Manticore

Quote from Giaever.

"I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned."

So half a day (maybe) searching Google appears to be the sum total of his knowledge of climate change.

 

That is not useless, as one is supposed to add weights anyway. However, common scales are much more practical for a quick determination of weight.

It is useless. Which ever side had the most weight would rotate downwards until it reached it's limit (vertically down if the mechanism would allow it). equalising the weights would result in no movement whatsoever. (whatever position the beam was in).

A good exercise for that is to get on all fours (doggystyle) and slowly from right forward to right back, rocking slowly back and forth yogically... it can get things moving. ;-)

 

Move as far back and as far forward as you can in a relaxed comfortable manner breathing steadily as you go...

I'll try that if it happens again.

Yes, that's a variable I hadn't considered.

 

In practice though, would you design a self-levelling setup anyway? Surely you lose some sensitivity or accuracy, if the scales are self-levelling.

And they would be frustrating to use if they were inherently unstable.

 

I would want scales that are neutral, so that the slightest inequality results in clear unrestricted movement towards the heavier side.

Maybe a small amount of self-levelling would be tolerable, if there was a visual aid like a pointer to clearly show when the scales are balanced.

Neutral scales would be useless - they would just keep tipping towards the heavier side until they were vertical. With no weight, they would remain in whatever position they had been left in.

Mysterious echoing voice: "I am GOD."

Wise Man: "Fuck off."

Difficult to disprove something that appears to be just a mass of random gibberish.

Peristaltic action of the intestines pushes it down aided by food blocking the gases. Put one fist in front of the other as though you were squeezing something along a pipe and that's peristalsis.

And that's exactly what wasn't happening. I must have had a blockage somewhere and the gases were building up in, or close to, my stomach causing swelling and pain. (much flatulence overnight and it's a bit better now.)

I know it's kind of a stupid question, but I really can't see why all of the gas produced by the digestive system does not work it's way upward. (This is a result of currently suffering from severe stomach pains.)

I can't find any reference to tube exit speed on their site. (OK. I've got bad stomach pain at the moment & could easily have missed it.)

My own intention was to exit at Mach 3 and fire up a scramjet.

The thought of any kind of instability in the Maglev system at those speeds combined with the necessarily small clearance between the vehicle and tube would also worry me. (A reliable, working scramjet is another problem altogether.)

Can you avoid Murphy's law? Sooner or later there will be a failure of the mechanical valve. The explosion is when your launch vehicle hits it. You almost certainly can't abort the mission halfway up the tube.

Pumping the air out gets complicated. Remember, you have 19,000 feet's worth of pressure differential. If you just pump air out at the bottom then you will get more air rushing in at the top to replace it - giving you yet more resistance. If you close off the top, you are going to be faced with the problem of opening a massive door in a ridiculously short time at exactly the right instant (assuming you don't actually want a huge explosion at that point).

IIRC Robert Heinlein in "The man who sold the moon" came up with a similar idea in the 1940s or 1950s, to eliminate the first stage in a manned lunar spacecraft.

I suspect it goes back much farther than that (you might even make a case that the giant cannon in Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" is basically the same principle - even though he got the figures hopelessly wrong).

I would treat the loose pans simply as forces that act vertically downwards from their suspension points.

I came up with a similar idea several years ago. The tunnel would have been up the west slope of Kilimanjaro (19,000 ft).

The main problem I thought of was the air in the tunnel compressing ahead of the launch vehicle - once you get close to supersonic that's going to be like trying to push through a brick wall.

Which Devil? Like Gods, there have to be either zero or an infinite number of them.

Always wanted to fly military jets for the Canadian Air Force when I was young, but I've had terrible eyesight since I was 5 yrs old.

I wanted to fly for the RAF when I was young - I got the "Terribly sorry old boy. But to be a pilot in the RAF, you have to be an officer. To be an officer you have to be a gentleman. You don't make it so f*ck off."

(I ended up many years later with French and Togolese pilots licences.)

Ravens perform better than 4 year old children.

https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/07/ravens-smart-future-planning/

You need to read up on "Reynolds Number". Airfoils suitable for full sized aircraft are not necessarily suitable for small models and vice versa.

I suggest you try Martin Hepperle's "JavaFoil" http://www.mh-aerotools.de/airfoils/javafoil.htm and download the UUIC airfoil database http://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/ads/coord_database.html which contains coordinates for nearly 1,600 airfoils.

A good basic rule is that, like Fox News, anything that appears in the Daily Mail should not be believed unless it is confirmed by reputable sources.

Maybe the OP is some kind of Victorian time traveller?

Eczema is a general term for different types of rashes.There is not, and cannot be, one cure.

I think the central pivot is normally above the beam - this means that when it is tilted, the upwards end of the beam must move outward slightly (and the lower end inwards), giving a greater torque from the upper arm around the pivot.

My thesis depends on the fact that our senses provide an actual analog model of the reality that surrounds us.

 

Try getting a pilot's licence. You soon learn that if you fly into a cloud relying on your own senses (ie. without instruments) you will almost certainly be dead within a few minutes.

Someone once said that the word "science" in the name of a subject (domestic science, computer science etc.) is a good indication that the subject is in no way a science.

I would like to suggest that, in the same way, anyone who uses the word "genius" in their username ..................

It ha

 

1. You do not so much as make even a feeble attempt to demonstrate how I am "wrong." Very unscholarly and rude of you.

 

2. I am not the subject. The subject is "The Overcrowded Prison" and your collective failure to solve the puzzle. Obviously this angers you greatly to the extent that you must call ME "egotistical."

It has already been explained to you by others exactly why you are wrong.

 

"Republican abdication of environmental responsibility"... for an agency "they believe robs them of profit."

 

"Profit" is a gross misuse of the word. Governments do not MAKE "a profit." They sometimes have revenues in excess of expenditures, but "profit" is a term reserved for the private sector.

 

Governments do not make a profit - Many Republicans in power do, in the form of the immense amount of funding they get from the pollution industries.