*sigh*

FIRE ZE MISSILES !!!

Where's that "+1 Mercury" mod when you need it?

I was just trying to remember exactly how that went... Oh I miss -.-

I've missed all of you, it's been a stupidly crazy busy decade :o

Dating theolype's ex-wife doesn't seem to be helping much with the busy factor. ;)

Good question :D

Guys, while we post articles about Trump's tiny hands, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick is watching this video and beating us at the space race!

Also... Good news steele! Put this in your truck and you won't need drain plugs to go.

too soon

I don't think most of them know.

Shades of "The Mouse That Roared" but a thing to consider, small players are always looking for a way to leapfrog others.

Good to see you back -_-. You better hurry up though. My childhood dream is to be a spacecowboy.

COME VISIT! What's a seven hour drive between friends?

Sounds like it would be fun but I'm 70% sure you guys want my kidneys to run a perpetual motion machine.

Well, okay... :(
I'll be heading to SF at some point soon, probably next month, should I keep you posted? Cash in that rain check for lunch?

Silly Mookie, it wouldn't be perpetual if we had to feed it kidneys.

You should make one of these someday mookie, they're really simple and fun ;)

Sorry trying to build the flight sim first :) w/VR I'm gonna fake it 'til i make it.

Holy shit! If I were you -_- I'd be spending my hobby monies on testing EM drives.

Thanks, but this works a lot better than the EM Drive :)

Centripetal force is NOT the force that "pulls you towards the outside", it's the force that causes the thing to move in a circular pattern. For example, swinging a rock on a string, the centripetal force is the tension in the string that keeps the rock from flinging away. To use something more individual, you're riding a carousel. Your stupid human body thinks that you're being pushed outward from the center, but that's not the case. If you were to be released from the carousel, you'd move in a straight line tangent to the circular arc you were previously on. The centripetal force that you're feeling is the friction keeping you in your seat, which is actually acting towards the center of the carousel, not away. Friggin' psychics quacks.

Missed you, by the way! Glad you're back!

I'm not sure what comment you're responding to mechavolt but I love the subject..
Centrifugal force is a pseudo-force also known as an inertial-force or my favorite .. Fictitious Force.
Such forces are found inside non-inertial frames such as rotation, or any situation where you have an "outside source of acceleration".
From the perspective of an observer in an inertial frame, a person observing a rotating object from a stationary vantage outside said object, such fictitious forces are easily explained away as non-forces ... but ... INSIDE the rotating frame they are Real forces.
For a much better explanation than I might provide I'd recommend watching this video, specifically the span from 17:04 to 22:00 ... but the whole thing is worth the time it takes to watch it.

Thank you mechavolt, glad to be back, missed you all :)

That's a weird looking wrench in the thumb.

I'M SO SORRY D:

Consider: If you throw a 1lb ball at a local park, and you make a point of throwing it from West to East at 50mph ... is the reaction your body has to deal with 1lb times 50mph or is it 1lb times 1050mph?
Special extra question: if the ball(at rest on the ground) suddenly turned transparent to the centripetal force of gravity, and continued along its un-deflected vector at the Earth's rotational speed of approximately 1000mph (swiftly leaving the atmosphere) ... does the Earth experience an equivalent counter force?
If so, from where?

Ignore external forces for a second. Before detaching, the ball and the Earth (i.e., everything except the ball) were orbiting the Earth-ball center of gravity, a point slightly removed from the Earth center of gravity. They obey a mass-balance equation,

(1) r_E * m_E = r_B * m_B,

where m_B and m_E are the respective masses of the ball and the Earth, and r_B and r_E are their respective distances from the Earth-Ball CoG. r_B is approximately the radius of the Earth, or 6.4*10^6m, so r_E is approximately 4.6*10^-19 meters (assuming an Earth mass of 1.4*10^25 pounds).

At detachment, the Earth and ball fly off tangent to their respective orbits. Since they were both orbiting at ω ~ 1 revolution/day, or 7.3*10^-5 radians/second, the ball flies off at

(2) v_B = ω * r_B ~ 467 m/s,

and the Earth flies off at

(3) v_E = ω * r_E ~ 3.4*10^-23 m/s

in the opposite direction. So there is a non-zero impulse on the Earth. In fact, observe that

v_E = ω * r_E = (v_B / r_B) * r_E = v_B * m_B / m_E.

So conservation of momentum, in the usual sense, applies.

Correct, but if the Earth were liquid and the centrifugal force of its rotation was thereby available to act on it, the liquid would shift to maintain balanced mass distribution as in a LeBlanc balance such as are used in industry.

And to be fair ... you can't begin your response by saying "ignore outside forces" and then end with "conservation still applies". Conservation of momentum only applies to closed systems ... having no outside sources of force/acceleration.
Still, everything you're saying appears dead on as applied to solid bodies :)

1. Ignore outside forces: I mean, ignore the fact that the Earth and everything on it are revolving around the sun, which is revolving around the galactic center, etc. In other words, consider a universe whose only bodies are the Earth, and things on it. This way we can talk about perfectly circular orbits and straight tangential trajectories. If we really think that the Sun or other forces will have a significant effect on the result, we can bring them into the analysis.

2. Nothing in the argument above assumes that the Earth is not liquid.

Ah.. I misunderstood, I thought you were ignoring the outside force/source of acceleration that is the centrifugal force.

Due to the presence of the Centrifugal Force a liquid in the rotating frame moves to maintain balance as a reaction to any instances of imbalance automatically.
As long as the imbalance is within the ability of the liquid weight to address, the system will self balance.
If the entirety of the dominant mass (the earth) were liquid then the issue of balance would be addressed simultaneous to the departure of the sub mass.
This is not only the expected result, as per LeBlanc balancers and such, it is the observed phenomenon when modeled with rotating cans of water releasing sub masses via controlled valves.