In article <gS74l8Gq1uE3073yn@login.dknet.dk> of rec.puzzles,
jjn@login.dknet.dk (Jens Joergen Nielsen) wrote:
Suppose the Earth suddenly stopped.
How long time will it take until it hits the Sun ?
Please make the following assumptions:
-
The Earth's orbit is circular.
- The Sun is MUCH heavier than the Earth.
- The size of the two objects are very small compared to
the radius of the orbit.
- The only force acting on the Earth is the gravitional
attraction to the Sun.
- No relativistic effects occur.
My solution involves a lot of integration and stuff, but
the result is so simple, that I suspect there might be a
simple way of looking at the problem, that I don't know of.
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