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Devac  ·  1889 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: You should watch PBS Space Time

What's your level of maths/physics? It could help everyone give you some pointers or references.

For example, if I'd claim that a ball of homogenous, initially unmoving, dust roughly the size of Earth needs only a few minutes to gravitationally collapse into a single body, would you:

- Be completely astounded and unable to prove or disprove this statement.

- Obtain a rough approximation after looking up some integrals or some old classical mechanics book you have lying around.

- Call my bluff and make it into a game of physics chicken.

- Make an N-body simulation and go for a coffee while it computes.

- Consider cases where matter pressure is and isn't equal to 0. Find the p = 0 as trivial.

- Something completely different. It's not like I wasn't just guessing and being slightly facetious. ;)