Underwater Vehicle Uses a Balloon To Dart Like an Octopus

Zothecula writes When you inflate a balloon and then release it without tying the valve shut, it certainly shoots away quickly. Octopi utilize the same basic principle, although they suck in and then rapidly expel water. An international team of scientists have now replicated that system in a soft-bodied miniature underwater vehicle, which could pave the way for very quickly-accelerating full-size submersibles.

Comments

octopi?

[Hognoxious]

Octopi? Pull the other one. Or the other other one. Or the other other one. Or the alternate other one. Or the other one. Or the other one. Or the other one.

Re: octopi?

[ClickOnThis]

This. Octopus is Greek, not Latin. Despite what Merriam-Webster might say, the plural is octopuses or octopodes, not octopi.

Re: octopi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Octopus is English, derived from Greek. All three plurals are in current use, and it is usage, not etymology, that defines what is "correct".

Re: octopi?

[TheMathemagician]

Octopi is based on the mistaken assumption that octopus is a second declension Latin noun. It is simply wrong. Octopuses is the correct English plural.

Re: octopi?

[Immerman]

I really don't think it is - because they're exactly right. Not that one person's abuse changes anything, but as a certain abuse becomes common usage it simultaneously becomes correct. Such is the nature of a living language - the ultimate authority on correctness is the common usage. As an example I give you "ain't" - long demonized, but finally granted a place in all the reputable dictionaries. About time too - amn't just doesn't flow off the tongue. Or my own use above of the word "they" as a gender non-specifc singular pronoun. Still not a settled issue, but it has become far more broadly accepted over the past several years, while the various proposed alternatives such as 'te' adopted from other languages have mostly fallen into disuse.

Now, I can quite agree on fighting against the weakening of the language - my own pet peeve is the repurposing of relatively unique words such as "cool" or "awesome" into generic concepts that already have many synonyms, creating a hole in the language where clarity is no longer readily possible. How many intensifiers and synonyms for sex do we really need? But English is a trade tongue, a bastard language from the very beginning, making it even more inconsistent and fluid than most. Personally I'd much prefer we moved towards correcting the inconsistencies: mouses, gooses, etc., but failing that a little more random flavor doesn't acually damage the language much, and pluralization by "us"->"i" at least follows a form already in use in other words. Better than "mice", and I'd really rather not have to teach gradeschoolers greek, latin, etc. so that they can pluralize "properly".

Re: octopi?

[Immerman]

Actually it entered the language from Latin, which itself adopted the word from Greek, so either form could be considered technically correct, or would you have us trace the etymology of every word in the language back to its very first usage in something like its modern form? I'll warn you now that hat will wreak utter havoc on pluralization rules.

Regardless of where the word came from we're not speaking Greek, or Latin, we're speaking English, a bastard trade tongue that's been in heavy flux since before it was given a name. The "proper" pluralization is to use either the standard-rule "hippopotamuses", the less common but still in use rule "hippopotami". No matter which you choose it's still superior to the historically arbitrary "mice" or "geese", which follow no common rule at all and require us all to waste mind-space on linguistic trivia.

One-shot motor

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So it's super-efficient and all... if you intend to move no farther than 10 ft forward.

For greater distances, you could, say, keep the balloon constantly inflated with some kind of pump. And then, to save unnecessary weight and complication, you could do away with the balloon and let the pump shoot out the back of the vehicle directly.

I shall call my invention a hydrojet. Genius!

Re:One-shot motor

[Splab]

No no, this is great for submarines, just sit there and wait for the torpedo to hit you, and then in the last second, you unleash the balloons and instantly jump 10 feet away!

It's flawless!

Re:One-shot motor

[Immerman]

Nope, then you've utterly lost the hydrodynamic performance benefits. 10 body-lengths per second is pretty respectable by biological standards, and an order of magnitude beyond anything we've created except for torpedoes, which only maintain their speed by consuming embarrassing quantities of fuel.

Obviously at this stage it's kind of useless, but it's the first significant boost in our artifacts underwater performance in many decades, and I would bet that before the end of the century many craft will engage in efficient rhythmic pulsations rather than steady state propulsion. Especially the unmanned ones - I imagine it might be excessively disruptive for normal usage by crewed vessels.

Incomplete Design

[some old guy]

For maximum speed and efficiency, they need to combine it with the rapid-inflation capability of the blow fish.

Presto! A suck and blow!

(Not to be confused with the Cessna OV-10)

It's a Dupe [/Ackbar]

[OzPeter]

I will admit that it was last year, but its still a dupe Octopus-Inspired Robot Matches Real Octopus For Speed