Gravity in B5

[Nyhotep]

Here are some simple calculations to work out what the gravity is on a particular deck of B5.

Given that the widest point has a diameter of 850m (I am assuming this is the main cylinder, not the cooling fins or grey sector), and the maximum gravity is 1.4g:

Given that R=9.81g/ ((pi.rpm/30)squared)

Rotational speed 1.72 rpm (this is less than the comfortable maximum of 2 rpm).

(apologies: cant get tabs to work)

g force distance from central axis (metres)
1.4 425
1.3 395
1.2 363
1.1 334
1.0 304
0.9 273
0.8 243
0.7 232
0.6 182
0.5 152
0.4 121
0.3 91
0.2 60
0.1 30
0 0

You can see that all the human decks would optimally be between about 250-350m from the centre line. Given an average of about 3m between decks (including service conduits etc) that will give you about 30-35 decks.

The poor lurkers in downbelow must be tough though.

Note: despite arguments on the bab5tech forums, mass is irrelevent when working out artifical gravity. All that matters is how fast you spin and how far away you are.

I'm going to ignore torque effects (just have to assume that either grey sector has a really heavy flywheel or it has control jets that fire continuously to prevent the rest of the station spinning in the opposite direction).

 

[Felix_Lunar]

Great post Nyhotep, great post.

I think I will however ignore the real-life physics of this in my game that I am GM-ing, mainly 'cause my players allready have visited Brown 95 (seen as the bottom level of Brown sector in "The Long Dark", season 2), and they weren't crushed by the gravity.
The only other mention of any complete set of decks iirc is from "Grey 17 is missing" where Grey sector has 30 levels, including the missing Grey 17.

 

[Nyhotep]

IIRC, brown sector was supposed to be "unfinished". It's also full of manufacturing areas etc. It could be just that the deck numbering is all over the place, with split levels and stuff. Not to mention several decks might just be service conduits, only a metre or so in height.
But like you say, when in doubt, forget the real world and go with the show.