From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:52:18 +0000
Subject: Re: (urth) contra Summa contra Marcus




On 25/03/2002 18:24:51 Andy Robertson wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
>> system, then, some mechanism must be provided for the motion
>> away from the Solar system to somehow bring the WHORL back
>> to the Solar system.
>
>It flew in a circle, as Pas/Typhon intended.

A question.

The Whorl of the Long Sun produces a facsimilie of gravity through spin.
Otherwise when we see it there is no other acceleration.  Is there (and I
ask because I can't remember) any mention of how the Whorl behaved when
traveling?  I'm thinking here of AC Clarke's Rama and it's circular sea
with one shore higher than the other to prevent the water flooding over
the land when Rama is under acceleration.

A linear path is simple enough but a circular one would require
accelerations in directions other than parallel with the access of the
Whorl - either constant or periodic.  The first suggests some motive force
applied at an angle to the direction of travel, the latter might be
effected by an attitudinal adjustment.

In either case how large a force could be applied without it being
perceptible to the inhabitants?  And is there a mid-trajectory roll-over?

>> IV. The objection from gravitation
>>
>> This has been discussed to death ... but ... it's very hard
>> to produce a plausible argument for Green as a satellite of
>> Blue (even an escaped satellite) without producing tidal
>> effects of a scale that dwarf those described by Horn.
>
>It is not possible that the Blue/Green system could be gravitationally
>stable.   Ergo, it is recent.

Yet the Neighbours have a long history of interaction with the Inhumi.
Ergo the orbital arrangement of Blue and Green must have been stable for
minimally several thousands of years of that history and potentially for
periods sufficient to have impact on the evolutionary development of the
species.

So we have a contradiction between celestial mechanics and narrative. It's
fiction, not history, so narrative is our only evidence and it would
appear that celestial mechanics can go hang.  ;-)


Matthew



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