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From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: How will it fall?
Message-ID: <2710@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-May-86 13:29:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: jhunix.2710
Posted: Sat May  3 13:29:54 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 8-May-86 03:32:14 EDT
References: <632@tekigm2.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.ARPA (Ken Arromdee)
Organization: TARDIS Repairs, Inc.
Lines: 26

>Picture yourself on a space station similar to the one used in 2001
>(i.e. a spinning ring or toroid). You are standing in the middle of
>one of the decks near the outside edge of the ring and the spin of
>the station is providing a "gravity" about equal to that found on
>the surface of the Earth.
>
>If you were to drop a ball (a simple release with no additional
>forces applied), would it fall straight down (along a line through
>the center of the ring and the point of release) or would it follow
>another path (relative to the aforementioned line)?

From the point of view of someone not spinning and standing outside the
station, the ball would move, without accelerating, in a straight line
tangent to the circle whose center is at the space station's center and with
a radius of the distance from the center to where the ball was released.
This straight line would eventually intersect the rim of the space station.

An observer on the space station would see the ball appear to drop and then
move in an antispinward direction, eventually hitting the floor.
-- 
Kenneth Arromdee                                               |      |
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