Re: vortex mystery
Let me try this one more time. At 4:47 PM 3/7/5, Robin van Spaandonk wrote: The question is, where does the energy come from to increase the velocity of the water? If the water is stationary to start with, then it comes from the change in height of the water as it leaves the tank, and the velocity at the edge automatically adjusts itself accordingly. Water in a tank, once spinning, does not stop for an amazingly long time. It is generally thought water goes down the drain a differing direction in the Southern Hemisphere than the Northern Hemisphere. However, if you check it a day or two after filling the tank it usually forms a vortex in the vortex direction that resulted when the tank was filled. I recall an article about this in the early 1960's - maybe in Scientific American or Popular Science. The rotation that results is a function of both gravity and initial angular momentum. Some of the gravity potential energy converts to angular velocity via the coreolis force. If the initial angular velocity of the water is zero, then your assertion that the energy comes entirely from the water falling to the drain is true, and the angular momentum of the vortex comes from the coreolis force. However if the water is already rotating before the plug is pulled, then it has to end up going faster than can be accounted for by gravity. Yes, except when the coreolis force is in a direction opposing the initial rotation, and its effect exceeds that of the inital angular momentum. If the radius decreases by a factor of ten before the water reaches the drain, then the velocity has to increase 10 fold, and the energy per unit mass must increase 100 fold. So where does the energy come from, or for some reason, does it simply not happen, and if not, then what does happen? Ignoring the coreolis force for a moment, the fallacy in the above statement is the assumption that the instantaneous speed v of some small chunk of the water changes as it approaches the drain. The speed of the chunk remains constant at all times, except for the speed added by converting gravitational potential energy PE to kinetic energy. Thus the instantaneous linear kinetic energy KE = 1/2 m v^2 of the chunck remains constant except for speed added by falling in the gravitational field. The angular velocity w increases however, because w = v/r. Now, you might say that for a rotational system KE = 1/2 I w^2, and w is increasing with reduction in radius, so where does the free energy come from? Well, the answer is that in a vortex the moment of inertia I of a chunk is not constant. We have I = m R^2, and w = v/R, so when we substitute these into KE = 1/2 I w^2 and we have: KE = 1/2 (m R^2) (v/R)^2 = 1/2 m v^2 which is constant, except for the PE converted to KE by falling down hill. Since the KE of every chunk remains constant the energy of what remains in the tank is the original gravitational potential energy PE plus KE less the KE of what went down the drain. I hope that is all a bit more correct. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: Limitless hydrogen?
Note that this actually IS the "nightmare" scenario whereby a hydrogen economy removes oxygen from the atmosphere. The water is split by the formation of SiO2 underground, leaving the oxygen innacessible and providing hydrogen for our use. Burn the hydrogen and you get more water, but with a net loss of usable oxygen. Probably not a good idea for long-term energy production.MerlynMagickal Engineer and Technical Metaphysicist Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
Re: Limitless hydrogen?
How is this a reverse version of the Haber process? Which process was invented during WWI, not WWII, by Fritz Haber, not them. I haven't a clue as to those details. The stuff in my Sunday posting was rephrased from questionable material sent to me (and probably to a lot of others) by a group with a strong anti-petroleum political agenda. Often these groups, in their zeal to expose some real or imagined plot, get some of the science wrong. Here, I am not so sure. I see in a quick google search that Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1918, a decision which met with significant opposition given his wartime activities on the synthesis of ammonia for the German ammunition industry, which came a little to late for them to win that war. Of Jewish descent Haber was forced to flee from his homeland in 1933, seeking exile from the Nazi government's policies against Jews. The Nazis supposedly took this body of work, commandeered his Institute and the Haber's process for ammonia and converted it for use during WWII to utilize the large amount of brown coal which they had locally into various fuels and chemicals for the war effort, once they had been expelled from the Crimean oil fields. As I understand the Haber process, it is the first large scale use of common gases, combined with catalysts and pressure - to make new molecules - and presumably that theme can go beyond ammonia, but as to how that is now being done (if at all) to make artificial methane, that is not clear. But with ammonia synthesis, one is adding 3 hydrogen's to nitrogen, and with methane synthesis it would be 4 hydrogens to carbon (or else hydrolyzing coal-derived methanol) so the cross-connection there seems believable. If this were accurate, the irony is not lost there, as the Russians occupied East Germany for so long, bled it dry, and are now leaching even more Euros from a reunited Germany than they ever did before. A further irony would be found in the fact that the Russians, who the Germans detest, using a German-invented process (probably perfected in occupied East Germany to boot) in order to supply multi-billion Euros worth of methane gas, through expensive pipelines which the Germans financed, all the while realizing that the Germans could, theoretically, be making this gas themselves, if they were not so anti-nuclear. That would be my take on it. Jones Plus, the further irony is that in the USA, the same petro-mafia which has bled our populace nearly dry, and dodged taxes by using off-shore banks, is now poised to do the same. That is, to use the same complex process, stolen by espionage from the Russians, and given to the petro-mafia by their Cronies high in the present administration, to do the same economic deception thing once again (as with encouraging if not creating OPEC, which has earned them billions)... and, just as soon as natural methane runs short and they can obtain *public financing* to pay for everything. Not a bad business plan, Dick. At least this is what the proponents of this new conspiracy theory want you to believe, whether it is accurate of not. I can't say that I buy into it whole-heartedly, but there could be some truth to it, as all the greed-motives and past corporate history are all aligned correctly for this to happen.
Re: Limitless hydrogen?
Merlyn writes, Note that this actually IS the nightmare scenario whereby a hydrogen economy removes oxygen from the atmosphere. The water is split by the formation of SiO2 underground, leaving the oxygen innacessible and providing hydrogen for our use. Burn the hydrogen and you get more water, but with a net loss of usable oxygen. Probably not a good idea for long-term energy production. That is a valid point, but a bit misleading in comparison with the alternatives. So let's all readjust out pointy caps and look at positive counter-measures, assuming we are talking about a future where science, not politics, reigns. Isn't is also true that this removal of O2 can be offset every time we make steel or aluminum, maybe even concrete, if we do those processes using electrolytic methods which return O2 to the air instead of using coal or methane? Which is one more reason to suspect that Lovelock is correct, in his long-term vision, and that a return to better-engineered nuclear energy is the best ecological solution for the planet, given all that we know now. Obviously LENR, ZPE extraction, or the hydrino could change things in a wonderful way, but given what we know for sure in 2005, there are fewer real choices. I don't see a huge problem with O2 removal, anyway, if H2 is the result because in comparison with burning coal, which both removes a lot more of it and gives you the poison CO2 to boot, you get 6 times more energy for every O2 removed. But also there is this somewhat beneficial solution - using the H2 to produce methane from CO2 already in the air... as has been done since the beginnings of herbivorous life, and particularly evident in its most 'sensual' realization... ta,da... bovine flatulence (Fred has mentioned this before): http://rucus.ru.ac.za/~wolfman/Essays/Cow.html Is there any reason, assuming we have all this cheap hydrogen coming form silicide wells, why Methanogensis cannot use CO2 extracted directly from air, for instance and use the H2 to make methane? Of course this is only **net neutral** in the long run, as the methane will be burned, but net neutral is a good thing, right? A least until we can go 100% nuclear (or some new energy technology). Bacteria in the stomachs of cows (and other ruminant animals) break down and ferment fodder during digestion, producing methane. There is no reason why this can't be bio-engineered to happen in factories near H2 wells. The initial steps are performed either by facultative anaerobic bacteria (such as E. coli which convert formate to H2 and CO2) or by obligate anaerobes (Clostridium or Selenomonas which do similar conversions) (College, 1999). Methanogenic archaebacteria (a group separate from true bacteria) are obligate anaerobes that are very sensitive to oxygen and prefer environments without any other electron acceptors such as nitrogen (Beckmanm, 2000; College, 1999). They perform the final steps in the fermentation and they convert H2 and CO2 produced by the other organisms to methane by the following equation: 4 H2 + CO2 -- CH4 + 2 H2O + ATP or they can convert acetic acid to make methane as below: C2H4O2 -- CH4 + CO2 + ATP Now that is an interesting new spin on cutting the cheese, right? Jones
Re: Transistors, replication, and PAGD
At 5:16 PM 3/6/5, RC Macaulay wrote: [snip] As we continue to test various parabolic shaped segments in our designs for vacuum induction mixer feeding of products into process streams there are certain shapes of 3450 rpm speed rotating members that produce extremely tight vortexes in the clear plexiglas test tank. The vortex forms at the bottom of the tank and extends up to the face of the rotating member. Observing the vortex hunt around the rotating member, it randomly strikes the member.. NEVER at the center but at the discharge orifices on the periphery. This event occurs at around 20 sec. intervals and is quite visible causing the entire unit with submersible motor ( 2HP) to jump on its sliding mount. Entrained air in the water is also sheared off the member. Beside the main vertical vortex created, there are a host of free spinning pups released that are visible (contain an air center) for a short duration that bounce off all four walls in every direction horizontal to diagonal in orientation plus an occasional glowing bubble ( may only be reflection on the bubble from the light below the tank) [snip] The vortex is the fluid which rotates. The thing striking the rotating member is the vortex core which is probably composed of near vacuum water vapor. The jump is probably caused by a sudden drop in pressure on the rotor combined with a rapid fluctuation in resistance to torque. You seem to be describing phenomena which would be expected from such a device. A clear description of the objectives of the design and the problems to be solved is needed. It appears the objective of the machine is to mix. Are there other objectives? How will you measure the performance achieved by the machine? It appears the problems to be solved are (1) cavitation erosion and (2) the jump caused when the vacuum core strikes the rotor. Regards, Horace Heffner
Macaulay's vortex problem
Providing some ideas may be better than providing no ideas. If all is as it appears a possible solution might be simply to reduce the diameter of the rotor. In addition, it might be useful to provide small vanes around the vortex periphery slanted about 30 deg. so as to direct the outside flow in a return path back toward the rotor. This should increase turbulence and expend more of the motor's energy in fluid shear as opposed to cavitation, as well as disrupt the central core. I don't know your specific geometry, but the vanes might be provided for the existing device by mounting a cylindrical mesh-like or rod framework around the rotor. At 5:16 PM 3/6/5, RC Macaulay wrote: [snip] As we continue to test various parabolic shaped segments in our designs for vacuum induction mixer feeding of products into process streams there are certain shapes of 3450 rpm speed rotating members that produce extremely tight vortexes in the clear plexiglas test tank. The vortex forms at the bottom of the tank and extends up to the face of the rotating member. Observing the vortex hunt around the rotating member, it randomly strikes the member.. NEVER at the center but at the discharge orifices on the periphery. This event occurs at around 20 sec. intervals and is quite visible causing the entire unit with submersible motor ( 2HP) to jump on its sliding mount. Entrained air in the water is also sheared off the member. Beside the main vertical vortex created, there are a host of free spinning pups released that are visible (contain an air center) for a short duration that bounce off all four walls in every direction horizontal to diagonal in orientation plus an occasional glowing bubble ( may only be reflection on the bubble from the light below the tank) [snip] The vortex is the water which rotates. The thing striking the rotating member is the vortex core which is probably composed of near vacuum water vapor. The jump is probably caused by a sudden drop in pressure on the rotor combined with a rapid fluctuation in resistance to torque. You seem to be describing phenomena which would be expected from such a device. A clear description of the objectives of the design and the problems to be solved is needed. It appears the objective of the machine is to mix. Are there other objectives? How will you measure the performance achieved by the machine? It appears the problems to be solved are (1) cavitation erosion and (2) the jump caused when the vacuum core strikes the rotor. Based on research posted here on the Potopov device, it is unlikely in the extreme your device will create detectable x-rays. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: Limitless hydrogen?
Jones Beene posted By the time the US consumer gets to benefit from this technology, the cost will have been inflated to whatever price the market will bear... and all indications are that the present administration is setting the stage for $5 per gallon gasoline at the pump, and equal inflation in methane prices, should they loose the next election (not likely, thanks to good Christians everywhere). Are someone's true colors starting to shine through ? I would think that the life span of such a well would be quite limited. Since this is a chemical reaction, it would seem to me that the water would have to migrate further and further outward in search of reactive material. Given what it costs to drill such a well, $5 gas equivalent seems about right. I fail to see what economics has to do with religion. When your car's tank is empty, you're just glad that you can fill it up again. Given inflation, $2 gasoline is the equivalent of 20ยข gasoline in 1960.
Message about nano-particles
Here are two messages from someone who is either in India or Minnesota, about nanoparticles. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Erach [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Jed Rothwell, Thank you for your excellent book online on cold-fusion. I am a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. My colleague Dr. S. B. Khadkikar (retd.) is head of theoretical physics group, Physics Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. This gives him a rank of deputy-director of a 400 person organization. Dr Khadkikar had a theory that nano-particles of Palladium were responsible for the variability in Palladium cathodes. Basically, even if you search lenr-canr.org with the word nano you will notice that: 1. nano-particles are noticed in active fusion electrodes. 2. charging and discharging the cathode results in formation of active surfaces or we hypothesize, nano-particles. 3. making Boron Palladium alloy results in formation of surfaces between Boron and Palladium where nano-particles might be found in plenty. 4. nano-particles have a very very high surface area to volume ratio -- it is at these surfaces that the reaction takes place. Where will I find experimenters to run an experiment based on these hypothesis we have designed in theory the experimental setup with full operational controls. Can you email me the names/email ids of leading cold fusion theorists in USA. Thanking You, Erach A. Irani, PhD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - We've filed a patent on its use in cold fusion. Do you have contacts with experimenters in cold fusion to take advantage of that fact. I am in India, and in India I cannot do the experiment with heavy water by myself. Thanks, Erach
Re: Dr. K. L. Shanahan, Savannah River National Laboratory
Apparently, Kirk does not give up easily even when the facts that dispute his claim are presented to him on several occasions. His mechanism is at odds with observation because recombination does not occur on the cathode surface, as has been demonstrated by measurement and by simple logic. In addition, the calorimeter I used is insensitive to where heat is produced within the cell. based experimental measurement. All of these facts have been given to Kirk without having any effect on his behavior. On the other hand, he shows no experimental evidence that his model is real, in contrast to being a figment of his imagination. Such is the kind of people cold fusion has to deal with. Regards, Ed Steven Krivit wrote: Vorts - Kirk Shanahan posted the following message to the Wiki cold fusion page on 2 March, at 16:45. Eight minutes later, Wiki watchdog David W. Brooks, an apparent sysop for the page - most appropriately - erased this entire entry, reverting to the prior revision. I wonder if Dr. Shanahan is reading Vortex and picked up the recent threads regarding Wiki and decided to use that to express his views. If so, I wish you luck in your efforts, Dr. Shanahan, and hope that you do your homework. Steve Recently, a chemical explanation of the excess heat observations has been promoted by Dr. K. L. Shanahan, Savannah River National Laboratory in two publications in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta (TA). In the first -(TA, 387(2), (2002), 95), experimental data collected by Dr. E. Storms and posted to the Internet in January/February, 2000, and presented at the 8th International Conference on Cold Fusion was reanalyzed from the point of view of a system that produced no true excess energy, but that apeared to do so. What was found was that -a simple variation in calibration constants within +/- 3% would account for the observed apparent excess heat. The article focused on presenting these results, which provide a convenient explanation for a large fraction of observed excess heat results. However, no detailed mechanism for the calibration constant shift mechanism was presented there, and subsequently Szpak, Mosier-Boss, Miles, and Fleischmann, while reporting new claims of observed cold fusion (TA, 410(1-2), (2004), 101), criticized Shanahan's work. In response Shanahan has submitted a new paper (TA (2005, article in press)) responding to the criticism and detailing the proposed mundane (but interesting) chemical mechanism, while also commenting on the Szpak, et al, paper. - -In simple terms, the Shanahan explanation consists of the slow development of a contaminated electrode surface which promotes the at-the-surface, under-the-electroyte joining of H2(D2) and O2 bubbles, which then ignite and burn on the electrode surface. This redistributes the heat produced in the cells, and can produce a calibration constant shift, which in turn produces an apparent excess energy signal. This surface chemistry explanation is driven by the realization that the work of Dr. Storms was done on a Pt cathode, instead of the 'ususal' Pd, and Pt does not hydride. Thus, bulk hydriding levels are not directly relevant to the effect, in contrast to the claims of McKubre and Hagelstein. - -Excess heat claims constitute the most common form of evidence presented for a nuclear explanation of the cold fusion claims, but there are additional claims to have observed a wide variety of nuclear ash (nuclear reaction products). Dr. Shanahan has posted extensive discussions of how such nuclear ash observations could have been obtained by the various researchers involved on the Internet Usenet newsgroup sci.physics.fusion. Most of these explanations invoke poor analytical chemistry practices. - -The claims of Dr. Shanahan represent an alternative explanation to the nuclear version of 'cold fusion' and, barring some reasonable explanation as to why Dr. Shanahan's theses are incorrect, as such clearly establish that the issue of the nuclear nature of 'cold fusion' is not yet decided, over 15 years afer the initial announcements of such. * The following subsequent conversation occurred between Shanahan and Brooks: KS: David, Any particular reason that you reverted my addition to the Cold Fusion main page (Hidden Chemistry)? Kirk Shanahan (new Wikipedia user - KirkShanahan) DB: Yes - I apologize for not putting a discussion on the Talk page; I was having wikipedia problems and the system kept timing out on me. Your posting was way, way too long. It was more appropriate for a research publication or a Web forum; this is supposed to be an overview encyclopedia article, not an in-depth analysis of all old, new and potentially relevant research findings. You can imagine what would happen if every research lab in the world that has new data relating to cold fusion were to put in three or four paragraphs about its work here - the article would be so enormous that no
Roomba as monster
Mike Carrell wrote: Directing a flight of crows into a jet engine on takeoff is one thing. A replay of The Birds is another level of command and control which is vulnerable to jamming. The measure/countermeasure escalation can put the game out of reach of terrorists. I was thinking the same thing last week when I wrote that you would have to have a few hundred people hidden in the United States to pull off this attack. However, over the weekend I thought about some more while I was watching our Roomba robot vacuum cleaner at work. See: http://www.irobot.com/consumer/why_roomba.cfm This gadget has a remarkable level of artificial intelligence. It finds its way around the room, feels along the wall, and recognizes dirt and sharp drop-off. It knows how to back out of tight corners and untangle itself from electric wires, cloth and tassels. I would say it is roughly as intelligent as a wasp. And a wasp, needless to say, can easily effectively recognize and attack a person. The terrorists in our scenario would not care which 1,024 people they killed on Day 7. If they could make control electronics as smart as Roomba's, with something like an IR camera, I do not think it would be difficult for these machines to recognize individual human beings and to distinguish between them and other warm objects such as automobiles or dogs. All the terrorists have to do then is be sure the robots are widely separated to prevent two of them from selecting the same victim. They could launch them from anywhere on earth, have them proceed to different towns and cities with a built-in GPS system, and then on a given date attack the first human being they sense. The only way the US could interfere with this would be to turn off the GPS system, and there are probably other navigation systems that would work almost as well, such as inertial guidance. Actually, you hardly need a navigation system. You could tell the robots to head off in the general direction of the US and strike at any person anywhere, in a town, city or isolated countryside. The robots might kill a few cows and deer, but they will find people everywhere, and it would be hard to miss a target as large as the US. If they killed a few people in Canada or Mexico it would actually enhance the attack. Carrell mentioned advanced insectlike flying machines with flapping wings. I describe these in the book. The terrorists would not need anything like that. They could use ordinary propeller driven it aircraft the size of model airplanes and model helicopters. As far as I know, these things could easily fly halfway around the world war all the way around the world even now. Of course some would be lost in storms, and once the US was alerted some might be intercepted, but plenty would get through. - Jed
Re: Transistors, replication, and PAGD
Edmund Storms wrote: So I ask, what is the basic process in the PAGD effect? For example, how can moving ions extract energy from their surroundings? Why must the ions and/or electrons only move in a certain way, as caused by the unique applied voltage? I think the point is that the Correas themselves do not know yet, so the only way to investigate this phenomenon is to build a slavishly exact copies of the original gadget, and then begin experimenting with it. If the Correas or someone else working with the PAGD had a general theory then other people could reproduce the effect with a variety of different machines and configurations. This is exactly what happened with transistors. Between 1948 and 1952 a comprehensive theory was developed, and this made it much easier to reproduce the effect even if you did not know every detail of the Bell Labs protocols. Other companies and soon developed alternative methods. However it was still a big advantage to learn the details from Bell Labs, because they had solved many of the mechanical problems that were not directly related to theory, such as how to make extremely pure germanium. This was done with the zone-refining technique invented by Pfann and Scaff. Shockley, who was in charge of transistor research, try to prevent Pfann and Scaff from developing their technique because he thought it was a waste of time. - Jed
Re: Transistors, replication, and PAGD
Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms wrote: So I ask, what is the basic process in the PAGD effect? For example, how can moving ions extract energy from their surroundings? Why must the ions and/or electrons only move in a certain way, as caused by the unique applied voltage? I think the point is that the Correas themselves do not know yet, so the only way to investigate this phenomenon is to build a slavishly exact copies of the original gadget, and then begin experimenting with it. The problem is that it is almost impossible to build an exact duplicate of a complex device. Without guidance based on even a crude model, it is impossible to know which of the many variables are important and which can be ignored. For example, using the cold fusion effect about which I have some experience, it was impossible to duplicate the F-P work exactly because F-P did not know most of what was important, even when they finally revealed what they had done. Even after years of work, attention was still directed to the physical and chemical properties of bulk palladium. Only recently has it become clear that the action is in surface deposits. Now the number of variables can be reduced and redirected to those that really matter. At this point, we do not know whether the energy extraction process in the PAGD apparatus occurs in the plasma, in the electrode surface, or in the attached components through which unusual waveforms pass. If, as Mike suggests, the apparatus acts as an antenna that picks up energy from aether waves, then where is this antenna located within the apparatus. What aspect of the apparatus is important to allow such extraction? Suppose the plasma is only required to create the required waveform experienced by elections passing through the connecting wires, similar to the way normal antenna work. Too many variables are available to allow an exact duplication, even using the patents. That is why the Correas must show that their apparatus actually does what they claim, because only that device has achieved all the known and unknown features that are important. Regards, Ed
Re: Energy - The Big Picture
I like the big picture approach, but this analysis is too oversimplified. The cost of making millions of wind turbines or thousands of nuclear reactors cannot be estimated as a straight-line projection of today's costs. Mass production on that scale would reduce the unit cost by a huge margin -- maybe even by a factor of 10. It is conceivable that the direct cost of energy derived from wind would be cheaper than today's fossil fuel energy. It almost certainly would be cheaper when you factor in the cost of pollution and war. In North America, the cost of wind turbines would fall dramatically, but then as the best sites for towers -- with the most wind -- filled up, the cost of wind powered electricity would gradually rise. I do not think that northern Europe would ever run out of good offshore wind sites in the North Sea, assuming the population and the demand for electricity does not grow much. The cost of nuclear power reactors would probably fall even more dramatically (in percentage), because in order to implement something like this you would need a radically new equipment, such as the pebble bed modular reactor. If both wind and uranium fission were developed, I doubt that nuclear plants would ever become as cheap as wind turbines per megawatt of capacity, because they would always require elaborate safety precautions and so on. I doubt that the cost of uranium would be a major factor because there is a huge supply of it and sooner or later someone will figure out how to recycle it or how to make an effective breeder reactor. A sane energy policy for the U.S. would begin by emphasizing conservation because despite 30 years of improvements, conservation is still the best, fastest and cheapest way to reduce U.S. dependence on OPEC. There is still a great deal of low hanging fruit -- especially with automobiles. Last week my 10-year-old Volvo station wagon needed an expensive valve job. It turned out it cost 4000 bucks! Anyway, I thought about getting a new car and I spec'ed them out. My car gets ~20 mpg city and 30 mpg highway. I was disgusted to find that the new station wagons get 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway! Apparently this is because they are all-wheel-drive AWD -- which I assume means four-wheel-drive. A few of the old front-wheel drive models still get 30 mpg. This is crazy. Who the heck needs four-wheel-drive in suburban Atlanta for crying out loud?!? There are probably not more than a hundred people in greater Atlanta who actually do drive off-road a few times a year, and it is ironic that I happen to be one of them, but as my mother used to say, any car will do. My mother drove anything with wheels starting in the Model T Ford era, including WWII trucks. The people I know who actually live in the countryside do not own SUVs. They drive a Volvo or a VW bug into the woods to collect firewood. On the few occasions when really need to get someplace off in the woods we borrow a 35-year-old tractor from the neighbor. *That*, by golly, is off road. - Jed
Re: Roomba as monster
Good grief, Jed! In passing, I've thought of dozens of military uses for CF. It makes no sense at all to make them public though. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: Energy - The Big Picture
Last week my 10-year-old Volvo station wagon needed an expensive valve job. It turned out it cost 4000 bucks! Anyway, I thought about getting a new car and I spec'ed them out. My car gets ~20 mpg city and 30 mpg highway. I was disgusted to find that the new station wagons get 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway! Apparently this is because they are all-wheel-drive AWD -- which I assume means four-wheel-drive. A few of the old front-wheel drive models still get 30 mpg. This is crazy. Who the heck needs four-wheel-drive in suburban Atlanta for crying out loud?!? Just for your information Jed, my Forester, which is AWD, gets 25 mpg at 7000 ft in the city and over 28 mpg at 70 mph. Also the Prius (front wheel drive) get 45 mpg in the city and 55 mpg at 75 mph. Soon several SUV models will be hybrid with good gas mileage. Last year I would see another Prius every few few weeks. Now, I expect very soon collisions between two Prius will become common. Ed There are probably not more than a hundred people in greater Atlanta who actually do drive off-road a few times a year, and it is ironic that I happen to be one of them, but as my mother used to say, any car will do. My mother drove anything with wheels starting in the Model T Ford era, including WWII trucks. The people I know who actually live in the countryside do not own SUVs. They drive a Volvo or a VW bug into the woods to collect firewood. On the few occasions when really need to get someplace off in the woods we borrow a 35-year-old tractor from the neighbor. *That*, by golly, is off road. - Jed
Re: Energy - The Big Picture
Edmund Storms wrote: Just for your information Jed, my Forester, which is AWD, gets 25 mpg at 7000 ft in the city and over 28 mpg at 70 mph. That's still not as good on the highway as my '95 Volvo station wagon, which is a great hulking vehicle capable of carrying more stuff than most SUVs. Actually, it is rated at 30 mpg highway, but it does better when I'm driving. (Most SUVs have lots of room but very limited cargo capacity measured in weight, so people overload them without realizing it, and this causes accidents. Their brakes are particularly unsuited for heavy loads. See: High And Mighty.) If I lived up north where there is snow I would get an AWD vehicle. My sister, who lives out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia, has something similar to the Forester. - Jed
Re: Limitless hydrogen?
Horace, In the US the cost of litigation and medical care also push inflation, as will the falling dollar due to debt financing and trade deficits. I was surprised to find out, when you do the breakdown, that the major cost component (except for new expensive drugs) of increased medical is general inflation i.e. the effects of oil pushing everything else up. And it is hard to eliminate the demand issue of consumerism i.e. when the average person demands more than is necessary (cosmetic surgery, for instance) the cost of which pushes everything else up. http://healthcare.pwc.com/cgi-local/hcregister.cgi?link=pdf/fuel.pdf. and of course, the falling dollar and trade deficits all point back to oil also. But my using the word only in the original post was certainly a dose of hyperbole. However, productivity gains have kept inflation much lower than it otherwise would be, so it is a small hyperbole. Bottom line is that gasoline should cost no more than 20 cents a gallon now, and that ten-fold jump has been the self-imposed **push** for almost everything else (which is not a demand issue); and consequently has disguised the real culprit to the naive analysis. To say that gasoline does not cost more in inflationary terms is a huge joke on the consumer. Gasoline is responsible for almost ALL of the increase, not in everything else as well as its own price. Jones
RE: Roomba as monster
Indeed. Why not? The problem at the moment is Jed's pitch; it made me wet my pants, but from laughter rather than fear. Killer roombas and terrorist model airplanes just ain't cutting it fellas. I think if you want to implement Frank Grimers suggestion you need to start an actual development project complete with testing. If anyone minds, just tell them that LENR doesn't exist and what's to be concerned about? Whether you are successful or not, once you start testing I'll bet you get some attention K. -Original Message- From: Edmund Storms [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 4:26 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Roomba as monster Why not Horace? Most people who have the knowledge and equipment to implement such ideas can dream up many more designs than we can. In addition, they will have devices already made that we do not know about and these will be adapted. The purpose of making such primitive ideas public is to scare the crap out of people and get them to force the government of address the issue before it is too late. Right now, the government ignores cold fusion because it would cause an economic hit to all other energy sources. This is the only reason that makes sense, other than complete stupidity. Regards, Ed Horace Heffner wrote: Good grief, Jed! In passing, I've thought of dozens of military uses for CF. It makes no sense at all to make them public though. Regards, Horace Heffner
RE: Roomba as monster
Keith Nagel wrote: The problem at the moment is Jed's pitch; it made me wet my pants, but from laughter rather than fear. Killer roombas and terrorist model airplanes just ain't cutting it fellas. It does sound comical, I admit. So did Billy Mitchell's proposal to drop bombs from biplanes onto navy ships in 1921. As Newton Backer, U.S. Sec. of War put it: That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I am willing to stand on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit tries to hit it from the air. You have to remember, in 1921 biplanes were still rickety little canvas covered machines. In July 1921 Mitchell's aviators were allowed to attack the captured German battleship Ostfriesland, which was once considered unsinkable. It sank within minutes. By the way, large model airplanes are dangerous even when unarmed. They have killed and severely injured people. They can easily fly at 100 mph easily. The record is around 200 mph. With unlimited CF power, you might just build one with a sharp steel bar sticking out in front, and spear people to death. It is much more dangerous than it sounds. I am not envisioning something that looks like a scaled-down model of an airplane -- which would indeed look comical -- but rather something like a javelin or shoulder launched missile, made of aluminum, painted black, with one or two 200-watt pusher engines. 200 watts is enough power to propel me, on my bicycle, at 15 mph. A 2 kg, 200 W small flying object would probably have enough momentum to kill someone on impact. Armed with 20 rounds of small ammunition or 100 grams of Sarin gas, or a hand grenade, such a machine could kill lots of people in a short time. The thing is: it would have *unlimited* range. That is a very difficult property to imagine, or come to terms with. You could launch thousands of these gadgets anywhere in the world, and they would show up anywhere else on earth within 12 days. If it did not find a victim the first day, it could keep hunting for days or weeks. If a few thousand of these things came bearing down on people at random everywhere, every day for nine months, the nation would be reduced to utter chaos. It could be much worse than, say, the Battle of Britain civilian casualties. Between Sept. 1940 and May 1941, the Luffwaffe attacked 127 times, killing 60,000 civilians and seriously injuring 87,000 (that's 9 months, and 471 deaths per attack). If you had a few hundred thousand of these gadgets, you could accomplish that in one day, or one week, or whatever span of time suited your agenda. There would be no risk to the attackers as long as their bases remained undiscovered, and I presume they would launch the weapons from hundreds of different locations around the world. The cost in men and equipment would be microscopic compared to what the Germans paid for the Blitz. Developing effective countermeasures would take months, possibly years, and I do not think the work could even be carried in the ensuing chaos. The cost of building these things would be *far* less than making a conventional nuclear bomb from scratch, and it would be much easier to hide the production facilities, or spread it out to hundreds of different factories in China and elsewhere. Perhaps you could even build a small jet engine, and go a lot faster, but I see no point to it. 100 mph is plenty fast. - Jed
Re: Transistors, replication, and PAGD
Mike Carrell writes: The discussion of replication of the PAGD technology is getting a bit wild. All I have said is that the efforts at replication by Jeff contain gross errors. That's true. But your messages also indicated there is a lot unexplained art in the PAGD, with things that the Correas do simply because they work. Other people have said that, too. There is nothing wrong with that. Many industries and sciences are like that. Electrochemistry is full of protocols you have to learn from the master. If the PAGD is like this, then it will probably need a hands-on teaching session before a replication works. When someone follows the recipe in the patents, and the circuits given, and calibration means shown, and explores the glow discharge range indicated, and fails to see the PAGD discharge, then one can start mumbling about mysteries. It one sees the discharge, plenty of mysterious mumbling will follow. So far as I know no one has done this, they all do something different, and then talk about failure. True again. And this is not fair to the Correas. To this point is Ed Storm's position that the effect originates in certain deposits on the surfaces of cathodes and loading of bulk palladium is irrelevant. Ed has not yet identified these, or shown how to make lots of cathodes. Touche. - Jed
Re: University of Illinois Measures Bubble Temp
--- Horace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The fusion zone of the sun is 10,000,000 deg. C. Do we know that the source of the sun's energy is fusion? __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: Roomba as monster
At 4:37 PM 3/7/5, Jed Rothwell wrote: The only danger is that the potential for harm and terrorism does *not* circulate, and people in free countries remain ignorant of what might happen. If people everywhere realize how CF might be used to make terror weapons, then we can develop it first and make CF powered devices (plus conventionally powered ones) to counter the threat and intercept the terror weapons. If the U.S. decision makers go on thinking that CF does not exist, while well-financed terrorist researchers discover ways to make CF work, THEN we will be in huge trouble. I feel fairly certain a countermeasures approach is ultimately not feasible. I suspect you have not thought far enough ahead. The only feasible long term approach to advanced technology in terrorist hands probably is: (a) Establish world government (b) Disarm everyone (c) Permit access to technology development information, tools and materials only under license and regular inspections. Items (a) and (b) probably will require a world war. I see no need to hurry all this along. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: University of Illinois Measures Bubble Temp
At 7:32 PM 3/7/5, Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. wrote: Of course not -- see http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/rs/cwkvk/sunpart1.htm http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/rs/cwkvk/sunpart2.htm Since it's obvious that the heavy elements migrate toward the center, it is fission of the heavy elements providing the energy. Hoyt Stearns Scottsdale, Arizona US Maybe some, but certainly not all. For example, there are plenty of stars around made of material not yet in a supernova. These stars don't have fissionable material. The conditions on the sun should produce significant fusion, and there is a significant amount of neutrinos that evidence such fusion - though a portion is indeed missing. Missing due to fission, or oscillating neutrinos? Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: University of Illinois Measures Bubble Temp
At 6:24 PM 3/7/5, Terry Blanton wrote: --- Horace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The fusion zone of the sun is 10,000,000 deg. C. Do we know that the source of the sun's energy is fusion? I think we know that a most of it is. That's pretty much irrelevant to the original issue of whether sonoluminescence can be used to create fusion, i.e. whether the bubble temperature is hot enough, and how it compares to the sun. It certainly is true that at least a significant portion of the sun's energy comes from fusion, and that 15,000 Deg. C is not hot enough to pull that off, nor is it 4 times the temperature of the sun where such fusion occurs. Regards, Horace Heffner
RE: Roomba as monster
I agree with Horace. Why give basic creativity the advantage of years of experience or implantation knowledge. There is such a thing as planting a seed. While there is little doubt to the sincere altruism of the regular contributors, the same can not be said for all the lurkers. Consequently a certain level of restraint should always be exercised. Growing up, my brother, me, and my cousin represented quite the triumvirate of mischief. My cousin typically thought up a plan, I had a knack for creatively enhancing it to it's full potential, and my brother could usually be talked into implementing it. The overall impact was soo much less when I was unavailable to participate. The will and the means can only get you so far. Creativity is always the exponential catalyst... 8^) -john -Original Message- From: Edmund Storms [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 3:26 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Roomba as monster Why not Horace? Most people who have the knowledge and equipment to implement such ideas can dream up many more designs than we can. In addition, they will have devices already made that we do not know about and these will be adapted. The purpose of making such primitive ideas public is to scare the crap out of people and get them to force the government of address the issue before it is too late. Right now, the government ignores cold fusion because it would cause an economic hit to all other energy sources. This is the only reason that makes sense, other than complete stupidity. Regards, Ed Horace Heffner wrote: Good grief, Jed! In passing, I've thought of dozens of military uses for CF. It makes no sense at all to make them public though. Regards, Horace Heffner -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.4 - Release Date: 05/03/07
