thisworld posted...
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Here let me try. Please excuse typo/grammar, I'm tired rn.
You are aware of the concept of gravitational potential energy? U=mgh? U=-GMm/r? Pick up a galon of water off the floor. Feel heavy? That's you working
against the earth's gravity
.
That would illustrate the basic energy requirement for this job because now we will be moving the earth away
against the sun's gravity
, a fiery ball so large and heavy it's gravitational pull extends way waaaayyyyyyyy beyond Pluto.
U=-GMm/r. Those M and m are the sun's and the earth's mass respectively. r is the distance and G is physical constant. Look I can give you the exact number but just trust me that it's a big number... like,
really biigggg
. But let's ignore that and assume we somehow managed to move the earth away.
Now how are we gonna stop the earth once it reaches its new orbit? In case of sending a rocket to the moon like in your example, we basically just slammed the rocket against the moon to make it stop. What are we gonna slam the now moving earth against? Yup, we would need to built yet another earth moving rocket just to stop the earth and stabilize its new orbit. Voila! More energy needed for this insane project
Okay we just reached a new orbit. Feel satisfied? Well, don't, because more problems follow. Are you familiar with tidal wave? It's largely regulated by both the sun's and the moon's gravity and most importantly, it affects the earth's rotation.
Think of it this way. The portion of the earth that's solid just wants to rotate merrily on its axis without a care in the world. However the oceanic water on its surface got pulled away by the sun+moon and wants to stay that way and in doing so, slows the rotation of the solid earth beneath it through friction. Spin a boiled egg (all solid). Now spin a raw egg (solid + liquid) and observe. The liquid part of the raw egg will slow the spin through friction against its outer shell. Similar principle.
This new orbit will throw the delicate tidal wave equation out of balance because the sun will now exert less gravitational pull on the earth's water. The result? We just fucked up the earth's rotation. Yay!
Btw, the movement and orbit of other celestial bodies around us will get affected too. You know, gravity and all that jazz. Some celestial bodies might experience orbit decay, some might get slingshot out of the solar system and so on. We just fucked up our solar system too, except the sun lol.
That's not all because we just doomed the humanity too. Essential plants like corn, rice, and tomatoes need a lot of sunlight to grow properly. Like a lot of sunlight. Some like potatoes need less but still, how are they going to get their sunlight now that we're farther away from the sun? I hope you like eating nothing but oregano for meal since it need less sunlight
Let's recap:
<1> We would need a lot of energy to both move and stop the earth
<2> We would fuck up the earth's rotation
<3> ... and the plants
<4> ... and the animals and the hoomans too
<5> ... and our friendly neighborhood celestial bodies because gravity's a bitch.
Other equally insane solution exists like increasing the earth overall albedo, in particularly the ocean's. Btw albedo is a fraction of light reflected by a surface. Higher albedo = lighter, whiter surface = higher reflection (example: polar region). Lower albedo = darker surface = lower reflection (example: ocean surface).
The polar region is colder than the equator because its has way higher albedo. Lots of white and bright icy surface there, reflecting back the sunlight instead of absorbing it and get heated in the process.
Unfortunately increasing the ocean's albedo using say, a massive amount of alumunium foil, will also fuck up our weather system...
TL;DR
Climate change is real.
Correct, I explained this above. However this is a massive safety risk. Human's eyes & brain work basically on average, overall brightness. Increasing the road's brightness might decrease our sensitivity to other more important light source such as traffic light, parking brake, road sign or even another car/human. Might need a self driving AI for this.
hey thanks, that all makes perfect sense and honestly pretty much describes why I assumed it wouldn't work.
Now I can sleep peacefully KNOWING it's a dumb idea lmao