More plausible gravity theory

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #30 on: January 15, 2006, 01:39:27 PM »
At different points on the Earth, the angle would change, yes, but the distance you would have to go to notice such a change would be quite a bit. As you move around, the change in the angle would be so small, that it would be imperceptible. It would be like trying to notice the difference between in temperature between 20 degrees and 20.001 degrees (both celsius). The relative size of the Earth to the disc would make the change in angle fromeven one side to the other almost completely imperceptible to all but the most highly perceptive people in the world.

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You can restrict the distance from the center that the Earth can be, but then you've broken the rule you were trying to follow, i.e., I could ask the question, "Why would the Earth be so close to the center?"
That wasn't a rule I was trying to follow, that was trying to kill 2 birds with one stone. Gravity works like this, and if we weren't at the center, we wouldn't noticce because of this.

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You can suggest that the mother disc is slightly bowl-shaped. Like, very very slightly. This would explain why the Earth is always very close to the center.
Why? Are you suggesting that the Earth would move  down the slant?

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maybe that the differences are so tiny that they're not noticed anyway
Bingo!

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Erasmus

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #31 on: January 15, 2006, 01:44:58 PM »
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Bingo!


Well, they'd only be slight if

1) The Earth were very close to the center,

or

2) Evolution selected indivuals that ignore the slant.

(2) can't be the case because the slant isn't even approximately constant if it's large.  But if the slant were small, then evolution wouldn't have to do any work at all, and you'd be left with (1), at which point the burden is upon you (or at least, you were concerned that the burden might be placed upon you) to explain why the Earth is close to the center.

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Why? Are you suggesting that the Earth would move down the slant?


Well, if the mother disc exerts large enough gravity on the Earth, and the coefficient of friction is low enough, then yes, I suggest the Earth would move down the slant.  This is because when I take a plastic bowl and put, say, a corn flake on the slant, it slides down.  I expect things slide down slants.

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

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6strings

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #32 on: January 15, 2006, 02:52:30 PM »
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at which point the burden is upon you (or at least, you were concerned that the burden might be placed upon you) to explain why the Earth is close to the center.


Well, actually, the beauty of theories is that he doesn't have to prove it per se, he just has to make it explain any phenomena that would otherwise diprove it.  At which point it's just as valid a theory as any other round earth theory..with the exception of actualy facts to support it.

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2006, 03:04:21 PM »
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Well, if the mother disc exerts large enough gravity on the Earth, and the coefficient of friction is low enough, then yes, I suggest the Earth would move down the slant. This is because when I take a plastic bowl and put, say, a corn flake on the slant, it slides down. I expect things slide down slants.
Alright, there may some mis-interpretation on my part. Which way is the "bowl"? If it were like an upside-down bowl, like a dome of some sort, and the Earth were on the outside, then it could work.

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Erasmus

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #34 on: January 15, 2006, 05:09:37 PM »
Um, no, it's a bowl in the orientation of a bowls that you eat cereal out of or knead dough in or whatever.  Concave-up.

I think that an object placed on top of an upside-down bowl, concave-down, like a dome, would tend to slide to the outside.  I'm looking for a setup in which the Earth tends to slide towards the middle.  Seems to me that a concave-up bowl would achieve this effect.

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #35 on: March 24, 2006, 04:17:03 PM »
Quote from: "Erasmus"
Um, no, it's a bowl in the orientation of a bowls that you eat cereal out of or knead dough in or whatever.  Concave-up.
-Erasmus


First of all, I can't believe I missed this thread when I signed up here.  Very interesting, as I was thinking along the same direction for a while to cope with FE gravity alternatives.

Now, typically Erasmus has good points, but I think this one is a bit off.  The center of gravity of a concave object may not be inside the object's surface.  For a bowl with enough slant for a FE to slide toward the center it may be above the surface.  This could potentially make theta very noticible because we're not attracted to a point way under the earth.

It also makes the math of calculating gravity very tricky. Instead of simply using the total mass of the disc and distance to geometric center, you'd have to do a volume intergral of the bowl.

For some reason, I like this hypothesis better than the accelerating upward model.  Although, the centripetal model is intriguing too.  I guess it is because both of these assume a finite universe instead of an infinite one with nothing else in it.

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Erasmus

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #36 on: March 25, 2006, 01:58:31 AM »
Man, this thread was like, ancient-history-esque.... but okay.

Quote from: "flyingleaf"
The center of gravity of a concave object may not be inside the object's surface.  For a bowl with enough slant for a FE to slide toward the center it may be above the surface.


Right, but, on the other hand, it might indeed be below the surface.  I kinda imagined that the mother disc was supposed to be *huge*, like, much much thicker and much much wider than the Earth.  If it were a hundred times thicker, say, then the "bowl" could be fairly shallow, and the center of gravity would still be below the surface of the bowl.

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This could potentially make theta very noticible because we're not attracted to a point way under the earth.


Right, we'd be attracted to a point... up in the air.  That would be wierd.

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It also makes the math of calculating gravity very tricky. Instead of simply using the total mass of the disc and distance to geometric center, you'd have to do a volume intergral of the bowl.


I wave my private parts at your volume integral.  The bowl is point-symmetric about its central axis.  Also, if the bowl is, say, a paraboloidal or spherical indentation in a cylinder (i.e., parabolic or circular, after we subtract one dimension due to symmetry) it reduces to a simple matter of subtracting a small chunk of nicely-shaped area from a rectangular area, and rotating around an axis.  Child's play.

Anyway, if, again, the bowl is very shallow as compared to the thickness of the disc, we can actually ignore it, an imagine the disc is just a cylinder.

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For some reason, I like this hypothesis better than the accelerating upward model.  Although, the centripetal model is intriguing too.  I guess it is because both of these assume a finite universe instead of an infinite one with nothing else in it.


One problem with this theory arises if you actually think that naked-eye and telescoping observations of satellites are not illusions or something.  Some satellites follow lines of longitude; how would they get through the big disc?

Anyway, I think I like the mother pillar theory better than the mother disc theory.  You need the disc to be really thick anyway, so that the center of gravity is as far down away from the Earth as possible.  Having a very wide disc doesn't really help, except insofaras it adds mass.

The problem with a more distant centre of gravity is that we can actually measure the distance to the centre of gravity using the inverse-square relation for gravity.  From that, we can calculate the mass of the pillar or disc required.

The problem with a closer centre of gravity is that the angle between gravity "rays" becomes greater, given different places of measurement on the Earth.

Lastly, the problem with the centrifugal acceleration model, while appealing, is the same as with the linear acceleration model: why does it appear that the stars have this simple circular motion through the sky?  Don't forget that east and west would be *tangent* to the Earth's motion in the centrifugal acceleration model... the sky would look totally wierd.  Essentially you have to assume that the sky is somehow fixed to the Earth, and moves around with it.  But we can use parallax to determine the distance at least to nearby stars, so it's a *big* dome.

Anyway, keep working on those alternate theories :)

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #37 on: March 26, 2006, 08:10:21 AM »
v_v the thing is, if gravity exists everything is pulled into to the center, in a sphere. Therefor you can't use gravity as an explanation in FE

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Erasmus

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #38 on: March 26, 2006, 09:42:05 AM »
You haven't demonstrated that

Quote from: "Sharky"
Therefor you can't use gravity as an explanation in FE


follows from

Quote from: "Sharky"
if gravity exists everything is pulled into to the center, in a sphere.


What's your justification?

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #39 on: March 26, 2006, 12:21:24 PM »
If gravity exist, it will pull everything to the center, from every direction, not only down, and so the mass will be pulled into a sphere and not a disc

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #40 on: March 26, 2006, 12:36:29 PM »
Quote from: "Sharky"
If gravity exist, it will pull everything to the center, from every direction, not only down, and so the mass will be pulled into a sphere and not a disc

vallied point i salute you

More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #41 on: March 27, 2006, 10:22:08 AM »
Quote from: "Erasmus"
I wave my private parts at your volume integral.
<snip>
Child's play.

Hey!  Some people happen to have a healthy fear of volume integrals.  (and I apologize for the unfortunate placement of the <snip>)

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Some satellites follow lines of longitude; how would they get through the big disc?

Good point.  They're not really satellites?  I'm afraid most aerospace endeavors run into the 'conspiracy' theory.

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Anyway, I think I like the mother pillar theory better than the mother disc theory.  You need the disc to be really thick anyway, so that the center of gravity is as far down away from the Earth as possible.  Having a very wide disc doesn't really help, except insofaras it adds mass.

Does it really?  If the disc is almost infinitely wide but very light, then the CoG becomes a nebulous region immediately under the Earth.

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The problem with a more distant centre of gravity is that we can actually measure the distance to the centre of gravity using the inverse-square relation for gravity.  From that, we can calculate the mass of the pillar or disc required.

I'm not too sure this is possible.  There are two unknowns: Mass of disc or pillar, and distance to CoG, and only one equation.  It would actually be easier if the CoG is closer, that way, we can vary r and discount experimental errors in precision.

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Lastly, the problem with the centrifugal acceleration model, while appealing, is the same as with the linear acceleration model: why does it appear that the stars have this simple circular motion through the sky?
-Erasmus

Right.  However, in any acceleration model the skydome would have to move with the Earth in order for the stars to keep appearing.  Otherwise, we'd lose some eventually behind the FE disc.

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Erasmus

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More plausible gravity theory
« Reply #42 on: March 27, 2006, 01:47:58 PM »
Quote from: "flyingleaf"
Does it really?  If the disc is almost infinitely wide but very light, then the CoG becomes a nebulous region immediately under the Earth.


Yeah.  The goal of the pillar is to get the CoG to be far away from the Earth.

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Quote from: "Erasmus
The problem with a more distant centre of gravity is that we can actually measure the distance to the centre of gravity using the inverse-square relation for gravity.  From that, we can calculate the mass of the pillar or disc required.

I'm not too sure this is possible.  There are two unknowns: Mass of disc or pillar, and distance to CoG, and only one equation.


You get one equation every time you take a measurement.  If you take two measurements, you have two equations.  Voila.

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in any acceleration model the skydome would have to move with the Earth in order for the stars to keep appearing.  Otherwise, we'd lose some eventually behind the FE disc.


True, but that's currently more than the FE model claims.  And don't forget that we can measure the radius of the dome -- er, just like we can measure the distance to the sun... oops! -- using very low-tech methods.

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?