jsf@rlgvax.UUCP (Steve Fritzinger) (09/07/86)
Last week I posted a reply to one of Ted Holden's articles. In that article Ted had explained that the Earth had once orbited Saturn, and that the North Pole was permenatly pointing at Saturn. The Earth also was close enough to Saturn that Saturn's gravitational pull caused the attenuation of the felt effect of gravity on the Earth surface that Ted claims was needed in order for the large dinosuars to exist. In my relpy I worked out a rough estimate of the distance between the Earth and Saturn if Ted's theory was correct. Upon rereading my reply, I realized that I had said that distance was 3 billion miles rather than 3 million miles. This was obviously incorrect wrong since the Earth is only 93 million miles from the sun, and there is no attenuation felt today. A problem I stated for Ted is below. At the North Pole Saturn's pull would oppose the Earth's and cause the reduced gravity Ted describes. But as one moved closer to the equator a smaller and smaller fraction of Saturn's pull would oppose the Earth's until at the equator an object would feel it's full weight plus a force equal to half it's weight pulling it north. Around the latitudes most of the really large fossils have been found, and where most of the civilizations Ted quotes lived, an object would have a pull of at least 1/3 of it's weight toward the north. My question for Ted is: How were Ultrasaurs able to stand up and walk with that sidesway pull? How were ancient civilizations able to build anything that stood upright? How was sea travel possible? A ship has nothing to brace against, and since the warm air in the northern hemishpere would rise up and pull cold air from the dark southern hemisphere, prevailing winds would always be from the south. Any ship that made it to the open sea would be on a one way trip to the North pole. And why in all thier writings, didn't the acients ever mention this pull, or the way it suddenly stopped after your seven days of cosmic pinball? In closing let me apoligize for any problem the error in the original article caused. Steve Fritzinger CCI-OSG Reston,Va. seismo!rlgvax!jsf I study nuclear science. I love my classes. I gotta a crazy teacher. He wears dark glasses. Things are going great, and they're only getting better. I'm doing alright. Getting good grades. My futures so bright I gotta wear shades.
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (09/17/86)
Oh no, is Ted Holden still trotting out the same hackneyed ideas? I tuned out of net.origins eons ago (or perhaps only 6000 years ago if you believe the incontrovertible biblical evidence). I saw Steve Fritzinger's article because it was in the brand-new newsgroup talk.origins here. I, and others, trashed Ted's pull-of-Saturn argument by showing that the earth would have to be INSIDE SATURN'S ATMOSPHERE to reduce the effective gravity at the near and far points by 50%. Note that you cannot just calculate the distance from Saturn at which Saturns gravitational field has a strength of 0.5g. You have to find the distance at which the variation in Saturns field over one earth radius is 0.5g, since most of the pull acts equally on the earth and on a creature at the "north pole" (sub- Saturn point), and hence does not help to diminish the so-called "felt effect". You need to have Saturn pull on the creature with a force 0.5g stronger than Saturn's pull on the earth as a whole. Anyone is free to solve this problem themselves. Just find the distance R such that: force of Saturns pull at distance (R - earth's radius) = (force of Saturns pull at distance R) + 0.5g I'll watch for rebuttals from Ted for a week or so, then tune out again. Bye folks, and enjoy the show. Steve: you misunderstand tidal forces (which is what we are dealing with here). At the "equator", a creature gets about the same force toward Saturn as the earth does, so their is no net "sideways" pull. In fact, the net effect is an INCREASE in gravity around the "equator", and a DECREASE at both "poles". _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt