Could a planetary scale Van der Waals fource be used to repel asteroids a laser or some sort could charge or decharge an asteroid then a masive woble in earths magnetic field pings it off to the distance. probibly causing big earquakes...but would it work?
Yup- water is the classic example. So calling it van der walls force isnt right. as for it working on an asteroid and the earth, I think the density required would be so huge as to be impossible. But then I'm not a physicist.
Xcuse me....... either I've forgotten bout this van der Walls, or I've never heard of it. Can someone explain briefly?
If I remember correctly, it goes something like this: 1. Particles with like charges repel one another. 2. Particles with opposite charges attract one another. 3. Electrons are not fixed in the positions of their orbits around an atom. When two atoms approach one another, the electron shells repel each other somewhat. When the electrons have been "pushed away", the atoms will become somewhat polar. If the poles that face each other are opposite then the two atoms will attract each other slightly. These interactions can happen between any two atoms, if I remember right.
O, so it's the basic of law of static electricity........ thanks for reminding me, I was taught about that in Chemistry class. About implementing it to repel astroids, well, I'm not sure I'm right, but wouldn't polarizing a space object instead tear apart the object itself, considering how many atoms reside in one of such bulky object, thus, just as effective as destroying the thing right away??
The amount of charge required to do this at any distance would turn the Earth into a HUGE Tesla coil. The field would probably syphon a solar flare straight to the Earth. Not to mention every piece of electronics on Earth would be fried...Just ideas... - KitNyx
Not quite. Niven did a short story based upon one of the cahra cters realising a huge solar flare was sterilising the opposite side of hte earth, ie towards the sun. And E E Smith invented the sunbeam, in about 1948 or so, whereby the good guys focused the suns energy using excitors etc in orbit round it, thus stopping an attack of armoured planet.
