I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with this. I know that rotational gravity is real. I’ve been on a tilt-a-whirl, I just don’t fully understand WHY it works.
Here is a scenario to illustrate what I mean: I am an astronaut inside a “hollow donut” type ship like in 2001. There is no air, we are in space. No relative gravity whatsoever from anything else. I am inside the ship, it is not moving or spinning and I am not close to the hull or anything.
From what I understand if the ship begins to “spin” to induce the artificial gravity effect, I will be affected by it and pushed out toward the outer wall or hull.
Why? What is ACTING on me. I know it might sound like a weird question. I love science and am convinced by it 100% I just feel like I don’t get what exactly is going on.
In: Physics
> I just don’t fully understand WHY it works.
Objects in motion tend to remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. This means that if you are drifting through space you are going to keep going that direction unless something makes you move a different direction. When that happens you are going to feel a force.
So to make you spin around in a circle you are being continually made to change your direction. On one side of the circle you are going one direction, and on the other side you have been accelerated such that you are going the completely opposite direction. The force you interpret as “pulling you to the ground” is actually the force opposing your inclination to just fly off in a straight line.
> From what I understand if the ship begins to “spin” to induce the artificial gravity effect, I will be affected by it and pushed out toward the outer wall or hull.
No, you will not. You would need to be spinning with the wall or hull in order to be inclined to fly off in a straight line, and have the wall/hull stop you creating the simulated gravity. Without moving you are just going to be sitting next to a spinning torus. If you grabbed onto the torus you would start needing to resist being flung off, right? That is the artificial gravity.
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