Re: [OPE] The problem with Ian Wright's example: no equilibrium

From: wpc <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Wed Oct 07 2009 - 08:59:15 EDT

Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
>
> whereas we might like to stay up all the time, the laws of physics tell us
> that what goes up, must come down. As so it is with the body suspended in
> its elliptical orbit: in reality, the body does fall slowly to the earth in
> a spiralling movement, and therefore THE IDEA THAT THERE REALLY EXISTS AN
> "EQUILIBRIUM POINT" AT ANY TIME IS FALSE.
>
Well strictly this is true due to gravitational radiation, but within
the lifetime of the universe so far, this effect is negligible for
planetary sized bodies, so we can treat the orbit of the moon to be in
equilibrium to a very high order of approximation, if you did not like
his gravitational example, electron ground orbitals could have been chosen.
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Received on Wed Oct 7 09:04:06 2009

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