Re: Pentagon to Shoot down Spy Sat

Sylvia Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:> Sylvia Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:>
:> :Fred J. McCall wrote:
:> :> Sylvia Else <sylvia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:> :> :
:> :> :So I'll accept that most of the material won't become a long term
:> :> :threat, but some of it can.
:> :> :
:> :>
:> :> Yes, and when you let go of a pencil all the molecules in it might
:> :> coincidentally be moving in the same direction and it might fall up.
:> :>
:> :
:> :I don't think that's possible unless you're thinking in terms of the QM
:> :uncertainty in a pencil's momentum attribute.
:> :
:>
:> If they're all heading in random directions, there is some small but
:> finite possibility that they could all head in the same direction.
:>
:> :> Pretty unlikely, though...
:> :
:> :The probability levels are, to use an Irishism, incomparably different.
:> :
:>
:> Not so much, no.
:
:An impact in a higher orbit scatters stuff all over the shop. If there's
:a mechanism that selectively avoids creating debris with increased
:momentum roughly in the original direction, it's not at all clear to me
:what that mechanism would be.
:
:So I disagree that the probabilities are in a similar range.
:

Think about a largely inelastic collision of two objects headed
approximately directly toward each other. What are the odds of some
particle GAINING velocity heading INTO the velocity vector of the
object that struck it?

Bloody unlikely, given conservation of momentum and all that...

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
.