Re: Newton (was: Re: Pentode-Triode Sound)



John Byrns wrote:

In article <45F15FCC.FAC47DB7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Patrick Turner <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

One can only ever really be partially correct, and partially wrong.

Newton gave us laws of motion which seemed SO RIGHT.
but you could never get a rocket to visit planets of the solar system
just relying on Momentum = 1/2 m x V squared et all.
He was right within his limited views, and for our little world, Newton
was pretty right,
if all we want to do is pull a train with a locomotive.

Is this really true, that it requires more than Newtonian Physics to
send a rocket anywhere in the solar system? I don't know one way or the
other, I never thought about it and just assumed that Newton was all we
needed for this simple task, so I am curious.


To plan a space probe, relativity has to be factored into delicate
equations worked out in computers. A team of men would be far too slow
to work out the timing and directions of rocket motor thrust activations
to
get from A to B in space.
Without Einstein's ideas, a simple moon shot would be very difficult.
Newton was a fantastic mind, and the world's civilisations were
profoundly
adavnced by his science.

But after Newton there were a large number of luminaries who
gave us additional ideas about space and time, and enabled us
with mathematics and computing.

Going to the moon isn't just sitting in a rocket, lighting a fuse,
and then steering your way there, and back again.

Perhaps you should read what NASA have to say about the requirements for
interplanetary travel. I'm sure that using newtonian laws only, you'd
easily miss the moon altgether
and have no way back, and perhaps end up at Alpha Centuri in about
100,000 years, frozen solid
in the rocket that couldn't return. But space is so vast the chance of
ever turning up
at any other star or solar system planet is only 1 in 50 billion, so in
100 billion years you'd still be drifting
along frozen solid, still gazing out the port hole....

As far as space travel is concerned, we need about another 1,000 years
of
rapid continued discovery and development of technology to allow
travel perhaps faster than the speed of light without needing
what now seems like an infinitely large amount of fuel energy.
By 1,000 years, genetic engineering of a wide range of
intelligent beings equipped with IQ 3,000,
and with access to computing 1 billion times more powerful than anything
now
may exist. Maybe nothing else much will exist here on earth by that
time.
We will have fully fucked the joint up.

By 10,000 years, lord knows what might exist here.

This is a terribly short amount of time in cosmic terms.
Only 333.3 generations.
But during the next 3 or 4 generations, we may make
huge leaps in knowledge, and at least some ppl will live so differently
to now
they won't be homo sapiens sapiens any more, but some weird
concoction....

We are about to free ourselves from the glacially slow hi and miss
results of evolution.

There will be problems along whatever way humanity goes, ( and
hu-womanity, let's
not leave her out ).
Perhaps we will have a series of atomic wars over the dwindling oil
supplies.

But even if these wipe out most people it won't stop progress in
scientific knowledge.
Y2k didn't stop the world's computors, 9/11 didn't cause America to
crash....

Patrick Turner.




Regards,

John Byrns

--
Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/
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