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Love the painting of the huge toroidal space station—with the houses and forests inside. I had a thought experiment: if you could ride a bicycle (motorcycle?)

Love the painting of the huge toroidal space station—with the houses and forests inside. I had a thought experiment: if you could ride a bicycle (motorcycle?) against the direction of spin of the station you would essentially be "stationary". You would still have a velocity into the always-sloping-up wheel. What if you rode up a gentle ramp? Could you break away from the surface of the wheel then and become "weightless"?

Jeremy1026 1y ago
Sounds like a good question to submit to Randall at xkcd for his What If? series.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt 1y ago
I think so! I doubt you need the ramp even. The trick is that the bike is also accelerating (even at constant "speed") due to going in a circle.
estimator7292 1y ago
Important to note that while the station has angular velocity it is not usually accelerating. If you decelerate and cancel your own angular velocity relative to the station hub, you do indeed simply stop experiencing gravity. Imagine instead jumping off the 'stationary' hub of a rotating station. You simply float under no gravity until you hit the ring. The angular velocity imparted on you by the ring is the gravity you perceive. But once you have that angular velocity, you can jump from the ring's inner surface and fall back down as if the gravity were real. One way such stations are imagined in media is with a spiral ramp from the surface of the ring up to the hub. It works just like you expect. You gradually shed your angular velocity by climbing the 'gravity well'.
- m4rtink 11mo ago
  If there is an atmosphere inside, it will presumably rotate with the structure & will start imparting the rotation velocity on you as you close to the surface from the hub. Also the surface rotates at potentially quite a high speed compared to you, with likely various structures sticking out, that might smash to you as you get closer, so better watch for that. :)

Jeremy1026 1y ago

Sounds like a good question to submit to Randall at xkcd for his What If? series.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt 1y ago

I think so! I doubt you need the ramp even. The trick is that the bike is also accelerating (even at constant "speed") due to going in a circle.

estimator7292 1y ago

Important to note that while the station has angular velocity it is not usually accelerating. If you decelerate and cancel your own angular velocity relative to the station hub, you do indeed simply stop experiencing gravity. Imagine instead jumping off the 'stationary' hub of a rotating station. You simply float under no gravity until you hit the ring. The angular velocity imparted on you by the ring is the gravity you perceive. But once you have that angular velocity, you can jump from the ring's inner surface and fall back down as if the gravity were real. One way such stations are imagined in media is with a spiral ramp from the surface of the ring up to the hub. It works just like you expect. You gradually shed your angular velocity by climbing the 'gravity well'.

m4rtink 11mo ago
If there is an atmosphere inside, it will presumably rotate with the structure & will start imparting the rotation velocity on you as you close to the surface from the hub. Also the surface rotates at potentially quite a high speed compared to you, with likely various structures sticking out, that might smash to you as you get closer, so better watch for that. :)