10-02-2015, 07:11 AM
I've got it!
There is a category of prisms called "image rotation prisms" which have a curious property: as you rotate the prism, the image you see through it rotates twice as fast. My current favorite of these is the Pechan prism, which maintains a straight line-of-sight and offers a wide field of view.
So, wherever you have a window out the side of the colony, you just need to add a large Pechan prism, set to rotate at half the colony's rotation rate. For viewers inside, the image will appear completely non-rotating!
I can even imagine making the entire endcap of your cylinder a giant Pechan prism. You need shielding on the endcaps anyway; and these prisms are a huge amount of glass, so they would certainly do the trick! The problem of course is that it would be truly massive (and thus, ridiculously expensive). Perhaps there's some way to slim it down. Or maybe there's another trick, like an array of Dove prisms, that would work better.
Here is a good set of class notes about mirrors and prisms. This one, too. Both of these are from the University of Arizona, where my wife is a professor of computer science; perhaps I'll go talk to these guys at some point and see if they can help.
There is a category of prisms called "image rotation prisms" which have a curious property: as you rotate the prism, the image you see through it rotates twice as fast. My current favorite of these is the Pechan prism, which maintains a straight line-of-sight and offers a wide field of view.
So, wherever you have a window out the side of the colony, you just need to add a large Pechan prism, set to rotate at half the colony's rotation rate. For viewers inside, the image will appear completely non-rotating!
I can even imagine making the entire endcap of your cylinder a giant Pechan prism. You need shielding on the endcaps anyway; and these prisms are a huge amount of glass, so they would certainly do the trick! The problem of course is that it would be truly massive (and thus, ridiculously expensive). Perhaps there's some way to slim it down. Or maybe there's another trick, like an array of Dove prisms, that would work better.
Here is a good set of class notes about mirrors and prisms. This one, too. Both of these are from the University of Arizona, where my wife is a professor of computer science; perhaps I'll go talk to these guys at some point and see if they can help.
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier