newtonian motion

Quikngruvn · #1 July 11th, 2001, 08:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
I read it again. i was talking about tactical movement, so i got the answer right, at least half way. and since knowing is half the battle (presumeably the other half), and now that I know what we are talking about, I can now say for certainty that I have won. thank you for playing.

Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave....

But getting back to your ship wanting to do a U-turn with a thruster on port and starboard. Assuming these thrusters are offset from the center of the ship (near bow or stern, otherwise they would just cancel each other), a ship could indeed spin around very quickly, assuming it generates the necessary thrust to make the ship spin, and then the counter-thrust to stop it from rotating.

But figure this: if a ship can generate a fixed amount of energy per turn for thrust, then some of that energy must be diverted to the rotating thrusters to spin. Bigger ships, having more mass, would require more thrust to spin the same rate as a less massive ship. Thus, spinning costs more the bigger the ship.

The difference with the strategic map is the scale of time. Since a turn is roughly equal to a month, a ship sliding into a planet's sector would have plenty of time to decelerate to orbital velocity before parking in orbit over the planet. Tactical combat, on the other hand, relies on what a ship can do in a span of a few minutes. This limit is expressed in movement points. If rotating takes no movement points, then it follows that it also takes no time, which means a ship rotates at approximately the speed of light, which means... I defer to Mr. Einstein.

There. I've run rings around your logic.

Now why do I have this feeling this is gonna cost me in a game somewhere...?

Quikngruvn

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"That which does not kill you will make you stronger." -- Nietzsche

geoschmo · #2 July 11th, 2001, 08:48 PM

Ow Ow Ow, my aching head!

Spoo · #3 July 11th, 2001, 09:40 PM

[quote\ Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave.... [/quote]

Don't you mean Heisenberg is simultaniously spinning in his grave and just lying there -until you check that is. Or maybe it was Shroeder's cat...

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Lupusman · #4 July 11th, 2001, 10:36 PM

Physics humor. Is that horrible or what!

DirectorTsaarx · #5 July 11th, 2001, 10:37 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Spoo:
[quote\ Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave....

Don't you mean Heisenberg is simultaniously spinning in his grave and just lying there -until you check that is. Or maybe it was Shroeder's cat...
[/quote]

You mean Schroedinger's cat?

Or maybe they're all spinning a giant roulette wheel and using the results to calculate the probability wave representing the ship in the first place...

Quikngruvn · #6 July 12th, 2001, 03:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Or maybe they're all spinning a giant roulette wheel and using the results to calculate the probability wave representing the ship in the first place...

I know my head's still spinning from my Last post. Give me little bit and I'll get it flipped from negative to positive spin....

quote:
Originally posted by Lupusman:
Physics humor. Is that horrible or what!

We've got nothing on Mother Nature when it comes to physics humor. I read an article Last year about some physicists deciphering the structure of protons and neutrons. They already knew that 98% of matter is just empty space, the rest being made up of elementary particles. After their analysis, they concluded that the remaining 2% of matter is mostly... well, nothing.

OK, time to think happy thoughts now!

Quikngruvn

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"That which does not kill you will make you stronger." -- Nietzsche

Puke · #7 July 12th, 2001, 10:58 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Quikngruvn:
Certainty? Heisenberg would be spinning in his grave....

would be, IF he had oposing thrusters on his fore and aft to spin with! as it stands, I think there is considerably more friction in his grave than we are dealing with in space, so he certainly would not spin as well as one of the ships we are discussing.

quote:
Originally posted by Quikngruvn:
Bigger ships, having more mass, would require more thrust to spin the same rate as a less massive ship. Thus, spinning costs more the bigger the ship.

The difference with the strategic map is the scale of time....Tactical combat, on the other hand, relies on what a ship can do in a span of a few minutes.

all very true, i just figured that the time scale was such that the time and thrust necessary to turn (equal to thrust necessary to move a distance equal to no more than half the circumferance of a cricle with radius half the length of the ship in question, and then stop) would be negligable compared to the thrust necessary to move a ship one square on the tactical grid. which is somewhere between 1/2 the diamater of a tiny moon and 1/2 the diamater of a sphereworld which is built around a sun at the distance of some orbital shell n. this of course is a very big range, but either way it is presumably significantly greater than the distance required for a turn. basically, i figured our distances were bigger and time longer. not that your point is in any way invalid.

quote:
Originally posted by Quikngruvn:
There. I've run rings around your logic.

haha, my logic extends a forearm for the clothes-line!