Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
Is it cold in here?:
Not an answer, but more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle.
All inertial frames see the same events and physical laws, just with different numbers attached. Rotating frames see strange things like Coriolis force.
Skewbrow:
Thanks. Mach was the name I was trying drag out of abyss of memory.
Kugai:
If I was gonna live on anything that had to rotate, I'd rather it be an Omega Class Destroyer
:-D
Is it cold in here?:
Does conservation of angular momentum prevent using the station as a giant flywheel to store energy from the solar panels when there's a surplus and then meet peak demands by slowing the station with a generator?
Carl-E:
I should know that, but it's been over 30 years since my last physics class (when I changed my majr to math).
I think, though, that it wouldn't work that way. The whole station is rotating (modulo the docking rings), not spinning on a fixed axis like the restaraunt atop the CN tower. Speeding it up (or slowing it) would take the firing of propulsion devices, not applying a motor/generator to the rotatng part from a fixed part.
Feel free to call into doubt any mistaken assumptions!
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