Tuesday, October 11, 2005
A Moment of Geek Weakness
Did you ever watch the Babylon 5 TV series?
To catch-up the uninitiated, it was a sci-fi TV series set on a very large space station deep in outer space somewhere quite dangerous.
I always thought it was interesting how the Captain would go and hit baseballs when he'd had a rough day. Not just at a batting cage, either, but on a real-sized baseball diamond located somewhere on the space station (I told you it was a big station).
What always struck me as odd is that no one else was ever playing baseball and he always had the whole place to himself. I fact, that's why he went there - lots of open space and no people around. I suppose these are rare commodities on a space station. Surely, though, the Captain was not the only person seeking a little open space, so I always wondered why he had the field all to himself. I thought, well, he's the Captain and he just ordered everyone off the field. Rank hath its privileges.
But, then it occurred to me: no one was ever playing baseball, because you can't play baseball on a space station - especially not a station that rotates to simulate gravitational forces.
Why not? Coriolis.
Let's say you hit a pop fly into right field... the ball has a fairly long flight time - a couple of seconds at least. The ball travels in a nice arc from it's starting point (where it was hit) to wherever it going to land. However, during those seconds, the space station (i.e. the floor) is rotating away taking the right fielder (who is standing on the station and moving with it) along with it. Therefore, from the right fielder's perspective, the ball is not flying in a simple parabolic trajectory, but is curving away from him in the direction opposite the station’s rotation. This same thing would happen to pitches and throws, making the game well nigh impossible to play.
So, it turns out there was a simple reason the baseball diamond was always empty... it was useless.
I suppose – even in the future – the government will still have no clue how to spend their money correctly.
To catch-up the uninitiated, it was a sci-fi TV series set on a very large space station deep in outer space somewhere quite dangerous.
I always thought it was interesting how the Captain would go and hit baseballs when he'd had a rough day. Not just at a batting cage, either, but on a real-sized baseball diamond located somewhere on the space station (I told you it was a big station).
What always struck me as odd is that no one else was ever playing baseball and he always had the whole place to himself. I fact, that's why he went there - lots of open space and no people around. I suppose these are rare commodities on a space station. Surely, though, the Captain was not the only person seeking a little open space, so I always wondered why he had the field all to himself. I thought, well, he's the Captain and he just ordered everyone off the field. Rank hath its privileges.
But, then it occurred to me: no one was ever playing baseball, because you can't play baseball on a space station - especially not a station that rotates to simulate gravitational forces.
Why not? Coriolis.
Let's say you hit a pop fly into right field... the ball has a fairly long flight time - a couple of seconds at least. The ball travels in a nice arc from it's starting point (where it was hit) to wherever it going to land. However, during those seconds, the space station (i.e. the floor) is rotating away taking the right fielder (who is standing on the station and moving with it) along with it. Therefore, from the right fielder's perspective, the ball is not flying in a simple parabolic trajectory, but is curving away from him in the direction opposite the station’s rotation. This same thing would happen to pitches and throws, making the game well nigh impossible to play.
So, it turns out there was a simple reason the baseball diamond was always empty... it was useless.
I suppose – even in the future – the government will still have no clue how to spend their money correctly.
R.T. Lemur 11:47 AM
1 Comments:
Nice zinger at the end... lol. I thought you were gonna go the opposite way with it and talk about salary caps.