Since we don't see this same reverse relation in other stellar planetary systems [thus far], the question of design comes into play for me.
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