Re: B5 and Sir Isaac

Joachim Heck wrote:
>  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?

Maybe it's simply the fact that the tanker displaces more water than the
smaller ship and creates a simulated gravity well.  As the ships bob up
and
down in the water they create small wells or pockets from their
displacement.  The wells fill up as the ship rises, drawing nearby water
due
to the flow of least resistence.  A nearby ship could be drawn in by the
induced pull from the water flow.  I believe you are correct about
today's
tech requiring larges of matter to measure gravitational fields.  All
objects possesing mass do produce an attraction to other objects.

>  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".

Most of the shots of the big ships seem to be too short to display any
length of movement other than one direction.  I do remember watching
some
Centauri large ships thrust forward from a dead stop using a short burst
from their engines.  The ships continued moving after the thrusting
stopped,
displaying inertia.

Mike Miserendino