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From: sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Why shouldn't time travel leave you in the same spot?
Message-ID: <2063@ukma.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 19:02:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ukma.2063
Posted: Sun Aug 18 19:02:44 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 21:22:06 EDT
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Reply-To: sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey)
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In article <790@lll-crg.ARPA> petrick@lll-crg.UUCP (Jim petrick) writes:
>This discussion reminds me of an Isaac Asimov story about two scientists;
>one a slow and cautious thinker, the other a quick, jump-to-conclusions
>type.  The two are jealous rivals out to outdo each other.  The quick one
>invents a device for nullifying gravity, and to show up his rival places
>the device on the center of a pool table over a hole cut in the surface.
>To embarass his rival, the quick guy invites the slow guy to demonstrate
>what a great invention he has by shooting a pool ball across the hole in
>the table (and through the null-gravity field).  The slow guy thinks a bit,
>then makes a bank shot so the ball is headed directly at the fast guy as it
>enters the field.  There is a flash, and the quick guy has a hole punched
>through him by the ball (all gravity nullified, it was not accellerated
>along with everything else in our frame of reference, and stayed put while
>the rest of the world whooshed by).  

That is ludicrous.  The world would whoosh by only if the ball were
under a force that would cause it to de-accelerate.  If an antigrav
field were maintained upon the ball, it would eventually leave the
earth by centrifugal force, but not very quickly.

For what you decribed to happen, the device would not only have to
nullify gravity, but also place the ball in some relative movement such
that the earth seemed to be whooshing by.



-- 

-  Sean Casey				UUCP:	sean@ukma.UUCP   or
-  Department of Mathematics			{cbosgd,anlams,hasmed}!ukma!sean
-  University of Kentucky		ARPA:	ukma!sean@ANL-MCS.ARPA