Talk:Mesklin

Merge into article on "Mission of Gravity"?

There's a proposal to delete this article. I think that's too far, but it could be merged into the article about "Mission of Gravity". Comments?

I don't particularly see anything worth merging myself, but either that or redirecting would be a suitable enough alternative. TTN (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Licensing

The article states:

In "Whirligig World", Clement stated that he gave "official permission to anyone who so desires to lay scenes there ..."

Did anyone ever take him up on it? Google reveals no further stories by anyone else. --Phil 09:37, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)

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"They were also the first attempt to set stories on a known planet outside the solar system." Are we sure about that? It seems unlikely. For example the Lensman series and The Skylark of Space predate it. DJ Clayworth 17:40, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Lensman certainly predates it, and the author ("Doc" Smith) does occasionally use the names of real stars, but none of the books in that series (I've read them) have a planet based on a planet that had actually been detected by science (mistakenly or not). Which only makes sense; at the time of the Lensmen series, the available tools and processes weren't able to even TRY to detect planets. -- Dwheeler 03:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

A planet in 61 Cygni

A reprint of "Whirlygig World" from 2000 has a note at the end that a large planet has been confirmed in the 61 Cygni system, but unfortunatley for the Mesklinites, orbiting 61 Cygni B.

For the record... this is unphysical

I can't help but be the Negative Nancy here. The idea that the plant would have gravity of 3g on one edge and 100s of g on the poles is simply wrong for ordinary matter. The Earth deforms due to the spin by the mathematics of hydrostatic forces. This means that we assume that the interior of the Earth are not load-bearing. Obviously this is untrue to some extent because rocks are strong and do not behave as water does, but on large scales this is exactly how they behave due to the cosmically large forces in this problem. If this plant has a mass similar to that of Jupiter... the hydrostatic assumption is valid unless we're talking about compressible physics. Either way, any large homogenous planet will have a constant normal gravity over the entire surface. The Earth's gravity differs from place to place due to differences in composition from place to place, and the rotation deformation has a net zero effect on the gravity. I love sci-fi, I just wish the "sci" part could be correct. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Not so, though in the case of the Earth the effect is minor.

"In combination, the equatorial bulge and the effects of centrifugal force mean that sea-level gravitational acceleration increases from about 9.780 m·s⁻² at the equator to about 9.832 m·s⁻² at the poles, so an object will weigh about 0.5% more at the poles than at the equator." Gravity of Earth#Latitude

For any spinning body, the centrifugal force reduces the apparent surface gravity at the equator. For a liquid body, the effect is enhanced because the body deforms, increasing the distance of the surface at the equator from the body's axis. If you spin it fast enough, it will deform until the equator is at synchronous orbit. I.e. surface gravity at the equator is 0. (Of course, if you want a livable planet, you'd better stop before the top of the atmosphere reaches that point.)

—WWoods (talk) 21:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Name?

I wonder whether it's coincidence that this fictional planet with peculiar gravitational properties has a name so similar to that of Nevil Maskelyne, who attempted to estimate the density of the earth by measuring the gravitational deflection caused by a mountain. Does the "Whirligig World" article perchance say anything about how Clement chose the name Mesklin? Gareth McCaughan (talk) 15:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

... I found a not-necessarily-legal copy of the article on the we (for whose accuracy I can't vouch) and it doesn't appear to say anything about where the name comes from. Perhaps we'll never know. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 15:38, 2 November 2015 (UTC)