Speculation: It seemed to me that, based on the picture, they are arranging the turbines something like bowling pins. With that, they can funnel the wind between them, as when they spin fast enough they start to act, in some ways, like solid cylinders. Now, its not quite that straight, because the fans make the wind come out at an angle (which is why you alternate the direction of rotation). Of course, the bowling pin metaphor works for me, but I'm not sure what any of that has to do with schooling fish, the latter analogy is equally puzzling to me. My only guess, perhaps, that the schooling fish want the water to be moving really fast right next to them, but not at all directly as a headwind. So, if you can get the wind to hit one side of the fan pretty hard, but the direct head of the fan not at all, you get an increase in turbine speed?!?
Eric On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 12:45 AM, "Nicholas Thompson" <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > > >> >>Sorry, everybody. What I meant to write was, "Wait a blithering moment!!!", suggesting, at least, that the metaphor between bunching up cyclists and bunching up windturbines was backwards. Don't you WANT your turbines to "feel" the "headwind"? >> >> Of course I am wrong about this, but I sure would like to understand why. >> >>Nick >> >> >>Nicholas S. Thompson >>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>Clark University (<#>) >><http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >> ><http://www.cusf.org> [City University of Santa Fe] >> >> >> > > >> > >>----- Original Message ----- >> >From: <a title="" href="#">Carl Tollander</a> >> >To: <a title="" href="#">nickthomp...@earthlink.net</a>;<a title="" href="#">The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group</a> > >> >Sent: 11/24/2009 10:13:22 PM >> >Subject: Re: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> > >What they lack is mobility - lacking some sort of mobile platform maybe they could get together and decide where the next best placement would be and tell the manufacturing and installation people. Some sort of distributed instantiation - Group orders another member, turbine shows up in the mail, speaks up, says, "I am a wind turbine, the group has determined that it will be most efficient if you place me over there." And the humans would go do that, since the turbine family was usually right about such things. > >So maybe the turbines "want" some particular configuration, the friction is just one criteria. If they were a phased array antenna (in addition to being a group of wind turbines) then they would have additional criteria. > >C > >Nicholas Thompson wrote: > >> >>Now what a blithering moment. Cyclists flock to reduce friction. Ditto fish, I suppose. >> >>So, turbines want less friction with the wind????? >> >>Something screwy here. >> >>N >> >> >>Nicholas S. Thompson >>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>Clark University (<#>) >><http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >> ><http://www.cusf.org> [City University of Santa Fe] >> >> >> > > >> > >>----- Original Message ----- >> >From: <a title="" href="#" moz-do-not-send="">Roger Critchlow</a> >> >To: <a title="" href="#" moz-do-not-send="">The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group</a> > >> >Sent: 11/24/2009 7:36:30 PM >> >Subject: [FRIAM] flocking windmills >> >Same power production as existing wind farms in 100th the land area. >> > >> <http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1124/1> > >> > >>-- rec -- > > >============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.friam.org"; onclick="window.open('http://www.friam.org');return false;">http://www.friam.org</a> > > ============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
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