Although the effectiveness of stopping a hurricane has not been demonstrated well, it seems that one of the main reasons research of it was avoided was the fear that the US would either cause or get blamed for causing a hurricane to hit Cuba.
By salt, I meant silver iodide, which seems to be the most popular material used to seed clouds since it imitates the structure of water ice very closely.
A quick search has shown that silver iodide is believed to be mostly harmless (esp. according to the cloud seeding people). But studies have shown that areas that have been seeded with silver iodine show increases of silver in the enviroment and increased presence in local wildlife. Of course this is for inland seeding and not involving a hurricane over an ocean. Silver seems to be harmless, but it is suppose to be one of the most cummilative of the metals and in some biological forms can be toxic. But most of the silver ends up in inert inorganic forms. The net result, it does increase silver in the eviroment, but the effects are probably trivial.
I always thought that rainmaking did not work well. At best it had something like 33% increase in rain.
There was even a project in the US to try to dry up hurricanes by making the loose their mosture over the ocean, IIRC called Operation Cirrus. The conclusion was that rainmaking did not change the strength of the storm. Also I dont think it was good for them to be dumping that much salt into the enviroment (I think they use silver iodine, not the too cheap either).
I guess the US has already tried to use this as a weapon. I came across this article where rain making was used in Vietnam. The UN has also already banned the use of weather control as a weapon. So much for the weather machine in Command and Conquer.
I noticed a lot of people claiming that metric will not work becuase they need to divide by 3's and 4's. Is there any reason they can't have a ruler with tick marks for thirds and quarters of a meter? If it is too hard to measure 2.5 cm or 3.33 cm, I'm sure the same person that figures out how big to make the 1/12th of a foot on a ruler can figure where thirds of metric units go. Also, other people complain about unround numbers. If you don't like having a 354 mL soda can, they could start to make 400 mL cans (would make me happier) so you have nice round numbers. They already have 1,2,3L bottles. It is not easy to start switching sizes of common things, but it could be done.
It's great that this guy has built a cyclotron, and a good looking one at that. But I believe others have done something similar. I've seen a TV story about someone who has constructed smaller cyclotron.
If you are interested in building a particle accelerator, I would suggest a Betatron. I was able to make a 3 MeV one (large enough to generate positrons, my goal in constructing it) without much trouble in high school. I just followed the instructions for building one giving by the inventor Donald Kerst in his paper (don't remember the exact paper name) and used parts from the local hardware store. It was small, only a few pounds, and only cost around $100. The nice thing about a Betatron, is that it is extremely stable and self-corrects small deviations in magnetic field (in other words, you can do a crappy construction job and still have it work). The hardest part was finding decent vacuum equipment.
Now if I just let it run 24/7 for 5,220 trillion years, I will have myself a pound of antimatter.
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Although the effectiveness of stopping a hurricane has not been demonstrated well, it seems that one of the main reasons research of it was avoided was the fear that the US would either cause or get blamed for causing a hurricane to hit Cuba.
By salt, I meant silver iodide, which seems to be the most popular material used to seed clouds since it imitates the structure of water ice very closely.
A quick search has shown that silver iodide is believed to be mostly harmless (esp. according to the cloud seeding people). But studies have shown that areas that have been seeded with silver iodine show increases of silver in the enviroment and increased presence in local wildlife. Of course this is for inland seeding and not involving a hurricane over an ocean. Silver seems to be harmless, but it is suppose to be one of the most cummilative of the metals and in some biological forms can be toxic. But most of the silver ends up in inert inorganic forms. The net result, it does increase silver in the eviroment, but the effects are probably trivial.
I always thought that rainmaking did not work well. At best it had something like 33% increase in rain.
There was even a project in the US to try to dry up hurricanes by making the loose their mosture over the ocean, IIRC called Operation Cirrus. The conclusion was that rainmaking did not change the strength of the storm. Also I dont think it was good for them to be dumping that much salt into the enviroment (I think they use silver iodine, not the too cheap either).
I guess the US has already tried to use this as a weapon. I came across this article where rain making was used in Vietnam. The UN has also already banned the use of weather control as a weapon. So much for the weather machine in Command and Conquer.
I noticed a lot of people claiming that metric will not work becuase they need to divide by 3's and 4's. Is there any reason they can't have a ruler with tick marks for thirds and quarters of a meter? If it is too hard to measure 2.5 cm or 3.33 cm, I'm sure the same person that figures out how big to make the 1/12th of a foot on a ruler can figure where thirds of metric units go.
Also, other people complain about unround numbers. If you don't like having a 354 mL soda can, they could start to make 400 mL cans (would make me happier) so you have nice round numbers. They already have 1,2,3L bottles. It is not easy to start switching sizes of common things, but it could be done.
It's great that this guy has built a cyclotron, and a good looking one at that. But I believe others have done something similar. I've seen a TV story about someone who has constructed smaller cyclotron. If you are interested in building a particle accelerator, I would suggest a Betatron. I was able to make a 3 MeV one (large enough to generate positrons, my goal in constructing it) without much trouble in high school. I just followed the instructions for building one giving by the inventor Donald Kerst in his paper (don't remember the exact paper name) and used parts from the local hardware store. It was small, only a few pounds, and only cost around $100. The nice thing about a Betatron, is that it is extremely stable and self-corrects small deviations in magnetic field (in other words, you can do a crappy construction job and still have it work). The hardest part was finding decent vacuum equipment. Now if I just let it run 24/7 for 5,220 trillion years, I will have myself a pound of antimatter.