(Discussion) Enworld Physics and World Concept

[Macbeth]

Good idea, though perhaps a little far out for some people (not me, I like it). If everybody else thinks its cool, I think its a great explanation.

 

[Thels]

Sounds fine to me

 

[Creamsteak]

Sounds fine to me. I'm still waiting to get home (last weekend this month), so I can get my Birthright books to see how exactly they worded elven time.

 

[Selandra Xantharus]

Eh? I freely admit to not being an astronomer, but I'm fairly certain that an elliptical orbit like can't be stable. ENWorld would spiral into the sun.
Better have your 'Protection from Fire' spell handy.

Just a note to spread accurate information:

Seasons are caused by the axial tilt of the Earth, and the change of that tilt with respect to the sun. A planet with 0 percent tilt would have no seasons in a circular orbit.

2nd: An eliptical orbit can be very stable. In fact, Kepler asserted that even the earth's orbit is elliptical as are all orbits around the sun. Comets for example have very large orbits and are elliptical.

3rd: If the earth was on a large elliptical orbit, seasons would take place, but they would be global seasons, not like we have them now where they depend on the hemisphere.

Just a little helpful information from an Astronomer.

 

[Guilt Puppy]

On the world turtle thing: It's not unique to Pratchett. First place I remember seeing it was in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, but even then it seemed familiar. Since then I've run across it in a few places -- apparently it's a surprisingly common myth in early civilizations.

It's always been incorporated in my campaigns -- remnants of the Old Religions which revered the world turtle, and such. For most of my players it's a running joke, but for me it's a sort of versimilitude, and a bit of respect to Jung as well... After all, if it crops up so often, there must be some common appeal in it, to the human psyche.

 

[Creamsteak]

I've always liked the idea. Spheres and globes and stuff like that are so, "modern".

 

[Li Shenron]

Just a note to spread accurate information:

Seasons are caused by the axial tilt of the Earth, and the change of that tilt with respect to the sun. A planet with 0 percent tilt would have no seasons in a circular orbit.

2nd: An eliptical orbit can be very stable. In fact, Kepler asserted that even the earth's orbit is elliptical as are all orbits around the sun. Comets for example have very large orbits and are elliptical.

3rd: If the earth was on a large elliptical orbit, seasons would take place, but they would be global seasons, not like we have them now where they depend on the hemisphere.

Just a little helpful information from an Astronomer.

Thank God you posted this already... I was kind of thinking that what I studied in high school is already fading in my memory... I just turned 28 last Monday and I feel so old...

 

[Sparky]

Global seasons... now that sounds really cool. Let's do that!

What do we do with visibility and the horizon? The distance you can see on Earth is limited by the curvature of the globe (A 6' tall person can, assuming good visibilty, see something like 3 miles - or is it 6 miles... never can remember)

What does a vast flat disc look like?

 

[The Goblin King]

I was thinking: instead of a disk what about a hexagon? At each point of the hexagon would be one of the elemental towers. In the very middle would be Orussus.

CS: are you dead set on having the positive and negative towers at the north and south? I was thinking of having the Positive tower to the east and Negative to the west. The sun always rises in the east at the dawn of a new day and sets in the west plunging the world into darkness.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'll email scorpio about that real quick. Sounds interesting.