Question |
| Asked by: |
betsi |
| Subject: |
device in CSagan's movie Contact |
| Question: |
Was the space/time machine in the film Contact a gyroscope?
Is the gyroscope a micro-version of a planet orbiting the sun? |
| Date: |
9 July 2004
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
webmaster@gyroscopes.org - 09/07/2004 17:55:51
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| | No. the machine in the film contact was not a gyroscope. However it did resemble the gimbals of a gyroscope.
A gyroscope is not really a micro-version of a planet because its not orbiting anything.
However planets are gyroscopic.
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| Answer: |
DaveS - 23/07/2004 09:41:33
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| | "Is the gyroscope a micro-version of a planet orbiting the sun?"
This question has several differing opinions. If a solid object is spun fast enough, in theory it could resemble a micro planet. It would have the same orbit as the Earth until it reached a speed that would enable it to become independant of the Earth and act in its own right.
Some work was done with highly spinning flywheels (3 metre diameter, very heavy spinning in excess of 30,000 rpm) back in the sixties and they exhibited some very strange properties. They broke out of their housings, appeared to hover for a second and then dissappeared, leaving a huge hole in the wall of the building they occupied.
It has been rightly or wrongly speculated that they became planets in their own right and as such found their own position in space in relation to the sun and the Earth. Some believe that at some stage we could collide with these objects when the Earth orbit recrosses the flywheels orbit, others believe they have gone whizzing off into space and they may or may not have found their own orbital position and there was an idea put forward that they may have slipped into an alternative dimension etc......
Whatever the answer is, you may be right but no follow up research has been carried out and if it was i believe it could be extremely dangerous.
DaveS
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