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The Japanese are apparently to begin work on a space elevator: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 799369.ece

I wonder what effects will become possible as gravity lessens...

wasnt this on QI the other night? If i recall you have to build it on the equator,, as the speed of the earths rotation, is constant there.
( and it was an idea that originaly came from Arthur C Clarke)

Yeah. And if you make enough of them (get enough mass far enough away from the axis of rotation, in other words), you'll make the day longer. It's the same idea as an ice skater spinning faster by puling in her arms.

Tomo wrote:Yeah. And if you make enough of them (get enough mass far enough away from the axis of rotation, in other words), you'll make the day longer. It's the same idea as an ice skater spinning faster by puling in her arms.

Would be nice for fitting more in the day, but it'd wreak havoc on the clocks.

That's amazing

Good job it isnt going to be made in Britain cause within a week someone would have peed in it and it will have broken down and you'll have to use the stairs

greedoniz wrote:That's amazing

Good job it isnt going to be made in Britain cause within a week someone would have peed in it and it will have broken down and you'll have to use the stairs

And we'd all have our names written in it as well as our 'tags' and old fashioned messages such as:

MB woz ere 9T8.


And 'for free..... call 079......'


And best of all as you mentioned, a piece of paper with a scrawled message across it reading 'Out of Order, please use stairs'

No no no and no.

I looked into this as a young physicist and found it to be far more complex than I first thought. There's nothing new about it - i've read the Arthur C Clarke book also - but it presents an extremely difficult and very long list of engineering problems, a lot of which are beyond the realms of Human engineering at the moment. Even Mr Clarke didn't predict every difficulty.

Mind you, it would be cool as f**k.

Can you imagine if the synchronisation went slightly off at some point and stretched the rope/strap beyond breaking strain? The whiplash would be intercontinental!