Stubborn Idealism
Page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>
Brain Teaser
Date: Fri 14 November 2008
Time: 9:58 PM EST
An idea struck me for the design of a perpetual motion machine. After some thought, though, I realized it is flawed and wouldn't create free energy. I will describe it to you, and then the challenge for you will be to figure out why it wouldn't work.
Picture a giant wheel, like a big ferris wheel, only so huge that the air pressure at the top is noticeably lower than at the bottom. Instead of seats mounted around the rim, there are air tanks. Each tank has a valve which opens briefly every time the tank reaches the top or the bottom of the wheel. When a tank is at the top, the air pressure inside is higher than outside, so air flows through the valve when it opens. At the bottom of the wheel, the air pressure inside a tank is lower than outside, so again air flows through the valve when it opens.
There is a turbine inside each tank's valve, so every time it opens and air flows through, it spins the turbine. Some of this energy is used to keep the wheel spinning, and the rest can be used for whatever you want.
Now see if you can figure out why this won't work.
The answer isn't friction in the wheel bearing, nor atmospheric drag, nor inability to capture the energy of the air flowing through the valves with 100% efficiency. Even if you installed a frictionless bearing, perfectly streamlined the wheel to where there was no drag, and used perfectly efficient turbines, you still could not get extra energy out of this device. In fact, under those ideal circumstances, you would just break even.
What is the flaw in this design?
The Ear Worm, It Tickles
Date: Fri 31 October 2008
Time: 9:35 PM EDT
I heard this song for the first time on the radio last week, Won't Go Home Without You by Maroon 5:
It's been playing in my head non-stop ever since.
This is the first modern rock song I've heard in years where each syllable of the lyrics isn't drawn out over several beats. I stopped listening to the radio in the late 1990s because the music was so boring. I decided to give it another try, to see if it had gotten any better. It has. It's almost like the 1980s again.
My New Web Site
Date: Fri 24 October 2008
Time: 10:58 PM EDT
I created a new web site dedicated to my Mandelbrot set images. It's over at the Mandelbrot Picture of the Day. The next few months of pictures won't be new to you if you've already seen them here on this site. New pictures will start showing up once the current supply has been exhausted.
Page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>
