InigoMontoya

A ballistic pendulum doesn't measure energy. It measures momentum. And the beauty of a ballistic pendulum is that there really isn't any calibration required (assuming accuracy of a few percent is acceptable). It's a first principles device... You just do the math.

Low tech: Ballistic pendulum. High tech: There are 6DOF load cells designed for sports medicine that would likely excel at this when coupled with a suitable data acquisition system.

Sure, but cooking oil is VERY different than water.

Gotcha. I thought you were referencing desired purity levels, not gas in question. I'm with ya now.

At what pressures were they running O2? Such a cavalier attitude about O2 systems is.... disturbing. But then, I'm used to high pressure systems so that likely colors my vision.

It somewhat depends upon how pure you need your gases. At the office, we have some high pressure O2 systems. For our purposes we simply.... 1) Fill tank to 3000 psi with O2. Right there you're at (roughly) 200 atmospheres which means that you've got (again, roughly) 99.5% pure oxygen in the system. 2) Bleed tank to about 1 psi over atmospheric pressure. 3) Fill tank to 3000 psi with O2. Congratulations, you now have 99.998% pure O2. 4) Bleed tank to about 1 psi over atmospheric pressure. 5) Fill tank to 3000 psi with O2. Woot! 99.999998% pure O2. For our purposes (combustion research), we consider that pure O2. True, there are probably some processes that require higher purity, but I doubt the OP requires such. Note: We don't like pulling a vacuum on the system. If we find we have a leak, that vacuum means that we may have pulled dirt into an O2 system. That's bad and it brings with it the potential requirement to clean our entire system (a rather lengthy and expensive process). So we keep our system under positive pressure at all times so that if we DO have a leak, at least we aren't introducing dirt via our purging process.

IIRC, it's an HIV testing procedure. edit: Looking at the wiki on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_blot), it appears to be a generic protocol for testing for a number of things. HIV just happens to be one of the things you can test for (when you do it in a certain way, of course).

I see no power source. I see no air inlets for jet power. It's as farsacle as the suit.

Then why do they have tires in your video? Also, if we're talking jet propulsion at those speeds the plume behind them is going to be pretty intense.

Another thing to keep in mind is how exactly you plan on pushing your bike to such speeds. It turns out that one of the limiting factors on the speed for wheel-driven vehicles is the friction coefficient of the tire/ground interface (and/or the structural integrity of the tires or ground). You can only push on the ground so hard before your tires start to spin. If drag accounts for that amount of force, then you can drive no faster. As luck would have it, the wheel-driven land speed record is just over 700 km/hr. However, such a vehicle can't turn worth a damn and in fact attempting to turn at speed would almost certainly result in a wreck (so it would be nothing like your video). True, but the technology that allowed for that has since been outlawed. Laws could, of course, be changed back. And there's still the issue of shock transmission. (IIRC, the fluid in question was CFC-based.)

Please make an attempt at using proper spelling and punctuation.

Worst case scenario: 1) Add a quart. 2) Check oil level. 3) Repeat until desired oil level is attained.

A horizontal winch doesn't need a brake. Turn it off and it isn't required to hold the load. A vertically rated system, on the other hand, IS rated to hold the load after it has stopped movement (ie, will have a brake of some sort). Alternatively, some ratchet-based horizontal systems don't have a reverse so once you get the load up, you have no safe way to lower it back down (if you're stupid enough to use it vertically).

If you filled the suit with saline solution to take out ALL air pockets, Pascal's Law would protect the wearer to an extent. That is to say that he'd have a nice corpse. He would no longer be human soup. He'd be intact.... But he'd also have collapsed lungs and would die of suffocation almost immediately after impact. 'Cause when I said you'd have to remove ALL air from the system I meant ALL gas (including the air in the wearer's lungs). Note: The above assumes that the human body is homogeneous with respect to density (and said density matches the saline solution). It isn't, but that's about the best scenario I can dream up. Edit: Another wrinkle... The hydraulic suspension of the wearer may help resist extreme accelerations (neglecting that whole collapsed lung thing), but it would add vulnerability to shock waves as they would be transmitted through the suit to his internal organs with frightening efficiency. So while he may be able to handle extreme accelerations (again, neglecting the lungs/ears/etc.), a blast-based warhead would truly rock his world.

Then figure out a way to tell your story without the suit.

Is your interest more aligned with aerogels or optics? I mean, there's a whole community of amateur telescope builders out there using a large variety of technologies, but I've never heard of anybody in the amateur community using aerogels. In other words, if you want to build a telescope, you don't need aerogels.

And here I was thinking refrigerator magnets and superglue were involved.

Only problem with that theory is that military grade GPS units include logic to counter spoofing. One aspects of that logic is to look for sudden "jumps" in coordinate data and signal strength. If either is detected, you can assume you're being spoofed. Something else I find interesting is that Iran's display of the aircraft hides the undercarriage. It's somewhat jarring/ugly. Why do that? Why not show the WHOLE aircraft off? It could just be bad taste, but I wonder if the undercarriage is damaged which would imply a crash landing, not the controlled landing they're advertising.

I've very limited experience, but based on what I've seen in the demilitarization world? Yes. Without scrubbers there would be some very nasty things in the air.

Add chemical engineering into that list and you would be making the argument for virtually any industrial chemical plant.

Here's a question mooey.... Was that even English?

36 casualties? Globally? Not worth worrying about. Take the money you would have put into the reconfiguration of the plant and instead invest it in... Oh, I dunno... Feeding the hungry. My money says you save more than 36 lives per year that way.

Disagree. Hardest field in engineering? I'll go with Fusion as a power source.

I've not studied solar power tech in great detail, however, as one who lives in one of the best locations in the US for solar power, I would point out that the Spanish plant is not unique. I am aware of two such plants within 150 miles of me (ie, both are in Southern California). There are also SEVERAL power plants that use a distributed boiler system using troughs with long parabolic mirrors rather than the central tower. These distributed systems are apparently easier/cheaper to build/operate, but again, it's not something I've studied in detail. Solar One/Two. A tower-based plant that operated as an R&D facility for a number of years (wiki page indicates the Spanish system is a direct descendant of this project). SEGS. The trough based systems mentioned above. Sierra SunTower. The other tower-based system near me. I've driven by it several times while it was in operation. Esolar's page on the plant. Again, those are all within 150 miles of my home. Thermal-based solar in the US has been online for at least 15 years now... edit: The only benefit I think anybody sees with photovoltaics is their ease of use for small installations. Making a solar tower in your back yard is a bit complex. Throwing up a few solar cells? Not so much. So if your installation isn't going to be measured in megawatts, it probably makes sense to use photovoltaic. If megawatts are your desire? Yeah, thermal based makes a lot more sense.

Meh... I think long before we see cities revolutionized by technology we're going to see a major famine or similar that will make the question somewhat moot.