From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 11:49:00 MST
spike66 says before departing over the hill on his hog with a red rose
clenched between his teeth:
> Think of a long
> thin rod as two rods attached end to end, with a closer
> rod and a farther rod. The Earth attracts the closer
> rod stronger, inverse square of the distance and all
> that. If one imagines a long rod at 45 degrees from
> vertical, a gravitational torque results that tends to
> pull the rod to vertical.
Yeah, yeah, but... The long lower rod in this case is not just *sitting*
there to begin with. The higher end of the lower rod is moving like a bat
out of hell (compared with what its lengthening tip wants to do), and
therefore (to start with) so is that lower end. Grav torque drags it
backward, but still the brute is roaring upward toward the central mass's
orbit, not just sitting there placidly at 45 degrees. My question is whether
it swings all the way up and over, becoming for a while a synchronous
rotovator with increasingly lengthening rods that slow until the shorter rod
reaches neatly all the way to the surface... at which point the rods--what?
Come to a halt, by handy coincidence? Overswing and then fall back,
oscillating (as Lee Corbin suggested)?
Damien Broderick
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