Message-ID: <12418@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Sep-84 08:31:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12418
Posted: Thu Sep 27 08:31:51 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Sep-84 03:51:01 EDT
Lines: 33

The "gravity" present at the tufts of the integral trees is an inertial
effect, not a force at all in the sense that gravity is a force.  The 
trees orbit Voy, and the inner end of the tree would (if it were free)
orbit Voy more quickly than the outer end.  The whole tree (being a
single object) settles into a compromise orbit with the midpoint of
the tree in freefall orbit and the two tufts "straining" to break free
so that the inner tuft could orbit more quickly and the outer
tuft more slowly.

The people living at the tufts experience "gravity" because
the tufts are preventing them from orbiting freely.  If you "fall 
off" one of the tufts, you immediately go into a proper freefall orbit
and move rapidly away from the tuft.

It's a bizarre, beautiful concept that was utterly wasted on the
total banality of the story, which was a travelog with some
shootemup here and there to keep things interesting.  This could have
been another Ringworld, but I suspect NIven wasn't quite sure what
to do with his creation once he had worked out all the math.

It needed a high tech civilization and some aliens.  Niven
doesn't do well with primitives, and his human characters are
usually the weakest.

Sidenote:  The tidal forces of
the Voy system are the same as the tidal forces which bedeviled our
buddy Beowulf Shaeffer when he spun around the Neutron Star,
and the tidal forces from the ball of neutronium which tipped off
Louis Wu that it was NOT a Slaver stasis box in "There is a Tide."
Niven is fascinated by tides.  One wonders how much more he can do
with them...

--Jeff Duntemann   duntemann.wbst@xerox