ayers@convexs.UUCP (08/21/85)
>The slow guy thinks a bit, >then makes a bank shot so the ball is headed directly at the fast guy as it >enters the field. There is a flash, and the quick guy has a hole punched >through him by the ball (all gravity nullified, it was not accellerated >along with everything else in our frame of reference, and stayed put while >the rest of the world whooshed by). >>That is ludicrous. The world would whoosh by only if the ball were >>under a force that would cause it to de-accelerate. If an antigrav >>field were maintained upon the ball, it would eventually leave the >>earth by centrifugal force, but not very quickly. As I remember the story (neat, huh? all this crap from dozens of different people trying to work from memory), the acceleration came from the ball shooting upward in the "null" or "REVERSE" grav-field. The ball eventually went out the other side of the field with the new angle (and speed) because it had been moving forward at the time of entering the field (thusly): | | / | | / | | / | | / | |/ | / | /| | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | | / | |/ | ---------------------/ | | | | | The real trick was the figuring of the speeds and angles (how far the ball would fall "up" before leaving the other side of the field) -- but who really knows... blues, II