Page:A Voyage in Space (1913).djvu/192

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172
A VOYAGE IN SPACE

all its parts in close together; but if for any reason the spin is made faster and faster, there will come a point at which some of the outermost portions will have a tendency to fly out too great for the gravity or attraction, and a satellite will be detached. We have still to explain why the spin should get faster and faster, and we will come back to that in a moment; but as we have the turn-table here,

Fig. 46.Fig. 47.

let us first do one or two more experiments. In Fig. 46 is a hoop, or rather a pair of hoops, which when at rest are circular, but flatten down as in Fig. 47 when they are spun, because the outer portions AB tend to fly away from the axis; you can easily see that in the second figure they are farther from the axis in the positions ab than in the first figure. The hoops are strong enough to hold together however fast we spin them in this case; but you must remember that I am not very strong and cannot spin very fast. If