Circular orbits on a warped spandex fabric

• Published in 2013
• Added on 2014-01-07

We present a theoretical and experimental analysis of circular-like orbits made by a marble rolling on a warped spandex fabric. We show that the mass of the fabric interior to the orbital path influences the motion of the marble in a nontrivial way, and can even dominate the orbital characteristics. We also compare a Kepler-like expression for such orbits to similar expressions for orbits about a spherically-symmetric massive object in the presence of a constant vacuum energy, as described by general relativity.

Links

• http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.3893
• http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.3893v1

Other information

BibTeX entry

@article{Middleton2013,
	key = {Middleton2013},
	type = {article},
	title = {Circular orbits on a warped spandex fabric},
	author = {Middleton, Chad A. and Langston, Michael},
	abstract = {We present a theoretical and experimental analysis of circular-like orbits made by a marble rolling on a warped spandex fabric. We show that the mass of the fabric interior to the orbital path influences the motion of the marble in a nontrivial way, and can even dominate the orbital characteristics. We also compare a Kepler-like expression for such orbits to similar expressions for orbits about a spherically-symmetric massive object in the presence of a constant vacuum energy, as described by general relativity.},
	comment = {},
	date_added = {2014-01-07},
	date_published = {2013-12-01},
	urls = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.3893,http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.3893v1},
	collections = {Basically physics,Things to make and do,Geometry},
	month = {dec},
	pages = 13,
	url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.3893 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.3893v1},
	year = 2013,
	archivePrefix = {arXiv},
	eprint = {1312.3893},
	primaryClass = {physics.class-ph},
	urldate = {2014-01-07}
}