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From: rdp@teddy.UUCP (Richard D. Pierce)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: How will it fall?
Message-ID: <2578@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-May-86 16:36:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.2578
Posted: Mon May  5 16:36:32 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 8-May-86 07:12:11 EDT
References: <632@tekigm2.UUCP> <3461@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: rdp@teddy.UUCP (Richard D. Pierce)
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 34

In article <3461@hplabsb.UUCP> bl@hplabsb.UUCP (Bruce T. Lowerre) writes:
>> Hello Out There,
>> 
>> Here's a little thought problem that might stir things up a bit.
>> 
>> 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)?
>
>Due to angular momentum (or lack there of) it will fall in a curved
>path toward the opposite direction of the rotation of the toroid.

Well, I don't know exactly what is meant by this explanation. So here is
my own:

Upon releasing the ball, it is no longer experiencing the centripetal force
that keeps it in it's circular path (that force is supplied by your hand,
which is supplied by your body, which is supplied by the fact that you are
standing on the "floor" which is connected to the center of rotation, etc.)

The ball is now free to move under the influence of its own inertia, meaning
that it will attempt to persue a straight path, tangent to the circle it was
describing at the point of its release, at a speed equal to the circumfrential
velocity of the ring. It will continue on this path until interrupted, by
the floor, by you, or by the great outfielder at the edge of the universe.

Dick Pierce