10941

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 06/10/2013 16:55:43 »

Hi Alancalverd,
Here is an update. I wrote to one of the vacuum elevator manufacturers asking how much time in seconds, it takes for the lift cage to start moving after the button is pressed, she replied that it was considerably less than a second. Does this change anything ?

No. The air brakes on a truck or the vacuum brakes on a train work instantaneously (we hope) when required to do so, but it takes time to charge (or evacuate) the reservoir between applications of the brakes.

Why burn the coal at all, why not just place it on the piston and see it do its work !

Because when the piston reaches the bottom of its stroke, you have to schlep it all up the hill again.

10942

Technology / Re: Can we make Instantly Hot Water Using Microwaves?

« on: 06/10/2013 07:53:18 »

If you collect shower water in a holding tank you can recover the heat and use the water to flush the toilet.   

10943

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 04/10/2013 18:33:28 »

Please try to be consistent. On the one hand you say there is no such thing as science, and on the other you tell a professional scientist that he doesn't know what it is, or what it can be used for.

Only a priest, philosopher or a politician would consider such selfcontradiction to be normal or acceptable, but since you claim not to be a philosopher I must conclude that you are either a member of one of the other two despicable professions, or insane.  I will not insult you by suggesting that you are a priest or a politician.

 

10944

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 04/10/2013 17:46:14 »

And each 6-inch blade delivers more power than a Formula 1 engine. So what?

A word of friendly advice: if you do invent or discover a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, don't publicise it here or anywhere. You won't be able to patent it, but just go into production - using your money, not mine! 

10945

Just Chat! / Re: Has the Global Warming Argument damaged scientific credibility?

« on: 04/10/2013 16:38:18 »

Development of any product usually requires serial and collaborative effort, but that is not the same as consensus. If a thousand people collaborated to produce a pharmaceutical that killed patients on its first clinical trial, the "consensus" would be invalidated by observation. Think Thalidomide.

The consensus was that airline passengers would not like circular portholes, so the Comet had square windows and several crashed due to hull fatigue at the corners. Pressurised aircraft now have rounded window corners.   

The absurd consensus that "global temperatures are at an alltime high and the cause is anthropogenic CO2" is invalidated by the discovery of 500-year old bryophytes under a retreating glacier and both historic and current observation of the phase lag between temperature and CO2 concentration.

I don't see any role for tradition in science. Observation is all that matters. We may make incorrect guesses, but they are corrected (as in the case of the iguanadon's thumb) by observation, not consensus.

there are plenty of long standing temperature time series that are well understood which can be used, although these are not global, merely indicative

There are almost no credible records of mid-ocean temperature. The seas cover 75% of the planet. There is no temperature data for the northern icecap or anywhere in Antarctica before 1912. There was no international agreement on the precise measurement of temperature before 1900. Practically all the "good" data comes from grass airfields, with very little before 1930 and a decreasing amount since 1955. The only data that has sufficient precision to be useful at the level of accuracy required to detect a change in mean global surface temperature comes from satellite mapping (and even this has been recalibrated a few times) and cannot be traced back beyond about 1970. Anything else is guesswork.   

10946

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 04/10/2013 16:27:07 »

Think of the piston and the counterweight as two weights suspended by a pulley, now surely if there is a discrepancy in weight, the rate at the which the heavier load descends would be dictated solely by the acceleration due to gravity and the height from which it is descending from and not how much the lesser weight weighs.

No.

The accelerating force is gm1 - gm2. The total mass is (m1 + m2) so the acceleration is a = F/m = g(m1-m2)/(m1 +m2). 

The video does not show you how long it took to establish the vacuum, nor is the pressure differential mentioned. I could show you a video of a rifle being fired, but that gives you no idea of how much energy was expended making the cartridge, only how much energy was available when it was complete. 

If you don't completely evacuate the chamber, you will get a natural braking effect as the residual air is compressed - much simpler than trying to restrict the flow.

10947

Just Chat! / Re: Has the Global Warming Argument damaged scientific credibility?

« on: 04/10/2013 15:21:13 »

the majority of scientists – although by no means all – working in the field of climate science kind of agree  - leading to the unequivocal conclusions in the recent IPCC report

Science is about facts, not consensus. The overwhelming consensus was in favour of a geocentric universe, a flat earth,  four elements, indivisible atoms, phlogiston, aether, and the impossibility of manned flight (let alone lunar exploration). As for "what can be done about it?" the consensus in 1955 was that the UK would need "about five computers" to solve all the government's problems.   

Credible science will eventually kill AGW, not the other way around. 

A few months ago a Canadian group announced the growth of some plants that had been buried under a glacier for 500 years. The scientifically interesting point is not that the glacier is now retreating, but that it was a lot warmer 500 years ago (i.e. well within recorded history) when the CO2 level was presumably a lot less, in order for the plants to be there at all. That's science.

10948

Just Chat! / Re: Reading into posts

« on: 04/10/2013 15:10:25 »

You might manage in a fatuous humanities forum, but you can't communicate equations or drawings by voice, especially across variants in English accents and dialects. Serious science is primarily a visual business. However if you know any blind scientists, engineers or mathematicians, I'd be very interested to know how they manage.

10949

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 04/10/2013 14:30:09 »

the volume evacuated by the vacuum device should not increase over a certain limit.

No. If there are no leaks, any pump will evacuate any volume, given enough time.

You need to review the difference between power and energy in order to understand the vacuum elevator and the flaws in your thinking. Think of jacking up a car. You expend a few watts for several minutes and end up with a one ton vehicle a meter off the ground - 10 kJ of potential energy. Now if you tie the car to a dynamo and let it drop under gravity it could deliver 10 kW for 1 second, or 1W for almost 3 hours.

10950

Technology / Re: Can we make Instantly Hot Water Using Microwaves?

« on: 04/10/2013 13:56:42 »

Alas, no. Induction does not heat water because it is a poor electrical conductor and therefore cannot behave like a transformer coil at all. Try putting a glass beaker of water on an induction plate - nothing happens! Induction cookers heat the iron pan which can then be used for boiling or frying, and in that respect are much more efficient than radiant or flame heaters, but the heat loss from the outside of the pan, and the need to heat the pan as well as the water, makes it overall less efficient as a water boiler than simple immersion heater (99% transfer of electrical energy to water) or a microwave (over 80%).   

10951

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 04/10/2013 08:20:30 »

What is the upper limit on the number of blue units per red one?

10952

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: World population, will it be going up, or down?

« on: 03/10/2013 22:28:47 »

IMHO, we should not have the attitude that "having children is best left to those with nothing better to do...".

But for as long as we encourage women to have continuous professional careers, and pay those who don't in proportion to the number of children they bear, that's the way things will go.  Hence my radical suggestion of paying women not to have children.

10953

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is Deuterium subject to Beta-Decay?

« on: 03/10/2013 22:23:28 »

You need an excess of neutrons to undergo beta decay. Deuterium does not have an excess, just more than protium.

10954

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is anyone interested in nothing?

« on: 03/10/2013 22:19:43 »

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL

The baptismal font of lost causes! What splendid irony. Have a great evening - wish I could join you.

10955

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 03/10/2013 22:15:57 »

"I cannot be bothered by people who do not accept my brilliance without question!"

Just like every other philosopher it has ever been my displeasure to meet!

However, much as I despise philosphers, I admire successful soldiers, so in the true spirit of cut and paste, here's a quickie from Mao Tse Tung (1957)

....the metaphysical method should not be used, but efforts should be made to apply the dialectical method. What is needed is scienmtific analysis and convincing argument

I think on a majority vote, Mao with a billion followers and a major revolutionary war to show for his efforts, trumps Sheldrake. 

10956

Just Chat! / Re: Has the Global Warming Argument damaged scientific credibility?

« on: 03/10/2013 22:11:40 »

Fortunately there is very little science in climate "science", so the world continues to enjoy the benefits we toilers at the bench and observers of nature bring to it.

Anthropogenic global warming is widely recognised as the third world religion, with more believers and less evidence than Buddhism. Unfortunately like its big brothers Christianity and Islam, politicians use it to justify decisions that would otherwise rank somewhere between stupid and evil, and a lot of crooks make money out of it.   

The fundamental flaw in the AGW argument is threefold. First, there is no meaningful definition of "mean global temperature", the very parameter that believers try to predict. Second, there are no useful measurements of anything that might be related to it before 1970, and even recent data is subject to "corrections". Third, the only reliable historical proxy, ice core data, clearly shows that carbon dioxide concentration lags behind atmospheric temperature so cannot be the causative factor.   

No amount of modelling or consensus can override the truth.   

10957

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 03/10/2013 21:56:24 »

...or that I don't understand what I do for a living?

As I thought, DonQ is a philosopher, that is, a person whose mission is to infect others with his ignorance - a sort of intellectual Munchausen by Proxy. A miserable calling, doomed forever to tell other people that they "just don't understand", but unlike teenagers, philosophers never grow up or acquire the humility and wisdom that science - or even normal life - confer on others.

10958

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 03/10/2013 19:39:33 »

There is no such a thing as "science "

Please don't tell my clients. They think it is what I do all day, every day, for money.

If they thought I was just trotting out vapid -isms and not solving problems by the application of science, they might not pay me (though I could make a living as a politician, priest or management consultant)

10959

Technology / Re: Energy losses, Thermodynamics and Efficiency

« on: 03/10/2013 10:56:47 »

Vacuum systems are still in widespread use, the only difference being that the prime mover nowadays tends to be a mechanical or electrical pump rather than steam. You will find three vacuum-driven gyros in the cockpit of most small aircraft, and atmospheric office document transport systems are still on sale.

But the "continuous 10 kW" in your example still comes from the prime mover, and it isn't continuous.   

10960

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 03/10/2013 10:47:55 »

Science is practiced by scientists humans , dude :

Exactly. Don't confuse the singer with the song. I've played some beautiful songs for some rubbish singers in my time, but I wouldn't blame Kern or Handel for their mistakes.   

But , i was talking about somethingelse , about the core scientific assumption that the universe is intelligible

It appears to be, at least to the intelligent. But it wouldn't matter much it it wasn't. The "core assumption" is made by philosophers, not practitioners, of science, i.e. by people with no required knowledge or understanding of the subject.