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Physics problem: Harmonia Station spins to generate gravity. If the rings are a mile in diameter, how fast (in RPMs) does it have to spin to generate 1g?

@nyrath @Madagascar_Sky I plugged numbers into the formulae here:

forums.anandtech.com/threads/h

Adjusting for imperial units and plugging into Python:

from math import pi

r = 5280 / 2
a = 32
v = (a * r) ** 0.5
W = v / r
rpm = W * (60 / (2 * pi))
print(rpm)

I had made an error in my original paper calculation, but this gives 1.051. I'm not sure of why there's a slight discrepancy from SpinCalc's answer, but essentially a 1-mile-diameter station has to spin at about 1 rpm.

@peterdrake @Madagascar_Sky

Well, without access to SpinCalc's source code, it is difficult to debug the problem. But I am inclined to respect your credentials as a CS professor and trust your answer.

@nyrath @Madagascar_Sky I'm confident in the programming, but I'm just taking the elementary physics on faith.

@peterdrake @nyrath

I re-did the calcs, the online calculator is right.

Try with a = 32.174?

Your formulas are right.

@Madagascar_Sky @nyrath Yeah, that explains it -- SpinCalc was using a more precise number for 1g acceleration.

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