According to all the history books, history teachers, and history TV channels, back before Christopher Columbus everyone thought the world to be flat. That was proved to be wrong. The Earth is almost a sphere; almost, because it bulges at the equator. That must be caused from the centrifugal affect from its spin.
OK, now that also got me wondering. If the Earth has a larger diameter at the equator, would we weigh more standing there because of the extra gravity or would we weigh less since the centrifugal force is trying to throw us off. On the contrast, what if we sere standing at the north or sough pole? There would be negligible centrifugal force there, just gravity, so would we weigh more at the poles or less? Ok, now I am getting dizzy so better get back to my main subject.
Now, we have established that the Earth is round or near so, so what about the Universe? What shape would you think it is? If you believe in the “Big Bang” theory, then I would suppose you would have to believe that the universe is a sphere. I always did, but now the scientists are telling us it is flat. Where is Columbus when you need him? . . . Oh yeah, Columbus is in Ohio. This is the opposite of the Columbus story.
Yep, they say the universe is flat, a brane, and not only that, they believe that there are many of them stacked side by side, like pages in a book. From here the story gets complicated and way beyond my comprehension, so this is a good place for me to quit.
You all have a good day now, you hear.
OH! My brain hurts!! Bet yours does as well. Too deep for me.
ReplyDeleteThe ancient Greeks figured out the world was round. They came pretty close to guessing the diameter too.
ReplyDeleteSomething like 97% of the universe is dark matter & dark energy. We've got almost no clue what it's made of.
Columbus got pretty good press for a guy who came here hundreds of years after the Vikings.
Ah crud, you made me start thinkin'.
ReplyDeleteSo gravity is based off of the center of two masses and distance between them. Treating both the earth and me as static masses (I wish!), then standing at the equitorial bulge means I should weigh less.
Centripetal force is based on the mass of the spinning object and the radius and rate of the spin. Since an object at the pole is not spining parallel to the surface of the earth, the force is 0. At the equator, again, it would be something more than 0, so again, I should weigh less at the equator.
I'm too lazy to actually do the math, but the equations are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centripetal_force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation
And the values for all of this can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
Gotta love Wikipedia. Still, these differences are all pretty small, I'm guessing your weight would change by about 0.1%.
I'm thinking you have way too much heavy stuff on your mind, Dizzy!
ReplyDeleteNow you have me wondering about stuff I know nothing about! Bet you did that on purpose, didn't ya?
Now I need more coffee!
Ben, sorry – didn’t want to hurt your brain. I like to think about things I don’t really understand (grin).
ReplyDelete6bears, You are right about dark matter and dark energy. And by the way, the Asians visited the western America coast long before the Vikings came to the eastern coast.
GW, I stand corrected on the a persons weight at the equator; did not think it through, just sort of wrote it before thinking (grin). I speak before thinking, also.
HJ, Yep, did it on purpose. Want everyone to think about the wonders around us. I need coffee, too.
I don't know about standing on the equator, but I once stood with one foot in North Korea and the other foot in South Korea. I think I weighed the same as I did back in the US.
ReplyDeleteGypsy, sounds like you were in "no man's land". How did you get away with that?
ReplyDeleteI spent 5 wks in Seoul (working) and visited Panmunjom on the weekend. Very interesting place, and at one point you can go in to the small building where the truce was signed; the table is set half in the North and half in the South. The military guards let us walk around the table, so technically we walked into enemy territory.
ReplyDeleteGypsy, I didn't know you could do that. Thanks for the info.
ReplyDelete