Spin gravity question

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Ravengrim
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Spin gravity question

Post by Ravengrim »

OK, so I am looking though some old RPG crap that I have and there is this one 'hard' sci-fi game where all the ships that require gravity have to do so with a spin habitat. There is also a skill that they require to function in a spin habitat since they state that things thrown straight, for example, will deviate opposite the direction of the spin. But wait, if I am sitting in a moving car and throw a ball up, it doesnt shoot backwards, because everything has the same relative velocity. I thought maybe the coriolis effect of a spin habitat may be like a constant acceleration effect, but I am not sure if that is right, or even makes sense. So what would happen in a spin habitat that has a simulated 1G if I were to throw a ball to someone across the width of the habitat?

BTW, if this has been discussed already, soory. If you could point me to the answer I'd appreciate it
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Lord Zentei
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Post by Lord Zentei »

You would always get a coriolis effect in a spinning station. The smaller the radius, the larger the angular velocity needs to be to produce one g, thus the greater the coriolis effect.
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Lord Zentei
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Post by Lord Zentei »

Lord Zentei wrote:You would always get a coriolis effect in a spinning station. The smaller the radius, the larger the angular velocity needs to be to produce one g, thus the greater the coriolis effect.
Some clarification: a 1600m diameter spinning station rotating at 1rpm will produce 1g. Thus, a point on the floor is moving in a circular path at ca. 5000 m/min = 84 m/s in an inertial reference frame. From this you can determine how much the object is apparently deflected based on how long it takes for it to cross the 1600 meter gulf (if the object moves 1.6 km in half a minute the guy throwing the object will be smacked in the head with it). Similarly, if you throw the object along the station, the object is deflected sideways.

For a 200 meter station, you need ca. 3 rpm and so on. (The g-force is proportional to the rpms and inverselt proportional to the radius squared).
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TAX THE CHURCHES! - Lord Zentei TTC Supreme Grand Prophet

And the LORD said, Let there be Bosons! Yea and let there be Bosoms too!
I'd rather be the great great grandson of a demon ninja than some jackass who grew potatos. -- Covenant
Dead cows don't fart. -- CJvR
...and I like strudel! :mrgreen: -- Asuka
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Kuroneko
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Re: Spin gravity question

Post by Kuroneko »

Ravengrim wrote:There is also a skill that they require to function in a spin habitat since they state that things thrown straight, for example, will deviate opposite the direction of the spin. But wait, if I am sitting in a moving car and throw a ball up, it doesnt shoot backwards, because everything has the same relative velocity.
If angular momentum is conserved, changing the radial distance will change the angular velocity, thus difference of angular velocities between you and the thrown object will change, and deviation occurs.
Ravengrim wrote:I thought maybe the coriolis effect of a spin habitat may be like a constant acceleration effect, but I am not sure if that is right, or even makes sense. So what would happen in a spin habitat that has a simulated 1G if I were to throw a ball to someone across the width of the habitat?
That depends on which direction is the width.
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