If you're referring to "enquiry", that's the correct British spelling.
Correct perhaps, but Lord Leveson would apparently disagree. In my experience Britons tend to use enquire for the verb, as in "may I enquire" and inquiry for... well, inquiries. It's another one of those things where there isn't a common usage much less an unwritten rule, rather like "fettle". For some people fettling refers to making or fixing, for others only one is acceptable and for some it has a specific, technical meaning.
What attempts were made exactly? Citation desperately needed.
They did some testing with scale models and conventional explosives. I'm very sorry but I can't seem to find the Youtube link, but if you want a citation and you have a large library try this: Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1979)
The MBA lobotomy is a very precise operation, they only remove the parts of the brain that remember to pay taxes and how to truthfully report corp. earnings.
So the real electrochemists working on the problem don't claim to know *what* is causing the excess heat, but from a power generation standpoint, it kind of doesn't matter.
I'm no electrochemist, so I've no idea what's causing excess heat either, but when it comes to certifying equipment for public use (nuclear or otherwise) having a theoretical basis for understanding how said equipment works really does matter.
I wouldn't say the Polywell project is languishing. AFAIK they're quietly getting on with testing WB8 and getting data; their research is still being funded by the US Navy. Sure, it'd be nice if they were getting more funding than they are but at least they're doing something.
From what I've read they're concentrating on finding out if the device will scale to larger sizes, which was one of the more contentious points (Bussard claimed that power scaled as size^7) when the idea was first presented. I'd be absolutely ecstatic if something like the Polywell turned out to be practical, because it's a much simpler proposition than ITER: vacuum chamber + ~2m SC coils vs. huge vacuum chamber wrapped in SC coils. That's not even considering the prospect of aneutronic fusion and the direct generation of electricity from fusion products.
So, you trust the non-predictive social science of economics and the logical ad hominem fallacy over NASA's scientists?
Of course not, don't be obtuse. If NASA scientists come out with a statement saying this thing actually works then that will attract my interest. Until then the only thing NASA are doing is investigating the "anomalous heat", perhaps not even that if they're merely giving advice on instrumentation as the quote actually said.
P.S. Do you realise that you decried my ad hominem and presented an appeal to authority as an alternative? *sigh* Arguments based on pure logic aren't much use in real life, where weighting statements based on past experience/reputation actually do tend to work out better than blindly accepting a crackpot's statements as a basis for making decisions.
At one time called "cold fusion," now called "low-energy nuclear reactions" (LENR), such effects are now published in peer-reviewed journals and are gaining attention and mainstream respectability. The instrumentation expertise of NASA GRC is applied to improve the diagnostics for investigating the anomalous heat in LENR.
A herring by any other name would smell as fishy... in any event if LENR, as you put it, were a practicable possibility I'd expect to be hearing announcements from someone more reputable than this Rossi character. He claims to have invented not one but two cold fusion technologies*. Now this may be a terrible, terrible bit of prejudice against someone who may end up in the history books, but I tend towards a more cynical or pragmatic attitude when it comes to parting with my or the public's money.
Interesting, I got the deci part off the bat, but didn't know the historical reference. I wonder if they used other similar words - hexitate for example, if they did more than decimate:)
Doubtful. Hex is Greek AFAIK. I think the Latin for six was Sen.
They're working on the submission quality. But with nothing in the queue it's hard. Try submitting something now and then. That should help improve things.
That won't do anything for what passes for editing here.
Bugger, I forgot to clarify something: when I say glasspaper I mean emery. Glasspaper is what my high school teacher introduced it as, and old habits die hard.
If you do decide to attack it with some glass paper (use a fine grade with fabric backing, paper-backed stuff doesn't work well with metal), bear in mind that aluminium is pretty soft compared to most metals you're likely to come across; Any power tool will likely go through it like a hot knife through butter.
If you're serious about it, start with a file then finish it off with some wet-dry paper. Oh, and don't expect it to match the finish on the rest of the machine; the anodised finish is very, very thin.
On that note I'd like to say a word about sharp edges. Whomever it was who decided that aesthetics outweighed the practical concerns about putting a right angle at the edge of my MBP was a bloody fool. A 1mm chamfer doesn't seem too much to ask.
Before you all jump in to call me a fool for buying one, I didn't; it was an insurance replacement.
...the story where they discovered/detected Dark Matter?
No, there was no discovery story to miss. We have yet to directly observe dark matter. I'll try an analogy with one caveat: like models, all analogies are wrong. Still, some can be useful...
Picture a ball hanging from a ceiling by an invisible thread. Through various methods you are fairly certain how much the ball weighs, and your knowledge of how gravity works gives you an idea of what it should be doing (i.e. falling), yet it does not. You are faced with two ways to explain this discrepancy: your understanding of gravity is faulty or there is something preventing the ball from falling.
Dark matter is the latter sort of explanation. We think there is a string, and we can infer some of its properties from what we see the ball do but we cannot see it. At the risk of incurring the wrath of cosmologists everywhere I'll give another analogy, even more wrong than the first: one cannot see the air or the winds, but one can deduce their existence from their effects on things one can see.
N.B. The string used in the example above has nothing to do with any of the string theories.
Since we made laws that - in theory at least - let them sell their works without fear of anyone just making a copy and selling it themselves. In payment for this we demand such enter the public domain after $years.
Slashdot Mirror
You're talking about Orion, not NERVA.
Yes I was, as was the post I was replying to.
If you're referring to "enquiry", that's the correct British spelling.
Correct perhaps, but Lord Leveson would apparently disagree. In my experience Britons tend to use enquire for the verb, as in "may I enquire" and inquiry for... well, inquiries. It's another one of those things where there isn't a common usage much less an unwritten rule, rather like "fettle". For some people fettling refers to making or fixing, for others only one is acceptable and for some it has a specific, technical meaning.
*facepalm*
Of course! Curse this properly formed brain of mine.
Just to clarify, I'm saying that they did some tests, not that those tests showed the concept to be impractical (though they may have).
What attempts were made exactly? Citation desperately needed.
They did some testing with scale models and conventional explosives. I'm very sorry but I can't seem to find the Youtube link, but if you want a citation and you have a large library try this:
Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1979)
The MBA lobotomy is a very precise operation, they only remove the parts of the brain that remember to pay taxes and how to truthfully report corp. earnings.
You forgot empathy.
I prefer this one.
If musicians make music for other people, not money, how do you explain Bono?
Oh...
FYI Obligatory doesn't mean "pick a random XKCD strip".
So the real electrochemists working on the problem don't claim to know *what* is causing the excess heat, but from a power generation standpoint, it kind of doesn't matter.
I'm no electrochemist, so I've no idea what's causing excess heat either, but when it comes to certifying equipment for public use (nuclear or otherwise) having a theoretical basis for understanding how said equipment works really does matter.
I wouldn't say the Polywell project is languishing. AFAIK they're quietly getting on with testing WB8 and getting data; their research is still being funded by the US Navy. Sure, it'd be nice if they were getting more funding than they are but at least they're doing something.
From what I've read they're concentrating on finding out if the device will scale to larger sizes, which was one of the more contentious points (Bussard claimed that power scaled as size^7) when the idea was first presented. I'd be absolutely ecstatic if something like the Polywell turned out to be practical, because it's a much simpler proposition than ITER: vacuum chamber + ~2m SC coils vs. huge vacuum chamber wrapped in SC coils. That's not even considering the prospect of aneutronic fusion and the direct generation of electricity from fusion products.
So, you trust the non-predictive social science of economics and the logical ad hominem fallacy over NASA's scientists?
Of course not, don't be obtuse. If NASA scientists come out with a statement saying this thing actually works then that will attract my interest. Until then the only thing NASA are doing is investigating the "anomalous heat", perhaps not even that if they're merely giving advice on instrumentation as the quote actually said.
P.S. Do you realise that you decried my ad hominem and presented an appeal to authority as an alternative? *sigh*
Arguments based on pure logic aren't much use in real life, where weighting statements based on past experience/reputation actually do tend to work out better than blindly accepting a crackpot's statements as a basis for making decisions.
At one time called "cold fusion," now called "low-energy nuclear reactions" (LENR), such effects are now published in peer-reviewed journals and are gaining attention and mainstream respectability. The instrumentation expertise of NASA GRC is applied to improve the diagnostics for investigating the anomalous heat in LENR.
A herring by any other name would smell as fishy... in any event if LENR, as you put it, were a practicable possibility I'd expect to be hearing announcements from someone more reputable than this Rossi character. He claims to have invented not one but two cold fusion technologies*. Now this may be a terrible, terrible bit of prejudice against someone who may end up in the history books, but I tend towards a more cynical or pragmatic attitude when it comes to parting with my or the public's money.
*"The 1 MW plants have a totally different technology and engineering."
Now, he COULD have posted, then modded.
I think it's the other way round. ;)
Nope.
Interesting, I got the deci part off the bat, but didn't know the historical reference. I wonder if they used other similar words - hexitate for example, if they did more than decimate :)
Doubtful. Hex is Greek AFAIK. I think the Latin for six was Sen.
Depends on your dictionary:
2. historical kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.
The clue was in the deci- part.
They're working on the submission quality. But with nothing in the queue it's hard. Try submitting something now and then. That should help improve things.
That won't do anything for what passes for editing here.
As another non-American, I disagree. If SOPA passes, it won't be long before the US starts shoving it down our throats and threatening "blacklisting".
Bugger, I forgot to clarify something: when I say glasspaper I mean emery. Glasspaper is what my high school teacher introduced it as, and old habits die hard.
If you do decide to attack it with some glass paper (use a fine grade with fabric backing, paper-backed stuff doesn't work well with metal), bear in mind that aluminium is pretty soft compared to most metals you're likely to come across; Any power tool will likely go through it like a hot knife through butter.
If you're serious about it, start with a file then finish it off with some wet-dry paper. Oh, and don't expect it to match the finish on the rest of the machine; the anodised finish is very, very thin.
On that note I'd like to say a word about sharp edges. Whomever it was who decided that aesthetics outweighed the practical concerns about putting a right angle at the edge of my MBP was a bloody fool. A 1mm chamfer doesn't seem too much to ask.
Before you all jump in to call me a fool for buying one, I didn't; it was an insurance replacement.
BST
More like BS, methinks.
...the story where they discovered/detected Dark Matter?
No, there was no discovery story to miss. We have yet to directly observe dark matter. I'll try an analogy with one caveat: like models, all analogies are wrong. Still, some can be useful...
Picture a ball hanging from a ceiling by an invisible thread. Through various methods you are fairly certain how much the ball weighs, and your knowledge of how gravity works gives you an idea of what it should be doing (i.e. falling), yet it does not. You are faced with two ways to explain this discrepancy: your understanding of gravity is faulty or there is something preventing the ball from falling.
Dark matter is the latter sort of explanation. We think there is a string, and we can infer some of its properties from what we see the ball do but we cannot see it. At the risk of incurring the wrath of cosmologists everywhere I'll give another analogy, even more wrong than the first: one cannot see the air or the winds, but one can deduce their existence from their effects on things one can see.
N.B. The string used in the example above has nothing to do with any of the string theories.
Indeed. I just put that link up there because it makes me smile.
Unfortunately it seems to have had quite the opposite effect on poor jd.
Since when are the works of other people "ours"?
Since we made laws that - in theory at least - let them sell their works without fear of anyone just making a copy and selling it themselves. In payment for this we demand such enter the public domain after $years.