Could artificial gravity be dangerous?

[sojourner]

^A super dense gravity source in the solar system would be dangerous!

 

[Deckerd]

Notice I didn't say in the solar system.

 

[Christopher]

^A super dense gravity source in the solar system would be dangerous!

Only if you got close to it. From a distance, a given mass exerts the same gravitational effect no matter how dense it is. If, say, Jupiter were somehow compressed into a black hole, its gravitational effect on the rest of the Solar System would be completely unchanged. After all, as I said, the gravitational pull of any object acts as though it's localized in the object's center of mass. So every mass perceives every other mass as a gravitational point source to begin with. Therefore, actually compressing that mass into a literal, physical point has no effect -- until you get much nearer to its center of mass than you could if it were of normal density. On Earth, you can't get closer to the center of mass than about 6370-odd kilometers (short of digging a very deep hole, in which case you'd feel a diminishing pull as you got closer to the center, because you'd feel no gravitational pull from the material above you). Compress the Earth's mass into a black hole, and you'd still feel 1 g if you were 6370-odd kilometers away from it -- but you could get arbitrarily closer to it and still have the same amount of mass below you, and the inverse square law would still apply. At c. 640 km you'd feel 100 g, at c. 64 km you'd feel 10,000 g, at c. 6.4 km you'd feel 1,000,000 g, and so on. But if you were standing on the Moon, there'd be no measurable difference in gravitation whether you were orbiting the Earth or orbiting a black hole of the Earth's mass.

So it's not the density of the gravity source that's at issue, only how massive it is. If its mass were equivalent to that of, say, an asteroid, then it wouldn't pose any significant risk unless you got close to it or it was on a collision course with your planet. If it were equiavalent in mass to a planet, then it could be disruptive to the orbits of the other planets. But that would be true regardless of its density.

 

[JustAFriend]

The same goes for experiments with artificial gravity. If one suceeds there is a risk of messing up the natural order of things.

Have scientists thought about these problems? That we need to be very careful with artificial gravity experiments?

You DO realize that its fiction, that we dont even know what gravity is let alone how to 'generate' it, right????

 

[sojourner]

The same goes for experiments with artificial gravity. If one suceeds there is a risk of messing up the natural order of things.

Have scientists thought about these problems? That we need to be very careful with artificial gravity experiments?

You DO realize that its fiction, that we dont even know what gravity is let alone how to 'generate' it, right????

Try to tell that to KJBushway.

If it were equiavalent in mass to a planet, then it could be disruptive to the orbits of the other planets. But that would be true regardless of its density.

Yea, this is more what I was implying. Dropping something the size of an asteroid with the mass of Jupiter into the solar system is going to play hell with everyone's day.