Simon de Vet <sde### [at] istarca>
>
> That scene in Voyager is, (pardon the scientific terminology) absolute and
> bloody nonsense.
>

    Um, is that supposed to be Saturn? I assumed it was some smaller ringed
planet on the other side of the galaxy...

    I love that scene! I even like the impossible sounds.

    I find that it is important for me to use my 8 year old mind while
watching TV science fiction. I save my 16 year old mind for reading Science
Fiction and only use my 43 year old mind for writing Science Fiction.

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Bill DeWitt wrote:

> Simon de Vet <sde### [at] istarca>
> >
> > That scene in Voyager is, (pardon the scientific terminology) absolute and
> > bloody nonsense.
> >
>
>     Um, is that supposed to be Saturn? I assumed it was some smaller ringed
> planet on the other side of the galaxy...

Well, Smaller with the emphasis on the Small part... we're talking about a
teeny-tiny planet here...  Suppose the ratio of Planet size to Ring size is
roughly constant. Jupiter is 71400km(planet diameter):114000km(ring width, inner
radius to outer radius) This is roughly 1:1.5. Now, suppose Voyager is about
500m long (more or less). The ring is no more than 6x it's width. This would
mean a ring 3km wide. Now, this would result in a planet 2km in didmeter. Think
about that :)

Now, to be generous, the thickest part of Jupiter's rings are only 22000 km
across. I'll suppose that this is what the visible rings on Voyager are,
resulting in a new ratio of 71400:22000, or 3.25:1 (big difference). However,
even this firendly estimate results in a planet about 20km in diameter. Still
far to tiny...

The fact is that no matter how you analyze the scene, no matter how generous you
can be, the planet always ends up being too small.

>     I love that scene! I even like the impossible sounds.

I do to! Wonderful looking scene... captures the essence of trek, whatever that
is...

>     I find that it is important for me to use my 8 year old mind while
> watching TV science fiction. I save my 16 year old mind for reading Science
> Fiction and only use my 43 year old mind for writing Science Fiction.

I agree! But my problem arises only here, when one mind (My trek mind) is forced
into direct competition with my other mind (my rendering/physics mind).
Unfortunately, my rendering mind won this round....

BTW, you write SF? Any available to read?

Simon
http://home.istar.ca/~sdevet

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On Sat, 15 May 1999 17:27:54 +0100, Chris Harrison
<har### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:

>I've found a cool utility. It's from the maker of gForge, called ast_gen and
>orb-cyc - seems to look good.


  Those would be John P. Beale's utilities. Be sure to drop John a
line if they work for you, or even if you have a question about their
usage not covered in the docs, as John has always been gracious in
responding to e-mail (his time permitting).
-- 
Alan
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Simon de Vet <sde### [at] istarca> wrote in message
news:373E3543.84ADD395@istar.ca...
>
>
> Well, Smaller with the emphasis on the Small part... we're talking about a
> teeny-tiny planet here...  Suppose the ratio of Planet size to Ring size
is
> roughly constant.

    Well, see... I don't know that I want to do that. 8-) I hear that the
earth has a ring, and it's too small to be visible from the ground. Whereas
Saturn's rings are almost a naked eye object from here.

> However,
> even this firendly estimate results in a planet about 20km in diameter.
Still
> far to tiny...

    If I understand what rings are... an area in the orbit of the planet
where the tidal forces are too strong to support the formation of a planet,
but stable enough to collect debris. The denser the planet, the closer the
ring, the wider the potnetial area of disturbed forces. I could be wrong, I
usually research these things before typing them in stone, but I've got my 8
year old mind on today...

>
> BTW, you write SF? Any available to read?
>

    Eh, I just looked on my old computer and I have some stuff that I wrote
a while ago that I can put on a web page, but I don't want to broadcast
anything I still have hopes of getting a publisher for...

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> Those would be John P. Beale's utilities.

Yes - this guy is good!

Chris Harrison
http://www.ChrisHarrison.co.uk/

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On Sat, 15 May 1999 08:36:41 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

[snip]
>
>  Besides John van Sickles Rock include file which makes them one at a time
>I also have a couple of command line utilities that I have gathered that make
>several at a time. One in particular is handy for generting large volumes
>of randomly scaled rocks and they are rough enough in appearence to make
>a passable asteroid. Give a yell if interested.
>
Erm... "YELL" ?

Cheers,

Cliff Bowman
Why not pay my 3D Dr Who site a visit at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/7855/
PS change ".duffnet" to ".net" if replying via e-mail

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> > > That scene in Voyager is, (pardon the scientific terminology) absolute and
> > > bloody nonsense.
> > >
> >
> >     Um, is that supposed to be Saturn? I assumed it was some smaller ringed
> > planet on the other side of the galaxy...
> 
> Well, Smaller with the emphasis on the Small part... we're talking about a
> teeny-tiny planet here...  Suppose the ratio of Planet size to Ring size is

I noticed that, too, a while back. I corresponded with one of the
Voyager illustrators on that. His response was (paraphrased): "Oh, I
don't want to get dragged in to another discussion about scale!  ;-)" 
[his smiley, not mine]. I got the feeling they had heard that one
before. The rest of the conversation was centered on artistic license.

It would be render a more realistic version of that scene. If anyone
does, I'll email it to the illustrator!

Jon

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>     Well, see... I don't know that I want to do that. 8-) I hear that the
> earth has a ring, and it's too small to be visible from the ground. Whereas
> Saturn's rings are almost a naked eye object from here.

Yeah, you can see Saturn's rings from here, easily. But you can't
resolve them. ;-)

A reasonably good small telescope will show them to you.

Jon

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A pair of field glasses and a steady hand will work too.

>
> Yeah, you can see Saturn's rings from here, easily. But you can't
> resolve them. ;-)
>
> A reasonably good small telescope will show them to you.
>
> Jon

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Jon S. Berndt wrote:

> > > > That scene in Voyager is, (pardon the scientific terminology) absolute and
> > > > bloody nonsense.
> > > >
> > >
> > >     Um, is that supposed to be Saturn? I assumed it was some smaller ringed
> > > planet on the other side of the galaxy...
> >
> > Well, Smaller with the emphasis on the Small part... we're talking about a
> > teeny-tiny planet here...  Suppose the ratio of Planet size to Ring size is
>
> I noticed that, too, a while back. I corresponded with one of the
> Voyager illustrators on that. His response was (paraphrased): "Oh, I
> don't want to get dragged in to another discussion about scale!  ;-)"
> [his smiley, not mine]. I got the feeling they had heard that one
> before. The rest of the conversation was centered on artistic license.
>
> It would be render a more realistic version of that scene. If anyone
> does, I'll email it to the illustrator!

I agree with the original sentiment...

However, I think that this realstic image might be interesting... Often, in Trek, a
sense of scale is lost, that this is a tiny little ship in a planet filled with
humoungous structures.

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