(urth) Ansible Interview

[Jeff Wilson]

James Wynn wrote:
> Tim:
>> Who knows, maybe the shadows are caused by demons that sit on Silk's 
>> retinas with the Whorl equivalent of a GPS unit and make complicated 
>> hand shadows based on where he's standing and the direction he's looking.
> 
> Jeff
>> Why don't you use a compass and a rule to draw this situation, and 
>> upload a scan of your drawing so we can literally see what you mean?
> 
> Mostly because I don't think it will matter. I've essentially re-stated 
> (former engineer) Wolfe's answer to this question half-a-dozen ways and 
> the only response I'm getting is that "it's impossible because 
> spin-gravitational forces wouldn't allow it" or "mountain shapes 
> wouldn't allow that" -- even though no one here knows what materials 
> made the mountains or engineering principles were employed to 
> carve/build them or what the shape was of the mountains and valley's in 
> question. It's crazy. I got into this thread with the misguided 
> assumption that I was dealing with people who were willing to be persuaded.

I'm willing to be persuaded, but not by repeated assertion. If you can 
imagine a scenario where a valley inside a spinning, hollow asteroid can 
have a line of sight to an observer elsewhere on the inner surface, but 
not to the central axis, you ought to be able to construct a diagram of 
it, like one would in high school physics or geometry.  It doesn't have 
to be fancy or artistic, just demonstrative. I am also willing to do 
one, if you like.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >