Elite / Frontier If you are interested in space flight...

Steve O B Have

Steve O B Have
This is something worth watching - from Burt Rutan who I believe is one of the most imaginary and forward thinking people in the invention industry.

My father has two aircraft designed by Burt Rutan, and through his introduction to the man, I have sat back and watched Rutan develop an aircraft that flew around the world non-stop without refueling (The Voyager) and created a spaceship that has possibly revolutionised the process of getting into space.

Take the time to watch this, it's an eye opener.

http://tedblog.typepad.com/tedblog/2006/10/spaceship_desig.html
 

Stargazer

S
Granted, it's nowt to do with spaceflight. But it's still worth watching/listening to. I like the bit about rocks being mostly empty space. :)

Can mr mbrookes please confirm that it's ok to post a videosift link please ? Although the actual vid is ok, it wouldn't take too many mouseclicks to reach content that could be regarded as nsfw. Even though the ones that are, are usually marked as nsfw... I just want to make sure it's ok. :)
 
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Michael Brookes

Game Director
There's no problems posting links, however if it takes you to a page that has questionable content then it will be removed if it contavenes our forum rules. Where people go after viewing the initial page is up to them.

Michael
 

Stargazer

S
mbrookes said:
There's no problems posting links, however if it takes you to a page that has questionable content then it will be removed if it contavenes our forum rules. Where people go after viewing the initial page is up to them.

Michael
Click to expand...

That's fair enough. Thanks. I should look around the TED website and see if I can find it there.

[edit1]

Ok. I've looked around http://www.ted.com/ From there, goto http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/ . Scroll down to Sept12th 2006, look for Richard Dawkins. Here's a direct link to the vid file http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_dawkins_r_2005.zip They've also got streaming and audio only. You will need either mediaplayer classic, or vlc to play the video. It's in *.mp4 format. It's also far higher quility than the videosift/youtube version.

[edit2]

The vid is a 75meg download.
 
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Bounder

Bounder
Catch the latest SouthPark at MrTwig.net - Dawkins falls in love with Ms Garrison, they form a united atheist alliance and take over the world... Brilliant.

IMHO Dawkins' assertion that a rock is mostly empty space might be taken with a pinch of salt - it's similarly said that if a hydrogen neutron was the size of a pinhead here on Earth, its electron would be the size of a pinpoint out by the orbit of Pluto... but the implication that the area between is 'empty' seems intuitively wrong; this space corresponds to the bandwidth of the particle's interacting fields, and as such isn't empty. For similar reasons i doubt any neutrinos will ever be detected "passing through the earth" as currently anticipated... as i read more, the very concept of 'position' seems increasingly ambiguous, even at large scales. Anyone read New Scientist a few weeks back? There was an fascinating article discussing macroscopic superpositions around event horizons - the suggestion was that a single spaceship could be in two distant locations simultaneously...

What with EM cloaking devices and "free energy" (a la Steorn), truth is becoming stranger than fiction. One hopes Mr B is keeping abreast of these developments...
 
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Thirstybadger

Thirstybadger
Sorry you obviously don't really know what you are talking about, to say if a area that has a field in isn't empty means that you are saying there is no such thing as empty space. Gravity works at infinite distance. i.e. no where is the strength of the gravitational force absolutely zero.

The space in an atom is just as empty, in fact more empty, as the interstella medium, just the fields are of different forces.
 

Steve O B Have

Steve O B Have
Thirstybadger said:
Sorry you obviously don't really know what you are talking about, to say if a area that has a field in isn't empty means that you are saying there is no such thing as empty space. Gravity works at infinite distance. i.e. no where is the strength of the gravitational force absolutely zero.

The space in an atom is just as empty, in fact more empty, as the interstella medium, just the fields are of different forces.
Click to expand...

I may be way off target here, but what about points where two conflicting fields meet - don't they cancel each other out? And why do gravity fields have infinate distance?

Edit: Another question - does force constitute matter? If not then surely there is the 'possibility' of there not being matter somewhere.
 
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Kipper

K
Well, i'm not a physicist, but the idea that gravity has infinite reach doesn't make sense to me.

The strength of the gravity of a stellar object is directly proportionate to its mass (I think)... since our own sun is the biggest object for maybe 4 or 5 light years, does that mean it has an influence that far out? I don't think so. (Even the moon is slowly slipping out of earths pull)

Maybe i'm wrong tho!
 

Thirstybadger

Thirstybadger
I am a physicist, I studied astrophysics at uni, the moon is not slipping out of Earths influence there is an exchange of rotational energy for gravitational, if left for long enough the earth will not spin relative to the moon just like the moon doesn't spin relative to the earth, i.e. there will be a "dark side of the Earth" when standing on the moon that will never be visible. It happened faster for the moon as it's mass is much less. As a result... the moon moves further from the Earth.

It is true that feilds cancel and in fact, if you hollowed out the Earth (if you could) to an infinitly thin shell you would experience no gravitional pull inside the sphere, even if the Earth still had the same mass, however the field is still present, it is just not observable.

You've got four fundimental forces, Strong,Weak, Electromagnetic and gravitaional. Electronmagnetic and gravitational both act at infinity, this is part of thier derivation.

for more info see

http://sciencepark.etacude.com/particle/forces.php

:)
 
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Bounder

Bounder
Thirstybadger said:
Sorry you obviously don't really know what you are talking about, to say if a area that has a field in isn't empty means that you are saying there is no such thing as empty space. Gravity works at infinite distance. i.e. no where is the strength of the gravitational force absolutely zero.

The space in an atom is just as empty, in fact more empty, as the interstella medium, just the fields are of different forces.
Click to expand...

I never said i knew what i was talking about... i don't believe in empty space, but you 'confirm' that it is empty with a straw man gravity argument - i don't see how spatial expansion would block neutrinos...?

I admit to being a complete diletante but now is a really good time to be reading physics. I'm convinced Steorn are for real.

If you can get 550BHP (400kW) out of thin air, then how 'thin' is "thin"?

They're preparing for mass production. Launching next April (no kidding). This is gonna leave a lot of sacred cows rolling around in agony...
 

Steve O B Have

Steve O B Have
Bounder said:
I never said i knew what i was talking about... i don't believe in empty space, but you 'confirm' that it is empty with a straw man gravity argument - i don't see how spatial expansion would block neutrinos...?

I admit to being a complete diletante but now is a really good time to be reading physics. I'm convinced Steorn are for real.

If you can get 550BHP (400kW) out of thin air, then how 'thin' is "thin"?

They're preparing for mass production. Launching next April (no kidding). This is gonna leave a lot of sacred cows rolling around in agony...
Click to expand...

Having read up a bit - it seems to be based around an overunity theory - as yet they have proved nothing... It's a perpetual motion engine and unfortunately people way smarter than me have heavy scepticism regarding this.

Interestingly when asked about patenting their technology, Steorn incorrectly stated that "the US patent office does not allow patents with this claim" (that being a patent on a perpetual motion machine), where in actual fact they will accept the patent if at the same time they are presented with a working model. You'd think that if they have a working model and has successfully demonstrated it to a number of 'indipendant scientists and engineers' they'd want to protect their concept...maybe?

If it works I will be the first to eat my socks, but as of yet it seems really dubious and something of a method for gaining monies. I shant be holding my breath ;)
 
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