Neon John wrote: > At that same altitude of looniness - waaaaaay out there - is the $50K > turntable where the works float on a pool of mercury contained in a > hollowed out lake on the top of about 2 tons of solid marble block. I > used to have the URL to this thing but I can't seem to find it. > > John
Whoever devised that had probably breathed too much mercury vapour. Mercury pools are exquisitely sensitive to seismic and traffic vibrations. The usual way around this is to use a thin layer of mercury possibly with an oil film on top. When used in a parabolic dish and spun up using airbearing drive a thin mercury film makes a high quality transit telescope. Bruce _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
