mistermack

I don't see it as "voluntary blurring of the vision". What you are doing is changing the focal length of your lenses, which we all do all the time. If you hold your hand up at arms length, and focus on that, the rest of the room is blurred, but your hand is clear. If you now look at the walls, your hand is blurred. So no matter what you do, some of your vision is blurred, and some is in focus, at any one time. It's easy to focus on an object, but no so easy to de-focus from it, while looking at it. Your brain is helped by having an object to focus on. There is no real evolutionary advantage in blurring your vision, unless you do it by focussing on something else. So it's perfectly easy to blur your vision on A particular object. Just find another, which is at a different distance, and focus on that. If you can do it without the second object to aid you, you are just focussing on an imaginary object, at a different distance. You can do it, but it's easier with a real object to help you.

Yep, I looked and it's correct. Which seems to negate the objection to flywheels being used to supply power to vehicles. It makes it more complicated, but it shouldn't wear out your tyres or make you go straight when you turn the wheel. Nice illustration of it on youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGun5athdfg Edit. I guess that maybe the forces on the bearings might be prohibitive. Although wheel bearings seem to take plenty of force in their lifetimes.

Ah, are you talking about two gyroscopes rotating on the same connected axis? I was picturing two parallel. If the two are connected through the axis of rotation I can see how they could cancel each other that way.

I don't really understand what that means. From memory, if I held a spinning gyroscope in my hands, it resisted being turned to the left, and to the right, equally. So I was imagining that two parallel ones would just double the resistance to turning.

Well, I'm no expert, but from what I've read, a flywheel tries to maintain the direction of it's axis, and that would apply for both flywheels in the same way. So it's resistance to change, not directional, I think. I would imagine that it would be best to mount it vertically, as you don't meet many steep slopes, so that axis would be the most stable. I don't know how acceleration and braking would affect the flywheel though, although I'm betting that it's been tried and there is info online.

The thing is with a flywheel, that the energy density isn't critical for all applications. So you don't always have to be using such high speeds, or expensive materials. I don't think that flywheels will ever be suitable for road vehicles, because of the forces involved if you change direction. Maybe on a straight railway track or a ship you could get away with one. They are most suitable for static installations, and in those instances, energy density isn't so critical because weight doesn't matter so much.. Instead of spinning it so fast that you need exotic materials, you just use lower speeds and a bigger flywheel. The main cost comes in building and maintaining a safe and efficient housing and bearing. I think that batteries will remain the best alternative to fossil fuel for road vehicles, unless capacitor technology can overtake them. Edit : I clicked on the link about carbon nanotubes, and I think they are talking about using them as some sort of superior spring, which has a much higher strength to weight ratio and greater durability than current spring materials. Maybe that could be installed in vehicles, in some way, and you just pay at stations to have your spring wound up? It might have safety implications though, if something breaks.

There was a thread in February about this : http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/103508-solid-state-battery-announced/?hl=goodenough

I really doubt the water reservoir idea. It's far easier to dig a water trap, than to make one with raised walls. And it will work much better, and need no sealing. And if you did want to build a dam, you wouldn't build it circular, you would pick a spot, and build it across a depression. Even beavers worked that one out. Maybe it's a playpen for very young children. Otherwise, I would guess it's for rituals.