I am dum at science -- Random Science Questions for Shiro and not Elroy

[Rocl]

Course I fully admit I might have missed the point of those posts cause I wasn't reading them carefully

I thought people were making fun of Howie but I started glossing over this thread as soon as I saw leroy and understood in full what howie was asking

[Greatguardian]

That was more directed at the "Will people eating more change the earth's mass enough to change its orbit or rotation" thing from last page, which didn't make any sense to me because eating doesn't really provide any net change in mass on the earth. Course I fully admit I might have missed the point of those posts cause I wasn't reading them carefully

oh i figured that was all just trollan. i thought you were replying to howie. my bad.

it's a decently interesting thought experiment because changing the distribution of mass would affect the earth's center of mass and thus its orbit, extremely slightly. the amount of mass on the earth is unimportant, but the location of the center of mass and that location's distance from the center of mass of the sun are important.

as far as earth's rotation goes, yeah we can steal negligible amounts of rotational velocity from it if we want. in both cases it really isn't so much that we can't affect these things as it is that the effect we have is so minimal that it really won't change anything that we can notice.

[Chun Liroy]

I thought people were making fun of Howie but I started glossing over this thread as soon as I saw leroy and understood in full what howie was asking

Wait , what

[Conrad]

Earth is actually becoming more elliptical as the ice caps melt and the weight redistributes to the equator. The Earth's rotation is slowing anyway though, due to the Moon stealing our frictional momentum. I doubt anything done on Earth would lengthen a day with any sort of significance, unless Superman decides to orbit at light speed again or something.

[Greatguardian]

The best part about superman flying around outside our atmosphere is the fact that he's not actually grabbing onto anything to make the earth move. It's like, there's no air out there, what are you pushing kal'el?

ALTERNATE THEORY: Maybe the Earth itself never really reversed its rotation. That would not turn back time anyways, which is why a lot of science geeks chortle at Superman. Maybe Kal'El flew out to orbit in order to use the Earth's gravity to hyper-accelerate himself past the speed of light, which would result in him personally going back in time. MAYBE HE WAS DOIN IT RIGHT ALL ALONG

[Greatguardian]

Although this would mean that Superman is as fast as Flash which could have profound implications on the Goku thread.

[Conrad]

maybe clark weighs as much as the Moon

[Kuya]

or maybe clark is a dick

[Greatguardian]

Alternate theory is actually making a lot more sense. Earth's gravity actually wouldn't help him much if he kept flying in circles instead of slingshotting, but being outside the atmosphere allows him to fly at ultra-high speeds without adversely affecting the planet.

So really, the Earth never spun backwards. Clark Kent just happens to be as fast as the Flash. He just holds himself back while on Earth because solid mass moving at near-light speed would annihilate most matter it comes into contact with.

[Greatguardian]

Wow. That movie gets so much shit for being all un-sciencey, but it could actually work as long as you don't take the Earth's apparent reversal of rotation literally. If we were to assume that we're seeing that scene from Kal'el's perspective, the Earth would appear to slow down and start spinning backwards as he approached and passed the speed of light.

[Blarg]

maybe it's an optical illusion like how a cars tire seems to spin the other way when it changes speed

[Greatguardian]

that would imply that the Earth's rotational velocity was increasing, silly

[Blarg]

happens when cars slow down too

[quannum]

maybe superman put spinnin rims on the earth

[shepardG]

NEAR THE SPEED OF LIGHT, I GOD DAMN KNEW IT...

"Able to run at near light-speeds, his powers provide the ultimate caffeine kick: He can run up buildings, move so swiftly he phases through objects, create sonic booms with the snap of his fingers—and never need to order delivery"

from DC comics official page...

slow ass mother fucker can't even run faster than reality.

[Greatguardian]

No. Superman 2 clearly shows Superman going faster than the speed of light. This is obviously more canon than your canon.

[Mizango]

Yall niggas in here...

[Mizango]

Sig applicable. But by all means, carry on.

Humor me moar.

[Mizango]

When you simultaneously drop a pencil and a hammer and a baby off the Empire State Building on a day where there is magically no air around to cause air resistance, the baby would suffocate and die first but they would all hit the ground at the same time

Being facetious I know, but the hypothetical baby would hit the ground and be dead from the impact LOOOONG before suffocation became the cause of death. Death in a vacuum is far less glamorous and dramatic as we'd like to believe.

[Chun Liroy]

Describe spaghettification please :D