What a beautifully poetic way of announcing that you will be nominating us for the Nobel! I can't wait to see who figures out how Caledea's twin spiral rivers flow endlessly around each other.
After realizing that Caledea was a torus I began to think that the 'rivers' were actually Caledea's oceans, and therefore don't flow. The real rivers, which are born in the mountains and feed into the oceans, must be too narrow to appear on the map. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that a whale and a sea serpent are depicted in the larger bodies of water.
An interesting idea. The narrow spiral shape of the "oceans" would have to be caused by whatever strange process formed Caledea in the first place. Perhaps it was rolled into a big snake, like silly putty, then twisted and turned back on itself. I wonder if gravity is weaker on the inside of the ring...
I wonder if gravity is weaker on the inside of the ring...
Gravity per se is weaker, but due to centrifugal force from rotation of the torus, the apparent gravity could be stronger, weaker or the same. It depends on the torus dimensions -- that is, the inner and outer radii -- and the speed of rotation.
Would it be possible to design a torus for which the apparent force of gravity is the same at all points on the surface? I'm pretty sure. It couldn't be done analytically; one would have to set up a computer simulation and play with the parameters.
