Born to do Math 28 – Slingshot Deal
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Born To Do Math
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/04
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Rick Rosner: In a slingshot deal, the satellite is only temporarily having its trajectory changed hugely by Jupiter. The two bodies come together and then they each go on their way more or less separately. There is no gravitational locking. If there is a part before, then there is a part after.When you have a gravitational locking together, when a bunch of matter comes together and can’t get away later, that locking together-
The lock happens because those interacting particles, objects, bodies emit energy to the rest of space – could be in the form of heat. It will mostly be in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Two things crash in space. You might have like debris go flying away, but you’ll have a lot of heat emitted from friction in the form of light – electromagnetic waves to radio waves, and so on. So gravitational aggregating is locked into place via electromagnetic interactions.
So even something as gentle gravitational locking together, gravitation has only 1/10^40 the strength of the other forces of nature. It is hard to detect gravity unless you have two super macroscopic objects interacting, at least one macroscopic planet-sized object. Two billiard balls are not going to suck each other together via their mutual gravitational attraction. The force is too gentle and you could say nebulous.
But it isn’t quite the right word. It is too soft and squishy and just not powerful. But! That gravitational interaction might be locked in and/or codified by electromagnetic interactions, which are themselves kind of 0 and 1 or the have the potential to be 0 or 1 interactions – either an atom emits a photon or it doesn’t. Either an electron falls into orbit around a nucleus via the emission of a photon or it doesn’t. So that seems like a possible 0 or 1 proposition.
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