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India Just Might Be Getting a Hyperloop (wired.com)
California may have produced the horrorshow traffic that prompted Elon Musk to pitch the hyperloop, but it's hardly the only place eager to ditch cars for levitating pods hurtling through tubes at speeds approaching the sound barrier. India wants in, too. From a report: Today, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, one of the companies formed to realize Musk's vision of tube travel, announced it has signed a deal with the state of Andhra Pradesh, in southeast India. Working with the state's economic development board, HTT will spend six months studying possible routes for a hyperloop connecting the cities of Vijaywada and Amaravati -- a move that would transform a 27-mile, hour-long drive into a six-minute whoosh. And then, over an undisclosed period of time, the Los Angeles-based company says it will build the thing. The India deal is just the latest for HTT, which also plans to build networks of tubes in South Korea, Slovakia, and Abu Dhabi. But to make all -- or any -- of that happen, the company's 800 engineers (most of whom have day jobs and work on this in their spare time, in exchange for stock options) must first master the practical aspects of the hyperloop. That means building and maintaining a near-vacuum state across miles of tubes, propelling levitating pods through them, getting people or cargo into and out of those pods, and much more.
Test-drive where life is cheap?
And/or where you can sweep the peasants out of the way of progress.
But exactly how do you manage to hang on to the roof of a hyperpod at 1,000 MPH?
Caution: Contents under pressure
a developing country will not have the miles of red tape and bureaucracy that has developed over the centuries in the US
Poor countries are poor because they have MORE red tape and bureaucracy than rich countries.
India is rated 130th in Ease of Doing Business Index, and 185th specifically in dealing with construction permits.
The United States ranks 8th in doing business overall and 39th for dealing with construction permits, for example.
I haven't been to India for decades and there is a reason for that. The place horrifies me. Even the "nice" parts.
I am all in favor of any effort to make the country sane and habitable but I just don't see making something like the Hyperloop will help any but the top 1%
Go on youtube and look for videos to see what train rides in India are like for commuters. What trains they do have are reasonably serviceable but are way overtaxed. You have swarms of tens of thousands of people crammed onto platforms designed to max out at maybe a thousand all trying to cram themselves onto trains that are over capacity by at least 2x. And a mob waiting outside the station.
The stench of sweaty bodies must be epic. I'm happy to say I haven't experienced it myself.
The Hyperloop even if the most optimistic projection helps this how? By squirting a pod of 30 people (crammed with 100 no doubt) even 10-15 minutes? Don't make me laugh.
Instead they should upgrade and add to their existing rail infrastructure. The local population is obviously willing to use it. I would bet money that 99.9% of them would prefer a 30-minute clean ride on an available comfortable seat with air conditioning as opposed to a 6-minute woosh in an over capacity system that probably would not be available to them anyway at any reasonable cost.
Show me the numbers that say HyperLoop could solve the problem they really have there rather than the Gee-Whiz space technology fantasy some geek has and I will be in favor of it. I haven't seen those numbers and I doubt they exist.
Disclosure: I am an Elon Musk fanboi.
If a Hyperloop ever gets built it will definitely be one of the most expensive forms of transportation available, at least if they're doing anything even remotely similar to Musk's original cocktail napkin. It seems like they might struggle on the uptake in a country with such a low median income. On the other hand, they don't have the Dubai problem where everybody already drives cars and everything is paved. There is a potential market in India, just as long as it connects some presidental suburb with the government buildings where they work so they can ignore the systemic transportation problems in the city.
I read the internet for the articles.
At best, it's an appeal to authority.
No, it's recognising expertise. If an engineer says it works and a biochemist says it doesn't, who are you going to believe, the one who has experience and training in that field, or the one who doesn't? Only someone who has relevant expertise can effectively judge the validity of an argument.
If the biochemist has actually hit upon a valid point, then you'd expect engineers to confirm that, but when he's directly contradicted by engineers then it's considerably more likely they have knowledge in their own field that he hasn't taken into account.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The one who makes a reasoned argument.
And if they both appear to make reasoned arguments that happen to reach different conclusions (as is often the case)?
If they're flawed, it should be a simple task to show their flaws.
Rarely is it so simple. Simple flaws in an engineering analysis would be obvious to competent engineers, so are usually spotted long before publication (and are unlikely to be made in the first place, if the engineers are competent). Any flaws that survive review by other engineers are unlikely to be easily spotted by a layman.
Otherwise you could... draw no conclusions
You can certainly draw conclusions, but they're not going to be anywhere near as reliable as the conclusions drawn by someone with more expertise. If two doctors advise different treatments, would you ask a plumber to judge which was best? Or would you ask a specialist doctor with more expertise?
I was asking for the reasoned opinions of those engineers.
Isn't that exactly what's set out in the original analysis?
If you'd like to hear more detail about that analysis, perhaps specifically concerning the points that Thunderf00t raises then sure, I'm right with you there, and would like to know more myself. Although what often happens then is that the debate gets quickly bogged down in arguments over numerous technical minutiae that are difficult to verify without the experience and training that generally defines expertise, and lay onlookers are left none the wiser.
I'm merely suggesting that when an expert gives a reasoned analysis and a non-expert says they're wrong, it's wisest to assume that it's not the expert who's made the mistakes.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?