Theoretical Physicist? Go Get A Real Job

[chrisbassist]

I partially agree. I think every new house built should be leet certified. And be able to produce more than it's own electricity requirements via solar panels, small wind turbines, whatever. I think that should be taken into consideration much more than making sure a house uses the same brick as others in the area. We definately need to move away from fossil fuels. If that means using nuclear power for a while then fine. But we should be using solar, wind and hydro based power supplies. Maybe thermal power too. If you were to cover the roof of every house or building in the world there would be plenty of free energy to go round, and solar panel makers would make a fortune.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

We live on a fairly windy Island; surely hydro or wind power would be perfect.

In Northumberland at one of the wind farms they turn them off when it's too windy ...ARGH. Personally I don't mind the look of wind farms; they look a lot nicer that for example a coal powered power station. If the people who complain about wind farms don't like them; then give them a power station...I guess they'll change their way of thinking.

Hydro power - would be self sufficient or almost self sufficient the ammount of water we have surrounding us.

It's a case of the people protesting don't know anything but the old...we do need to change in some way.

 

[chrisbassist]

It's also a case of being able to afford the new wind farms and solar panels and stuff in the first place. Granted once we have them we will be less polluting, we will have much cheaper power, but someone has to foot the bill to get the equipment.

 

[Dave Spencer]

I think you will like this, Bignose.

a student answering an exam paper:

‘Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer.’ To this question, set on a physics paper, one student replied:



‘Tie a long string to the barometer, then lower it to the ground. The height of the building is the length of the string plus the length of the barometer.’

The student failed, but appealed on the grounds that the answer was scientifically correct. So the University appointed an arbiter. Since the answer given was felt to show no particular grasp of physics, the student was asked to come in and show, in six minutes, that he really did understand the basics of the physics behind the question.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, then answered, ‘OK, drop it from the roof and measure the time it takes to hit the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared.

‘Or, if the sun is out, measure the height of the barometer and the length of its shadow, then work out the height of the building from the length of the skyscraper's shadow.

‘You could also tie a string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T =2 pi sqr root (l /g).

‘However, if you lacked imagination, you could, of course, use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.’

The student was Niels Bohr, now known as the father of the quantum model of the atom, and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics!

 

[Bignose]

Dave, I think you missed the most clever answer of all:

"Knock on the office door of the building superintended and tell him 'I'll give you this shiny new barometer if you tell the height of your building.'"

 

[OohFeeshy]

Or in this modern world, look it up on Wikipedia and flog the barometer on Ebay for beer money.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Dave, I think you missed the most clever answer of all:

"Knock on the office door of the building superintended and tell him 'I'll give you this shiny new barometer if you tell the height of your building.'"

haha brilliant .

When I was at uni we used to have to take height measurements with a barometer (we didn't have a clue). The barometer was on the 5th floor, or a building fairly high above sea level...CLUELESS.

 

[GAB99]

i hope you all mind me doing a slight backtrack, but isnt it already a possiblity to make your own windmills and solar panels and literally have the electric company pay you for your electricity???

and im glad i didnt go on to AP bio next year lol i want to learn this physics stuff as i like star wars and star trek and stargate and anything else star ___ lol.

and i heard of something called replication technology that uses the E=mc[sup]2[/sup] to make anything or power anything using energy and mass, but you need more energey than mass to actually make the mass and have energy leftover, does anyone know why we cant use this technology yet? and at first i thougt that techniqually we wouldnt know what the mass will turn out to be but couldnt we shoot alpha or betta radiation at it to get it to the element we need? sorryif i sound dumb i just have a bunch of ideas that i would like to think could happen someday lol

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Yea you can do that (with the windmills and stuff).

THE Replication technology that you are talking about probably wouldn't work; if you want energy and you have to put more energy into to it to get less eenergy out it's a bit pointless. It's like boiling the kettle; the energy boils the water; what if you had to plug it in and star jump for 10minutes; it's just too much energy for what you can get out; as opposed to using something else (i.e. just plugging it in).

Actually I think I may have mis-understood what you meant...

 

[GAB99]

yeah i was planning on doing that in my new house with the windmills and solar panels to lower the electric bill and in turn let my parents have more $$$ to do stuff and *cough* fish.

and i think you did misunderstand but idk, lol

 

[chrisbassist]

Do you have any links to info on this technology?

I'm getting my head round quite a few alternative energy sources at the moment, but I've not heard of this replication thing.

One of my faves is using algae to produce hydrogen which can then produce electric through a reaction with oxygen, leaving just water. Obviously the algae needs to be controlled, and starved of certain thongs for it to produce hydrogen, but it does work. Setting up a powerstation using this and combining it with a sewage treatment plant would be ideal since the waste would provide a good fertilizer for the algae.

 

[JoshuaA]

What about a perpetual motion device....










BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just kidding.

 

[GAB99]

or we could just go back to good ole solar panels, it must work if they were used in TIE fighters lol

and i cant remember where i found the info but i first found it in a video game and then i looked it up, i tried looking for it again but it just lists sites about data replication for computers

 

[chrisbassist]

That's a shame because as far as I understand it that equation is just an energy - mass equivalancy. Stating that all energy has mass (usually substituting c for 1)

 

[GAB99]

i think that the only flaw to it would be that you need to be a whole lot faster than the speed of light which is impossible