Re: Asteroid Problem

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

This brings up a problem one of my students modeled for me on an analog
computer -- i.e. the non linearity expected from the motion of a
Cavendish pendulum very near one of the masses.  This is similar to the
gradient producing tidal effect.  In this case, anharmic motion
results.  A tedious calculation showed the effect is about one order too
small to detect with the Leybold apparatus (if I remember).  At some
point I hope to detect it by replacing one of the ~ 2 kg balls with a
tungsten (or DU --  there's plenty around in Kosovo, Iraq, AND Vieques)
cylinder and replacing the glass sides with saran wrap.   Perhaps
building a Cavendish with much massier pendulum balls may also help.
However, since, counter intuitively, their mass is irrelevant in the
measurement of G, this may also be so for this experiment.

Any comments?

bc



Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> Our moon is about 30 earth-diameters away. In this case
> components of forces exerted on any little part of our planet
> are very small in comparison with perpendicular components
> (on my picture where the moon-earth line is horizontal).
> Thus lunar tidal forces (gradient of F) are essentially
> horizontal (on my picture). But this would not be so for
> an asteroid located only one earth-diameter away from
> the center of our planet. Would the vertical force
> components reduce the tidal effect? I would expect so.
>
> And I hope we will never have a chance to test this
> experimentally for a very massive asteroid. Can this be
> tested on a very small scale? For example, in solid tides
> mutually induced in two large cannon balls.
> Ludwik Kowalski