Re: (TFT) Thoughts on Cidri

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

"David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Stan,
>       Nice touch with the German accent there.  I could almost see Verner 
> Von Brahm in his lab coat explaining the physics.

Werner von Braun, actually.

"Once they go up, who cares where they come down?
'That's not my department,' says Werner von Braun."
      - Tom Lehrer

I lacked the time to post this earlier in the week, so here's my thoughts.
Someone posited that if Cidri was much larger than Earth, it would have to
rotate phenomenally fast to have a 24 hour day, and this might help 
achieve escape velocity.

Well, it just so happens that I know a little about this :)  Jupiter,
the largest planet in the Sol system, has a radius 11.21x greater than
the third planet, giving it an area 256.53x larger.  Further, it spins
on its axis every 9h55m (in the time units of the 3rd planet).  Each Earth
day is thus ~2.4x longer than Jupiter's.  If we posit that Cidri is as
large as Jupiter, it would be spinning less than half as fast as Jupiter.

Such a large planet has a pretty high gravity, since it has a high mass.
If we further postulate less mass for Cidri, we can come up with other
reasons that magic works there and a host of other fun things.


=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"