I appluade Babylon 5, for its mostly accuate portrail of Gravity in Space.
Best Example,
The explosion of the Core Shuttle and Sheridan's fall from the shuttle.
And the Zero G scenes in the Cargo Ships.
ANP
Amos - are you mad? the explosion of the core shuttle is REALLY BAD portrial of gravity - Sheridan should have fallen in circles, not straight down
Sheridan was spinning in circles, with the rest of the station. That was my point he didn't drop like a stone, he spun in tune with spin of the core.
ANP
I'm not sure that Sheridan was rotating in time with the station, though he must have been rotating some, I would think. The shuttle was in near-zero gee, which means that he was in roughly the same orbit around Epsilon III that the station was in. I say roughly, because just before the explosion, he launched himself out the door of the shuttle, altering his orbital vector slightly...enough that he and the wall of the station would eventually cross paths. Remember Ivanova (or was it Delenn?) said that it wouldn't be the "fall" that would kill Sheridan, it was that the inner surface of that sector was rotating at 60 mph (?) in relation to Sheridan.
To reverse the old joke - it ain't the fall that'd kill him - it's that sudden acceleration at the bottom!
yeah, but the people on the ground shold have seen him falling in circles, around the contre!
I have an interesting nit about gravity... With the rotating sections, the further you are from the axis, the stronger the gravity is. Now, if CnC is on the "Earth Normal Gravity" level, then anything above that (moving towards the axis) would have less gravity, and anything below that (moving toward the outer hull) would have more gravity. Yet, oddly enough, every part of the station seems to have earth normal gravity.
Not every part of the station;
Near the rotation axis where the Core Shuttle/Tram is the gravity is very low, slim to none, and I would imagine things are set up so that high occupancy areas the Zocalo and stuff like that would be in a normal-ish gravity zone and that they would try to put the alien sectors in parts of the station that would mimic thier homeworld's gravity.
Its possible, but in one episode, the one with the cryo-ship, we have an ex-marine bouncing around a room, and look through a window built into the floor at the incoming ship, indicating that he is at the bottom-most level on the station. That area seemed to have earth-normal gravity. We have the "garden area" where the rock garden is, and that seems to have earth-normal gravity. Then we have Shariden's office which looks down on the "gardens" and that seems to have earth-normal gravity.
If I remember my science correctly, the force of gravity felt versus the distance from the axis is a linear equation.
We have the "garden area" where the rock garden is, and that seems to have earth-normal gravity. Then we have Shariden's office which looks down on the "gardens" and that seems to have earth-normal gravity.
Well if the outer most deck was Earth Normal gravity and the garden area was 90% Earth normal gravity would that 10% realy show up on the screen in how the characters moved. Similary if C&C was 70% or 80% Earth normal gravity would that show up.
A problem with the elevators:
The outer levels of B5 are moving faster than the inner levels. (Same rotations per second = different metres per second.)
So when the elevators go up and down the passengers should experience a sideways force pushing them against the wall, or at least forcing them to brace themselves. We never saw anyone experience that.
Maybe the elevators are curved to account for coriolis force? Science Fiction writers have dealt with this issue in the past (can't think of a particular story, but I know I've read that suggestion).
I suppose the elevators could tilt, like tilting trains, so the net force is always 'down' from the passengers' point of view.
The elevator tracks themselves are straight. (We've seen them in CGI.)
the stars through the CnC window don't move
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I'm not up on my Zero G physics, but would the station be able to rotate like it does? I'd think that the mass of the rotating part would cause the non rotating part to rotate.
the stars through the CnC window don't move
They probably do, but given the speed of the stations rotation you might not see the movement unless you happen to be staring out of the window for a few minutes.
The same would hold for the observation room - the stars there don't show signs of moving either.
I'm not up on my Zero G physics, but would the station be able to rotate like it does? I'd think that the mass of the rotating part would cause the non rotating part to rotate.
You'd be right if all the sections of the station moved in the same direction - the same bit of physics would apply to the Omega class destroyers. Meaning that having a large chunk of the mass rotating in one direction should result in the rest of the ship attempting to rotate in the opposite direction. (We in fact get to see this from time to time when Omega class ships are disabled or badly damaged).
There is a way around this however. What you need is to have a constant force pushing on the non-rotating sections of the station/ship to counter the force. A space ship or station could probably use thrusters for this. But one explanation (although I'm unclear if it is mentioned in cannon sources) is that the Omega's have a large rotating mass inside the hull that counteracts the rotation from the habitat section.
Babylon 5 is also meant to have a couple of sections that rotate in the opposite direction to the rest of the station.
The real world physics in play here would be the same as those that apply to helicopters. The main rotor will, if not checked, result in the main body of the aircraft spinning around in the opposite direction to the rotors. Helicopters either use a tail rotor to push in the opposite direction, or they have two sets of rotors that move in opposite directions.
Given that it would be impractical to have thrusters firing all the time on a station or ship. The most likely way to keep the ships stable would be to have a rotating section inside the ship who's mass is roughly equal to the main section.
Nit; The floor of the CnC is towards the centre of the station - that is the docking bay is below the feet of the staff inside. However given the way the station provides gravity through rotation the gravity field should be in the opposite direction. That is they are somehow managing to walk on what should be the ceiling.
The same would hold for the observation room - the stars there don't show signs of moving either.
Actually, the majority (if not all) of the time, the stars in those observation areas rotate quite noticably.
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Nit; The floor of the CnC is towards the centre of the station
the CNC's floor is away from the center actually. All opening credit shots show this, plus several shots in the ep itself. If you look at an external shot of the station were you can see the whole front of the station, there are actually two windowed areas (on each side of the docking port). back up CNC perhaps?
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As for a counter spinning inner section to counter the rotation of the station, I'd say it is unlikely given the internal shots of the station. The episode where Kosh saves Sheridan is a good example of this.
Funny thing is, is that Babylon 4 actually had counter rotating sections.
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PS.
I knew about the helicopter rotors. I am "Torque," Son of Keplar aftrall. What I wasn't sure of was whether the stations orbiting the planet could somehow offset stuff.
Not too long ago the science fiction web comic Schlock Mercenary featured some issues over firing a projectile weapon at long range in an environment where artificial gravity is created by rotation.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20080817.html
B5's rotation and gravity will have no effect on the stations weapons fire as;
The computer firing systems can work the maths out to compensate.
The gravity is only on the inside of the station, all the weapons are on the outside.
A lot of B5's weapons are located on the long stationary supporting strut that runs along the top of the station.
B5's weapons are plasma cannons, not projectile weapons like a M-16. The effect of gravity on such weapons is minimal.
Funny thing is, is that Babylon 4 actually had counter rotating sections.
Babylon 4 was supposed to be a more advanced form of the Babylon station than Babylon 5. Bs 1, 2 & 3 had been sabotaged. B4 disappeared a few hours after becoming operational. B5 was built on a shoe string budget often using leftover parts from the previous stations.