: Sorry, but you're wrong. I've been in a sufficiently fast centrifuge for the
: floor level to be non-tangiental to gravity, and apart from the weird
: visual effects it felt like accelerating upwards (or higher gravity).
: Similar mechanisms are used by pilots and astronauts to train for high
: linear accelerations. The inner ear measures angular acceleration
: (torque? can't remember the English terminology), not angular velocity. if
: you work out the forces acting on someone standing in a centrifuge in a
: 0-g environment, then _with respect to the person, who is also rotating_,
: the resultant force is outwards, and the outside of the centrifuge becomes
: the floor. The effect is indistinguishable from acceleration or gravity
: for any given point, although of course for a larger area it is appearant
: that one is inside a cylinder (just as acceleration is a plane, and
: gravity is the outside of a sphere). Also, there will be strange visual
: effects (people walking on the floor and cieling).
Most pilots and astronauts are seated (or at least stationary) when centrifuge-training. If you're able to move freely, you'll find that it feels less like ordinary gravity, due to Coriolis forces. Moving spinwards or antispinwards will change your apparent weight; moving toward or away from the center of the centrifuge/cylinder will push you spinwards or antispinwards.
The Halo's big enough that the Coriolis forces are virtually unnoticeable (although fast-moving objects over long distances, like sniper bullets, should have noticeable variations in how far they drop depending on which direction they're fired in). They'd definitely be noticeable on the Marathon, but probably not strong enough to be disorienting.
--SiliconDream
