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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: Could someone identify what this rock is?

« on: 08/07/2017 06:47:45 »

Just a guess here, but I'm thinking probably mostly quartz. It looks as if it has spent some time in a river. Milky quartz can take on a glassy appearance when wet.

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New Theories / Re: The sum of torque not at 0 ?

« on: 04/06/2016 18:38:34 »

I hate to be negative, but people have been trying to do this for ages. When I was younger I even tried myself a few times. In my experience (personally as well as dealing with others), the basic laws of physics tend to hold true (especially in a classical sense where they excel in describing and predicting the kind of macroscopic mechanical behavior that you're trying to describe.) This simply cannot be done with classical mechanics. If anyone were to find/create something that tends to generate energy, that energy has to come from somewhere... even if we don't understand the physics of it (and that's being very generous in this case).

However, I think I can safely say that mechanical engineering is not only well understood and practiced across the world every day by many people. It's rooted in time-tested proven principles based on math and physics. This isn't quantum mechanics, it's just a complex mechanical design.

Just because complex mechanics is well-understood and reliable does *not* mean that it's always straightforward or simple. In my own cases (and often times with other people as well), misunderstandings tend to result from incorrect intuition or math that's more complex than it seems on the surface. You might "simplify" your model by making some assumptions, and this is often done in physics to make it easier for students to focus on learning one thing at a time; however, as an engineer you learn that these "negligible" variables that are often ignored for the sake of simplifying problems can sometimes creep up in unexpected or unintuitive ways to create problems.

In short, I think you're chasing a dead end. I'm simply trying to give you some advice here. I think you'll find that a physical model will not function the way you want it to, regardless of how convoluted the design is.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does the universe have an edge?

« on: 02/06/2016 12:12:55 »

OH! really you are stating your opinion as if it were factual, you do not know if the universe has an edge or not and until you do it is just at best speculation on your part?

Actually, I agree with him. In his defense he did say "according to theory", which is a pretty accurate statement as far as I know. Further, he might been better off saying that the comment was over-reaching in its implication rather than flat-out wrong, but again I agree with him. Almost any analogy can work in-so-far as its intended breadth and depth; however, any analogy can be extended beyond the original intent of the person who made the analogy, and in this extension become false or outright ridiculous. This is a common structure for an argument similar to reductio ad absurdum arguments. "Well if electricity works like water... I should be able to swim in it... but I can't, so therefore this analogy is flawed." This is a classic example of an analogy simply being taken much too far. The most basic principles of electricity do very much resemble water as all the basic components are there. Pressure to voltage, current to rate of flow, resistance to resistance, etc... but even this analogy breaks down past a certain point.

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New Theories / Re: Why the Planets of a Solar System all orbit their Star at the same Velocity.

« on: 01/06/2016 14:25:21 »

The escape velocity for a system depends primarily on the parent object (though all bodies contribute to the total system mass). The escape velocity is a representation of the total energy needed to establish a trajectory with an eccentricity >= 1, which defines a path that doesn't return (non-periodic). This is a property of the system as a whole, and thus is shared among its members. Even sub-systems will have their own internal escape velocity (such as escaping earth) which if reached will take the propelled object into the larger parent system (sun-centered orbit in this case) where the influence due to the old parent object (earth) becomes negligible and a new object (sun) becomes the most influential. Depending on the altitude of the orbit, varying starting kinetic and potential energies can result in very different amounts of acceleration required for escape. For an object orbiting very far away, even small accelerations can be enough to accrue the total energy required for escape.
Also, centrifugal force is not a thing. Centripetal force is a thing, and in this context the centripetal force at work is due to gravity. "Centrifugal" force is simply a poor way of describing an object's tendency to continue moving in the same direction unless acted on by an outside force. A better word for this is inertia. Inertia is what provides the counterbalance to the centripetal force provided by gravity.
Gravitational force cannot be negated in the way you describe. It's easier to think of gravity acting on groups of bodies as acting on that group's barycenter. You must consider that the force of gravity created by the star affects not one planet, but both. It pulls both in the same direction, toward the star. For two neighboring planets orbiting at different altitudes, this means that the higher planet will have both the star and the lower planet pulling it down, and the lower planet will feel the higher planet pulling it up and the star pulling it down. If you sum all the forces due to gravity it will still be a net force pulling toward the center of mass of the system as a whole. One way planets often find stable arrangements in this situation is by simply orbiting each other, becoming tidally locked. This has the effect that they get to "take turns" taking the greater load of being the higher planet. Another method is with harmonic periods with other bodies in the system.
Another poster mentioned LaGrangian points, but I feel that it's important to point out that most LaGrangian points are less like "wells" where stability can be achieved easily because gravity is "cancelled" and more like "humps" where the object could really fall either way. This is especially true of the points that lie on the line established between the orbiting body and the parent (such as you were describing). The only points where stability can really be achieved are on the L4 and L5, which are ahead of and behind the orbiting body in it's orbit.