Re: B5 and Sir Isaac

sprayform.dev@netwales.co.uk writes:

@:) Any large mass has a gravitational pull ; since this is observable
@:) when a small pleasure boat comes within a few metres of a super
@:) tanker at bearth and is pulled towards the hull (both ships
@:) stationary) It is totally fesible that the 1/3 g of C&C is due to
@:) the MASS of B5 as a whole on the outlying section that does not
@:) rotate.

  Having just spent some time reading the Urban Legends home page
(www.urbanlegends.com) I am in a skeptical mood.  This sounds pretty
implausible.  My understanding was that the gravitational fields of
objects smaller than large mountains were impossible to measure - the
tanker experiment would appear to supply an excellent measurement
technique.  Anybody have any supporting facts on this issue?

  As for Babylon 5 and newtonian motion, we've heard again and again
about how amazing the starfuries are but does anyone have a concrete
example of a non-starfury moving in a newtonian fashion?  I really
can't recall anything of the sort.  I think there was a vague
reference mentioned already; perhaps the author could elaborate and
clarify.

  As far as I can tell, starfuries move in a newtonian fashion when
it's required to make them look cool.  No other ships (maybe
occaisionally the White Star [answered my own question!]) exhibit this
behavior.  The basic attitude seems to be "big ships are too slow to
move according to the laws of physics".

-joachim