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Debate:What is the exponent of r in Newtonian gravity? (view source)
Revision as of 13:41, March 3, 2010
, 13:41, March 3, 2010no edit summary
:::::: Marnick, it's not necessary or helpful to run a simulation to test a logical truth. One doesn't "look for evidence" that "2+2=4", and your claim that the planets "will crash" into the sun (within a reasonable time) for any value of the exponent slightly different from 2 is mathematically fallacious. For starters, it implies an absurd discontinuity in the limit as the exponent approaches 2. Open your mind, please, and let logic in.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 10:39, 26 February 2010 (EST)
:::::: Marnick, it's not necessary or helpful to run a simulation to test a logical truth. One doesn't "look for evidence" that "2+2=4", and your claim that the planets "will crash" into the sun (within a reasonable time) for any value of the exponent slightly different from 2 is mathematically fallacious. For starters, it implies an absurd discontinuity in the limit as the exponent approaches 2. Open your mind, please, and let logic in.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 10:39, 26 February 2010 (EST)
::::::: I'd like to add a bit of my own view on this. The world as we know it is strictly consequent in every way. When you change numbers, you change what happens.It is actually a fact that planets will crash into the sun when the variable is changed. For instance, if Newton's number was 3, planets would follow a path shaped like an 8, the sun being right in the middle of the 8. When you make in 2.5 , the shape will become more complex. It doesn't matter how close you get to 2; the sun will be right on the path of your planet. Though when it's 2, the path will be elliptical. I understand that this can be hard to understand / believe, but it's not a matter of "the closer it gets to 2, the closer it gets to being an ellipse." It'll only look even slightly like an ellipse when the number is exactly 2. [[User:MalP|MalP]] 08:41, 3 March 2010 (EST)
I'm quite skeptical of Marnik's claimed simulation. Crashing into the Sun in a single orbit is just not credible for an exponent not wildly different from 2. And "moving through the Sun" is incredible. It implies that he entered the Sun's own radius as one of the simulation parameters. In any case, the planet would have to lose nearly all of its angular momentum. (This is what makes Solar exploration spacecraft trajectories so difficult.)
I'm quite skeptical of Marnik's claimed simulation. Crashing into the Sun in a single orbit is just not credible for an exponent not wildly different from 2. And "moving through the Sun" is incredible. It implies that he entered the Sun's own radius as one of the simulation parameters. In any case, the planet would have to lose nearly all of its angular momentum. (This is what makes Solar exploration spacecraft trajectories so difficult.)