Re: Living in a Dyson Sphere.

John Berry ( antigrav@ihug.co.nz )
Sun, 03 Oct 1999 23:22:30 +1300

Of course your ruler would distort, it is made of matter.
The ruler becomes smaller that is why the distance appears greater at the
bottom, you are measuring with a smaller ruler, the matter ruler and other
matter down there including a light measuring device will become distorted
measuring the space between the two shafts as greater at the bottom rather
than less as it otherwise would.

that's the whole point.

John Berry

Peter Harris wrote:

> Hi John
> John Berry wrote:
> <SNIP>
> > If you put down two parallel shafts and build a tunnel as was done at
> > the bottom matter would be denser so there would be over that distance
> > more matter, so in effect I'm saying that the absolute distance is say
> > one mile, but because of the distortion of the permeability of space it
> > take more than 1 mile of matter as matter has shrunk and we find we are
> > an inch short in this example.
> >
>
> I'm curious John, if I measure the distance between the wires at the
> surface using a ruler and then decend to the bottom of the shafts and
> measure again using the same ruler, surely the ruler will suffer the
> same distortion as the matter at the bottom of the shaft making the
> distortion impossible to detect. That is to say wouldn't my distorted
> ruler measure the distorted 1 mile as 1 mile?

The absolute distance is what it is expected to be without any distortion,
the matter and and measuring device will shrink down there so that the
distance reads as greater than expected, even more than at the top if the
distortion was great enough which indeed it was.

>
>
> regards from Christchurch
> Peter
>
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