Re: [OT] Bureau of Relocation

Roger Books wrote:

>I've been thinking a bit about this, the planet to orbit is trivial
>in the published universe.  Why?
> 
>Well, lets see, we have antigravity.  If it is sturdy enough to be
>used in a tank it will be used in the civilian world.

Very true.
 
>With antigravity you can basicly turn electricity into height.  Let's
>see, the formula for potential energy is:  mgh (IIRC).

Not entirely correct, but since you used the value for g at surface
level your value is a very conservative upper limit - the real value
will be lower (at least if you ignore nasty things like air resistance
etc <g>).

g decreases the higher you go, so you need to replace the above
expression with an integral

	       h = orbit
		     /
E = m*G*M* | dh/(h+R)^2
		    /
	     h = surface
 
where

R = Earth's radius
G = the gravitic constant
M = Earth's mass

For small h, eg when falling off a roof, g won't vary noticably and the
integral can be simplified to the formula you quoted. When you go into
orbit, the variation gets important :-/

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry