The main thing that bothers me about "3 Body Problem" so far is the suggestion that if lots of science experiments started having weird results suddenly, physicists would be all "well, science is broken, might as well pack it in", as opposed to "whoa, this is amazing, we need more funding to study this phenomenon!".
@ceoln Spaghettification. A significant gravitational source could lift things off the surface of the planet, as tensile strength kept the surface somewhat intact. You have to factor in distances to the center of masses of the various objects, tensile strength, etc.
Hm, interesting! Wouldn't it also pull the entire planet toward itself, though? It would depend exactly how the source got there, I imagine. Probably I don't understand the physics enough.
@ceoln It would, but as a factor of distance from the various masses. A small black hole on the other side of the planet would play havoc with the surface there, but on this side, if small enough, we wouldn't notice it exists.
Distance is important.
F = G(m1m2)/R^2
See that divided by R squared bit? Force drops rapidly as you separate the masses. So a mass on one side of the planet would pull harder on the side it was on, and much less on a bit in the center, and even less further out.
In this particular scene, a syzygy of three suns in the sky causes people to be suddenly pulled upward, and they are like hanging onto flagpoles and buildings and things to avoid rising into the sky. I don't *think* that's physically plausible?
@ceoln Nope. They would all let go, as the air disappeared and they all died. And buildings are not generally tied deep enough to the earth to avoid being lifted...
I have to read those books sometime.
The books may not have the same impressive-but-unlikely scenes as the streaming video version. :)
@ceoln if that’s true, how do tides or type 1a supernovae work?
That's true in general; but in this particular scene (hard to describe in words) I'm pretty sure that what we see isn't compatible with tidal models. :)
@ceoln there are physics problems, but tidal forces/ roche limit/ etc are not chief among them I think.
Well, okay, and that a strong gravitational source would not PULL EVERYTHING UP OFF OF THE PLANET'S SURFACE, because the planet would be pulled just as hard as the things, sheesh.