what would happen if?

[spikerz66]

hey ive been thinking about this for a long while and i cant think of what would happen?

heres the scenario: your at a carnival on a gravitron ride (for those of you that dont know its the thing that you get inside and it spins pushing you to the inside wall)

you somehow unrestrain yourself and manage to get on your knees and jump twards the center of the ring. once your in the air what would happen would you be pulled back twards the ring? or would you hit the ground then be pulled twards the outside of the ring.

 

if so couldnt you simulate gravity in space by making a big ring and spinning it?

[D H]

You would not be pulled back toward the ring. It is a fictitious force, after all. However, when you jump, you retain the tangential velocity you had prior to your jump. End effect: You collide with the wall.

 

In short, you could simulate gravity by making a big ring and spinning it. Your inner ear might not like it. (It is a fictitious force, after all.) The effects on your inner ear can be reduced by making a big ring.

[spikerz66]

However, when you jump, you retain the tangential velocity you had prior to your jump.

End effect: You collide with the wall.

 

 

could you explain in more detail what tangential velocity and how you get it please? its a new word to me

[SCIGENIUS]

What he is trying to say is that inertia carries you forward, colliding with the wall.

[timo]

Could you simulate gravity in space by making a big ring and spinning it?

Yes. Recommended movie: "2001 - A Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick.

[Edtharan]

The best way to think of it is what would happen if the ring disappeared. What would occur is that you would continue in a straight line, not in a curve (if you ignore the curve you would have as you fell to the ground ).

 

Now to see what direction this is, draw a circle on a piece of paper. Now get a ruler and place it so that as it moves past the circle it just touches the edge it touches the edge of the circle (a bit like the stroke in the letter "p"). This line is called the tangent, so any velocity you would have in this case is called the tangential velocity (simple really).

 

The reason you "feel" a force pushing against you in the ride, is that you are not strictly speaking moving in a circle.

 

What is occurring is that you have a sideways velocity (the tangential velocity) and as the ring spins, this sideways velocity brings you in contact with the ring. As you can not move through the ring, you feel the ring pushing on you.

 

DO show this (back to the paper), with the circle you drew earlier, draw another line parallel to the tangent line you drew, but closer to the centre of the circle (not too close, just have it inside the circumference of the circle).

 

Now this line is more like the line a person travelling in the ride would take (as you are inside the ring, not outside or sitting on top of it). You will be able to see that the new line collides with the edge of the ring. On the ride, this would push the rider around so that they did not pass through the ring, but moved at the tangent to where the line intersects the ring's circumference.

[J.C.MacSwell]

If you are in a space station being spun to make artificial gravity and run real fast you would decrease in "weight" going one way, in which case at some point you could jump just right and hover above "ground" unable to reach anything, or increase in weight if you ran in the opposite direction.

[if_u_say_so]

that would be awesome!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

in which case at some point you could jump just right and hover above "ground" unable to reach anything,

Until, of course, it continues its rotation and a doorframe hits you on the head.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Until, of course, it continues its rotation and a doorframe hits you on the head.

 

I didn't even see it coming!