11 Apr
2012
11 Apr
'12
2:32 p.m.
A puzzle I gave my mechanics class: The average orbital periods of the Jovian moons Io, Europa and Ganymede are: TI=1.769137786 TE=3.551181041 TG=7.15455296 These are taken from Wikipedia; the time unit is days. 1. (math) On the basis of just these numbers, infer the existence of a much longer period (on the order of hundreds of days). 2. (physics) What is the physical origin of the long period? -Veit