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    Artificial Horizons
    From: Bill Arden
    Date: 2003 Jul 11, 00:07 EDT
    Hi, Marvin -

    Yes, I thought along those lines too. My first thought was a mechanical self-leveling device such as you describe in your second paragraph, but like you I concluded that it would probably be more trouble than it was worth. So I went on to the floating idea. While floating a piece of glass in a liquid with a higher specific gravity that the glass is certainly the purest way to do it, I thought perhaps a piece of styrofoam just thick enough to float the glass on water would be simpler to implement <g>

    Bill

    ************************************

    Bill, all I did was think about it also, but more in the line of considering using a flat glass plate floating in a liquid of high specific gravity. I remember from geology testing of specific gravity of unknowns, that some of the heavier liquids were quite toxic though. I know there are liquids with a higher specific gravity than quartz, ~ 2.65.

    I wonder if a mechanical pendulum or two-axis leveling system connected to a reflective optical flat on the top could be (or probably has been) developed. Sounds terribly heavy though, and large.

    Marvin

       
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