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The Year In Ideas
popo writes "The New York Times Magazine has a review of the year's most original and interesting ideas. They include "The Tornado in a Can" ("A contained cyclone, it turns out, is very useful for pulverizing things") and David Stevenson's real-life proposal to dig to the center of the Earth. by sinking heavy iron through the Earth's mantle."
Let's start melting holes in it!
And why? So somebody can get an 'A'!
Which reminds me of that great scene in Star Trek TNG Evolution where Guinan busts Wesley crawling around her 10-forward, and after mumbling something about Dr. Frankenstein, asks him about the grades he's getting.
He replies that he always gets an 'A'.
And she replies, "So did Dr. Frankenstein."
(and lest anybody think my using the word fuck in the subject is out of line, I refer you to none other than the FCC who says it isn't such a bad word afterall.)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
The one thing i did not understand about the journey to the center of the earth proposal is how would you attach a sensor package with telemetry to a pile of goo at several thousands of degrees f.
Seems like a rather minor snag.
Why not? A siginificant portion of garbage is food waste and the like. This material tends to be > 50% water, so I see no reason the garbage as a whole couldn't be easily 50% water. Also, theres likely some rounding involved in going from 2 tons to 1. Like maybe two to 1.2, but1 sounded better.
Why?
Wow, it's a device that violates conservation of mass!
No, the other ton is water vapor that gets driven off.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If the word 'fuck' isn't, according to you, considered such a bad word after all, then what's the point in using it anymore?
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
original article
Seriously, amen to that. I'm an engineer, and I see similar examples everyday - decisions being made (and grants being awarded) on the basis of who has the flashier slides. I think we have finally brought Attention Deficit Disorder to the corporate level.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Well, if you want to get real technical about it, the space shuttle weighs nearly as much in orbit as on Earth. Weight is defined as the force of gravity on an object according to the equation G*m1*m2/d^2, where d is the distance between masses m1 and m2. Relative to the radius of the earth, the increase in d is rather marginal when you go from the surface of the Earth to the orbital altitude of the space shuttle. The only reason it seems like there is no gravity is that the space shuttle is essentially in free-fall (it just is going so fast it keeps "missing" the earth).
:-)
But that's just being silly
Keep in mind that 32 ft^3 is only a little over 3 feet on a side. That's not all that much when you consider the probable volume of two tons of trash.