Crimes of the Hot ending impossible?

[on:]

In Crimes of the Hot,(don't read if you don't want to know the end) the solution to the global warming problem was to move the entire earth. Is is possible to move the earth and it still be able to sustain life?

[Reply #1 on:]

Yup. Aslong as you somehow get the trajecotory right so the earth doesnt spin off into another region of the galaxy. And you would need a pretty powerful prepulsion system to get the earth away from the sun while retaining an orbit. (Ive just done a Mechanics exam today kinda dead on my feet from it so if im wrong correct me  )

[Reply #2 on:]

I think it is impossible to do anyway. Unless of course itwas invented like in "time keeps on slipping" where the "bad ass gravity pump" was made.

[Reply #3 on:]

ya, cause their were alot of robots for prepulsion,

[Reply #4 on:]

I'm not a math guy but I think the size of the orbit depends on the speed of the planet and it's mass. Sort of like if you want your satelite to be in a high orbit you have to launch it to a higher speed. If you want to leave Earth's gravity you have to acheive escape velocity. So pushing the planet away from the Sun may be not as effective as speeding up the planet in the direction of it's orbit. I read where the Moon's orbit is getting larger and in several million years it will be gone. So yes it can happen.

[Reply #5 on:]

I'm really asking if people could live on earth if the orbit was changed. Isn't our atmosphere just right to sustain life on earth? If the earth was moved, wouldn't people die?

[Reply #6 on:]

What does the atmosphere have to do with distance from the sun?

[Reply #7 on:]

The atmosphere is just right in that it's not too hot or cold for life. Bumping the planet back at a rate that would cancel out global warming would be fine as far as supporting life goes, but it would probably have other side effects that would kill lots of people. For starters, any change in Earth orbit would kill the orbit of the moon, which would knock out the effect of it's gravity on the world's oceans. Tsunamis galore!

It's just a cartoon though- realistically, any force powerful enough to knock the Earth out of orbit quickly would also have a devestating reaction force on the planet that would kill everything anyway  .

[Reply #8 on:]

The atmosphere is held down by the Earth's gravity. Whether it would get warmer or colder would depend on many variables such as distance from the Sun, Earth's rotation rate (length of day), and axis tilt (what gives us seasons). It may take quite a bit of change in orbit to change the weather. The "Goldielocks Zone" may be fairly wide depending on the other two factors. The rate the Sun's output can change may make global warming a trivial matter as well.

Did some checking and planet orbits slow down as they get farther away from the Sun.
So I guess you'd want to put the brakes on instead.

[Reply #9 on:]

It would depend on how far the earth is bumped off (disregarding the moon, I'd imagine they could temporarily 'connect' it to the earth somehow). The Earth is not always a set distance from the sun anyway, so a change would not necessarily effect the Earth's ecosystems dramatically. However, I doubt that life, as it exists on Earth, could be sustained with any dramatic change in distance from the sun.

[Reply #10 on:]

This might be of interest.

[Reply #11 on:]

Wow, that's cool! Thx

[Reply #12 on:]

 

Originally posted by futz:

Did some checking and planet orbits slow down as they get farther away from the Sun.
So I guess you'd want to put the brakes on instead.

Nope, slowing down Earth would result in the planet being pulled closer to the Sun. Pushing Earth into a higher orbit would require giving it a velocity boost first to bring it into a more eliptical orbit. Once you reach the desired orbit you need a nother push to make the orbit more circular again.

[Reply #13 on:]

 

Originally posted by smision:
This might be of interest.

wow thats cool, where did you find it?     

[Reply #14 on:]

Jonny, I was on some science forum or something once and I mentioned the Crimes of the Hot ending and how crazy I thought it was and the knowledgable people on this forum provided me a link to an article along those lines as the one I linked to. That may not be the same exact article but I just googled that one up. It is way cool. 

[Reply #15 on:]

Teral: I thought so too at first but I looked up the average velocity of the planets in their orbits. They are slower the farther you get from the Sun. Kepler's Laws seem to be counter intuitive if you consider the conservation of angular momentum. Could you explain? Simply (ha ha).

[Reply #16 on:]

The average velocity of planets does slow down, the further you get from the Sun. The reason for this is the gravitational pull of the Sun gets weaker with increased distance (in a 1:4 relationship). Meaning if the distance was doubled, the gravitational pull would only be 1/4.

It all involves a lot of complicated formulas, based on Kepler and Newton's work. Here is a pretty good webiste about the subject, complete with formulas and explanations.

If you want to change the orbit of the Earth, you're not dealing in velocity, you're dealing in acceleration. If you accelerate the Earth it will rise to a higher orbit, if you decelerate (put the brakes on) the Earth it will fall to a lower orbit (simply put, there's still some complicated manouevers involving aphelion or perihelion of the new orbit where you once again need to de-/accelerate the Earth to finally get to the desired orbit).

At least that's my understanding, and since that would require one badass propulsion system I would say it's pretty academic when talking about Earth, but NASA and other space agencies do it all the time with sattelites.

[Reply #17 on:]

I think if you accelerate in the direction of the orbit the object would increase it's velocity. Unless applying energy in that direction would have the effect of moving the planet outward and slowing it's velocity at the same time. ?

To acellerate (apply energy) the other direction would shrink the orbit and speed the planet up. ??

So if you'd want to go wider and faster you would have to apply a lot more energy than the above examples at a vectored angle ???

[Reply #18 on:]

Well, it's almost 15 years since I learned about this in high school, so I'm not quite up to speed.

Here's the best diagram I could find to illustrate the process of a Hohmann orbit transfer:



Notice it needs two acceleration sequences, one at the start in the original orbit to push the body into a more eleptical orbit with the periehlion at the original orbit and the aphelion at the new, desired orbit. Once the aphelion is reached, you need another acceleration to break the eliptical orbit and push the body into the new, more circular orbit.

Wikipedia has a pretty decent article about the whole thing

The advantage of the Hohmann transfer is it requires relatively low acceleration to make the transfer. The downside is it takes considerably longer.

Unless Farnsworth found a way to initiate the second acceleration without the robots, I don't see how he actually achieved anything beyond making Earth's orbit more eliptical ... I think ... it's been 15 years!

[Reply #19 on:]

Maybe the rumored new DVD's will feature a movie about the Earth about to be slingshotted out of the solar system. Weeeeee!

[Reply #20 on:]

The possibility of sending the earth out of its regular orbit is plausible, but the way that it was done in COTH would not push the orbit out wider. Imagine a marble running in circles around a funnel. if you gave it a push away from the centre at one point, you would notice that the whole orbit did not change, but it just because more oblong. the eliptical orbit that earth already has around the sun (hence summer/winter) would be farther out, mid summer, but during spring and fall would be closer to the sun than ever (assuming that it was mid summer when they pushed the earth) so, the way that it was done in COTH, would only double your problems, but at a different time.

[Reply #21 on:]

 

Originally posted by Descon:
The possibility of sending the earth out of its regular orbit is plausible, but the way that it was done in COTH would not push the orbit out wider. Imagine a marble running in circles around a funnel. if you gave it a push away from the centre at one point, you would notice that the whole orbit did not change, but it just because more oblong. the eliptical orbit that earth already has around the sun (hence summer/winter) would be farther out, mid summer, but during spring and fall would be closer to the sun than ever (assuming that it was mid summer when they pushed the earth) so, the way that it was done in COTH, would only double your problems, but at a different time.

No. Summer and winter is not based on how far earth is from the sun. If that was true, it woul be summer everywhere at the same time, not how it is now (Summer in the northern hemisphere=winter in the southern hemispher.) Summer and winter are based on how directly the sun is shining on certain part of the earth, due to it's tilted axis.

[Reply #22 on:]

well, to be entirely correct, we are both right. the tilt based on the earth's N/S axis does give the different seasons to the different parts of the earth, but it is also true that the earth is closer to the sun at certain parts of the year. just think of how impossible and unlikely it would be for the earth to have a perfectly circular orbit around the sun. 

[Reply #23 on:]

But it's closest to the Sun during the northern hemisphere's winter. I doubt if you'll get anybody up here to agree it has and warming effect at all.

[Reply #24 on:]

Was it actually possible that the extra-time given would be exactly a week... I always found that to be rather, uh, weird.

[Reply #25 on:]

The orbital eccentricity of the Earth is just 0.017, so the axial tilt of 23.5 deg has a much more significant effect on the seasons.

Regarding speeding up/slowing down: to increase the mean orbital radius, a force (acceleration) has to be applied along a vector perpendicular to the vector causing the orbital rotation. Thus you increase the speed along this vector, as it was originally zero. As the orbital radius increases, the speed in the direction of orbital rotation will decrease in compliance with conservation of angular momentum/Kepler’s laws. When the desired orbit is reached, another (negative) acceleration has to be applied to return the speed along the radial vector to zero. So during the process the Earth would both increase and decrease speed: but in different directions!

This is just a guess, but I would suggest the forces required would cause major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, since you’re not trying to move a solid body. Applying a force large enough to impart significant radial motion would probably have a very detrimental effect on the structural integrity of the tectonic plate to which it was applied: it’s only a thin crust floating on the molten mantle. Edit: we’re probably talking global resurfacing event here. Also, unless the exhaust of your reaction motor is located out in space, you’ll blow a dirty great hole in the atmosphere as soon as you switch it on...

Having said all that: never let the laws of physics stand in the way of a good storyline!

[Reply #26 on:]

So because of the amount of pollution that the robots were producing, its enough to keep the Earth at normal temperature, even though its further from the sun.

[Reply #27 on:]

Perhaps you could move it if you applied a slow steady acceleration. I know mass drivers and ion(?) engines use a very slight acceleration but over time it adds up. Of course that would be a very long episode and without bot butts few would watch.

[Reply #28 on:]

Well it must have made a change, becouse if you look carfully, the sky is a light shade of yellow, then after it is a nice blue colour.

[Reply #29 on:]

Might be easier and safer to put a sun blocker in orbit between the Earth and Sun for some shade.

[Reply #30 on:]

Or the giant mirror that Prof. Wernstrum invented.

[Reply #31 on:]

or the city level one, that Mr Burns used in the Simpsons

[Reply #32 on:]

 

Originally posted by smision:
This might be of interest.

Awesome!  UC Santa Cruz!  I went there!

[Reply #33 on:]

if everyone in china jumped at the same time it would cause the earth to stop spinning the force of which would cause everything on it to fly off into space- just thought i'd bring that up for no reason at all

[Reply #34 on:]

 

Originally posted by ebotron:
if everyone in china jumped at the same time it would cause the earth to stop spinning

Nope, urban legend.

Look at Newton's Third Law of Motion, and you'll see why.

[Reply #35 on:]

 

if everyone in china jumped at the same time it would cause the earth to stop spinning the force of which would cause everything on it to fly off into space

Those crafty commies and their crazy schemes...

[Reply #36 on:]

I find the whole globel warming rather odd because in season Leela mentions that globel warming was cancelled out by nuclear winter.

[Reply #37 on:]

Yes, the first global warming. Doesn't mean there can't be others.

[Reply #38 on:]

I wonder how the professor was able to say how much longer the year was after the earth was moved, there was no way to tell how far the earth was moved