"So you get people doing things like: speaking quietly on their phone when in company, ignoring calls and texts during a conversation and leaving the room or going somewhere private to answer the phone."
Dangerously communistic, mon frere. Where's the law? Where's the enforcement for people who cannot conceive of the disapproval field generated by PO'd people? How do the lawyers afford their Mercs?
It'll be anarchy if that etiquette and politeness thing catches on. Anarchy, I say.
" I'm sure they revere and respect Patents equally and will hasten to ensure that they are free of all infringement immediately."
Sarcasm aside, it could have the effect of driving P2P software completely underground/free and chill the rest of software development, particularly as it's overbroad.
"Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons?"
Not really. Water is better.
"Breaking water is not very efficient and requires electricity in the first place. So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil? Where does the hydrogen come from that it's so clean?"
If this isn't a troll, then you're being deliberately obtuse. You may not have noticed, but electricity doesn't have to come from oil.
Not. Check out the average monthly income, then consider the amount of money required to create a modest revenue channel in legitimate content. We _can_ afford to be gouged, so we are. Essentially the MTV music awards are the amount that we're gouged for.
Try the same in the poorer places in the world, and you simply don't have the sales. Now aren't you happy that globalisation has destroyed trade barriers?
"Any given week I'm sure one fellow sold 20 or 30 CDs at five bucks a pop."
He takes the risk, and will get caught for it eventually, because the greed will overtake common sense. Also there is a different scale of charges to have copywritten material and selling it.
But, for example, I'm mildly interested in how bad 'Battlefield Earth' actually was, so I download it. Watch, cringing, then delete it. There's no outside perceived difference between me and the other guy.
I don't have a problem with that per se, society will level, either by producing a model that can take into account the fact you can feel mugged after leaving a bad movie (especially if you're going to have to sign an NDA not to SMS friends on how bad it was) or by sueing the population into a frenzy of rioting, or something in between. Someone somewhere will always consider me a heathen or evil. Hell, my love for pork chops marks me down for the Taliban. The basic point is I don't care about the game of moral twister that an industry that promotes "Sizzla's" brand of homophobia should squeal about freedom of speech in one breath, then thump the book of the law when they think they're losing out. F*** 'em.
The main problem is that the profits of the companies that are claiming to government that they're hurting are rising pretty steadily. Can you plot a similar line for any other industry on the planet? Again, F*** them.
I have _every_ sympathy for artists that make 70c off their albums. I would personally be honoured to pay the artists direct and get around the advertising budget, A&R, marketing expense accounts and the like. I like the product because I like the product, not because I watch the Saturday rotation, or radio has drilled it into my head. I'm a music fan...my tastes have been honed by nights at home, lucky finds of rarities on market stalls, and swapping...yes...swapping tapes with friends. The music industry cannot _fathom_ or control this level of viral marketing, and you can be sure as damn that there isn't a lot of money in it, but the secondary effect is that the back catalogues of the greats are selling across generations and ARE still selling despite the fact that the industry has _destroyed_ the retail market through greed.
So F*** them in their ear.
"At the call center where last I 9-5'd"
Pay well, did it? A little supplement to the income has greased human evolution since time immemorial, and black markets have been around for quite a while. And nothing scares people like finding out that _everyone_ has dealt with a black market at sometime or another, and the scale of it. The digital content people have found out, and it's scaring them. The majority don't realise that it's been the status-quo since the year dot.
In fact, all of this roughly parallels what happened with the printing press when it arrived, but you don't see anyone shouting that down because some people lost cash. In fact, you could argue that without early print piracy, modern literacy wouldn't be at the stage it is now.
"I would be indignant about the pirates SELLING this stuff"
I am, which is why I would never charge anyone for a copy I made for them of anything. I'm not entirely morally bankrupt, but given the examples of moral behaviour by governments, rich individuals and people around me, I'm not going to be preached at over a couple of CDs, especially given that this is a minority worried about pr
"A number of people I know insist on claiming Eckener's scenario is _true_ just because alternatives they don't like are _either_ disproved or distasteful."
It's bad to only accept a hypothesis that you like, but a lot of what you mentioned seems to be completely unprovable under any circumstances, and therefore an item of faith.
"I am not sure what you mean here."
Relying on photographic or film evidence as a primary source of investigation, rather than relying on the material at hand. One thing that did strike me as I got sucked into this was that wreckage would contain clues as to what happened in particular places; similar to the way the NTSB reconstructs planes to look for stress patterns, it should be possible to check wreckage for telltales. My ignorance will come to the fore here, but is the wreckage still about? What was the supporting framework constructed from? Do you have any resources regarding the construction of the Hindenburg?
"Little pieces to be sure but they do verify that _without_ the presence of hydrogen, the stuff burns slowly and needs some prodding to get started."
Were the tests re-run in a hydrogen atmosphere, or under a hydrogen jet?
I know that it might seem that this is a forgone conclusion, but it would extend the pool of knowledge a little more.
"Thermite and rocket fuel then are very different things. And doped aircraft skin material is a third thing."
Fair enough, although I would point out that explosives are simply materials with burn rates in the region of kilometres a second, and rocket fuels have been known for their volitility, especially using recombustion. I've forgotten the names, but the two-part propellent for the Messcherschmitt Komet had a reputation for being unstable. T-schtoff may have been one of them.
"Anyway, it is the purpose of many people who are interested in airships for historical and other reasons to restore accuracy to the discussion."
Likewise for hydrogen fans, but I don't think that Slashdot is the place...;)
"Clearly also, the Hindenburg's designers had the longest experience of anyone in the world, and with the most success, at avoiding hydrogen fires"
I read elsewhere that the Hindenburg was using Hydrogen because helium was scarce at the time. Surely this would have meant a design that was geared towards helium rather than hydrogen, possibly with retrofits to be able to handle the different gas. Is this wrong?
"he thinks that the image of the fiery destruction of Hindenburg is a barrier to acceptance of hydrogen."
Well, it doesn't help, but it's a matter of pointing out that eighty-odd years of progress has moved us a little past that problem, and there are tanks buried under Florida and Alabama that hold waaaay more than the Hindenburg. First time I saw a hydrogen plume in the flesh was at Redstone.
"It is evident to me that concentrated, insulated fuel tanks are different than huge, thin-walled buoyancy cells."
As are the solid state materials developed that suck up hydrogen, hold it in a matrix and release it under certain circumstances. That's the grail...weakly binding hydrogen to an inert substrate. I'd personally be scared witless if they tried to apply the current 'forecourt' model to hydrogen fuel use.
"The question was, what created a spark where there was a mix of air and hydrogen to burn?"
This is the place that I'm at, despite only dipping a toe into the subject. Do you have any details on the construction of the gas bags themselves? The main problem with storing hydrogen is that it's a small atom. A lot smaller than most materials, which means that your airtight container can steadily leak hydrogen with no real trouble. Getting a hyd/ox mix would simply be a matter of time if there was an unventilated void.
"beloved feature was that the fuel is also far less volatile than gasoline"
"Hindenburg contained some 15 tons of cotton fabric based gas cells and outer covering. You essentially have a 15 ton broom in a seven million cubic foot hydrogen fire."
What's that in hogsheads and furlongs?
I think the point that I personally was trying to make is that the initial mushroom cloud that vents up from the mid-portion around the tower looks more like a fuel/air explosion than secondary combustion from a hydrogen plume.
The thing is that this is essentially arranging deckchairs on the titanic, or more accurately, measuring the stress on the bulkhead rivets as the ship went down.
I'm personally dubious about the IPT claim because the constituents of thermite are there, but not the actual mixture, and you wouldn't have seen the support spars hit the ground. There would have significant damage from the _enormous_ relative temperature of the 'thermite', compared with the more stately 1500C produced by a hydrogen jet, but this reinforces my original point; people are getting caught up in details after the fact.
Gaseous hydrogen is dangerous. Noone disputes that fact, but there does appear to be a large number of people that think that a hydrogen economy can't trap, process or use it safely. Go take a look at the volatility of petroleum distillate.
"The flame front races ahead through the hydrogen gas cells"
Where is the explosive increase in pressure? Newton's first law would tend to suggest that combustion of hydrogen and air would create forces to push in a particular direction. I don't have any figures, hence the hand-waving, but I haven't seen anyone take on this viewpoint.
Dammit, now I've got to go find the archive footage to set up a timeline. This is the very reason my living room still needs plastering.
"Fallout just never really caught my attention even though I tried to like it."
Shame. I was grabbed by the size of the thing and the obvious care and attention to the graphics. The 'crit' effect of full auto at close range shredding your opponent was curiously satisfying.
"Actually, I'm trying to remember a game I played by them,"
If you didn't play any of the Fallout series, then you missed a treat (apart from 'Tactics', which was very disappointing). I was also very pleased with Planescape:Torment and the Baldur's/Icewind Dale games, even though the latter got extremely formulaic.
"BTW you _have_ to use a torch; sparks do not set these things ablaze."
Both studies and experiments suffer from flaws in duplication because they're concentrating on an extremely tiny section of the whole, when something as innocuous as the tielines could be responsible for acting as an accelerant.
I've never been that convinced either way, and I consider people using pictures to model something like a large scale combustion to be naive at best.
I certainly haven't seen anyone apply the same methodology with a hydrogen-filled bag under the simulated skin to check out the possibility of minute traces of hydrogen migrating into voids; a similar idea to what apparently downed TWA800 when the center tank filled with fuel vapour, or even anyone that's looked at the propulsors. I'm sort of assuming that there were internal combustion engines fairly close to a hydrogen envelope.
I think the only conclusion that is worth a damn is that your risk of seeing flames increases if you lob around an enormous series of hydrogen bags, but I have a pragmatic bent that sometimes overrides interesting hobbyist studies.
"erroneous claims of Dr Addison Bain one after another"
From the paper; "In this paper, we demonstrate only that the IPT is fatally flawed and hence is not
applicable to the Hindenburg fire. We do not defend any competing theory as being
correct."
It's a concentrated refutation that doesn't supply another hypotheses. Now, I'm interested in the propulsors for the Hindenberg. What fuel did they use, and would an explosion of that produce the tell-tale 'mushroom' toroidal cloud that broke the spine of the Aircraft?
"But even with a fireproof and antistatic covering, I don't think hydrogen zeppelins are safe."
Everyone agrees with you, which is why they don't tend to do it.
"Definitely NOT something to use to build a huge airship."
Planes used to use a lot of doped cellulose, which burns extremely quickly; plastics and rubbers from the 40s/50s were also hazardous, and the 'Komet' used to sit the pilot in between the two propellant tanks and used a skid to land. We still fly planes using different materials, techniques and safety measures.
Why is it so difficult for people here to apply 21st century technology to an old design?
"Hydrogen is too flammable"
Nah. Hydrogen/oxygen mix is flammable. The more accurate problem is that Hydrogen is a small atom that can leach through most other materials, which is why, as a fuel source, you'd bind it in a material that released hydrogen in a controlled manner.
The main problem with the entire thread is people taking a single disaster and applying it across the board as the hazards of hydrogen, which is dumb. You learn from mistakes, rather than running for the hills and pulling a blanket over your head. This is why we're still climbing into space, despite the relatively high risk.
There are some fairly interesting rumblings happening on the gravitational front because of weird behaviour from pendulums and the deceleration of the Pioneer probes. Given that our experiments are deep in a gravity well, are you willing to entertain the possibility that what we know about gravity is wrong?
It's a bit of a pop quiz, but one of things I've had to do is remain open-minded to experimental information and take it on the chin if I'm wrong. I would expect other people to remain open-minded to the possibility and tend to describe cosmology to show them the stuff we find out about using inference. The trouble is that there are people who're utterly dogmatic, and sometimes they're quite loud compared with us moderates.
Sorry, you obviously have a different term for the fusing of nuclei using heat.
"whether or not this is popularist sensationalism."
People are using the word 'fraud' in this thread, and Martin Fleischmann had to deal with journalists hounding him. 'Popularist' is stretching a little. 'Urban mythology' would be a lot more accurate.
"No free lunch is another way of saying that "energy is conserved""
And e=mc^2 is a way of relating the energy content of matter, which if you apply it to a given unit of matter would show you that there is a shitload of energy to be grabbed in annihilation. Note that your 1950's textbook would never have mentioned Muon-catalysed fusion, would have skipped over the esoteric uses of lasers to cool atoms, and would have laughed at quantum entanglement.
"In fusion mass is converted to electromagnetic radiation."
Depends on the fusion. Solar (proton-proton chain) fusion releases leptons and gamma radiation, but DT fusion gives rise to a Neutron and Alpha particle, which is the one that looks most promising for it's low ignition temp versus power output.
"explain to me how you can modify the electromagnetic field produced by nucleons so that they will readily fuse with low kinetic energy."
Get over kinetic energy, for a start. It's a descriptive term to say what kind of energy you're using at the time and you'd be better off just using the term 'energy'.
Personally I'd use muons. They're big, orbit close and shield the charge of the nucleus enough to allow tritium-Deuterium fusion at room temperature without reaching break-even.
It was originally proposed around 1950 by Andrei Sakharov, but the problem is that muons are unstable and you can only get Q=0.2, which isn't enough to break even on reactions.
"No one has a theoretical framework for this behaviour"
You're calling Andrei Sakharov a liar, now. For shame.
"No one has a theoretical framework for this behaviour, and at best there is some dodgy experimental evidence for it, which has been refuted over and over again."
Mainly by large budget 'hot fusion' proponents that have had the field sewn up for the past fifty years based on the _next_ experimental results, despite the number of tokamaks, Z-pinch toroids and laser-fired cartridge systems out there, and if you want to check into the bitch-slapping session currently taking place over the ITER, you'll see that science can be a fairly nasty field to be in.
Likewise there have been some really interesting developments in the past few years, from sonoluminescence through various experiments on a quantum scale. The important thing is that detractors usually have more of an axe to grind than the sanctity of science, which you'd notice if you checked into some of the dumb things that eminent scientists have said. Lord Kelvin, for example, refused to believe that X-rays were real.
My personal problem is that having met the people that _seriously_ check into these claims, and they are real scientists with little or no budget, there are plenty of charlatons out there, but it's nothing compared with the people who're ignorant about the difference between fact and fiction in the first place. Case in point; 'Erototoxins'.
"I drive a VW Golf TDi (diesel) which gets 45mpg."
16v Ford 'scort Zetec. Roughly similar mileage.
"Since moving into my house, I have upgraded the old AC to a very high-efficiency heat-pump with a computerized "set-back" thermostat."
My AC consists of a window and a fan; central heating is zone controlled and run by a natural gas boiler. Double-glazed throughout, with additional insulation on walls. Brick construction. Water meter.
"microprocessor controlled to minimize energy usage by analyzing demand and adjusting temperature accordingly."
I have a button that heats up the water when I need it.
"I use compact flourescent lights in most ceiling fixtures and lamps throughout the house."
All my light fittings are flouro, and because of the 60Hz flicker I tend to turn them off and bask in the glow of monitors.
"I have motion sensors on outdoor lights and my driveway light comes on only at night."
Luxury. We dream of outside lights.
The point being is that the above is largely standard for the UK, and pretty much comes under the remit of standard living conditions. Our energy bills rose by 9% recently over inflation of 3%, meaning that our staple costs are rising quicker than the economy can handle, not to mention the reliance on Russia for Gas.
"Not all Americans are like the ignorant buffoons on Slashdot who deny the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming."
The rest of the world recognises that, but please tell me that you don't think you're representative of your peers. Hell, the reason why these flame wars spring up is complete and utter frustration at the inability of some people to actually engage with the possibility. You live in a nation that has the vastest excesses of anyplace on the planet, coincidentally based on ancient Rome, and nobody there even wants to think about it coming to an end. Personally I don't like eschatology of any stripe, but it's fairly simple that fossil fuels _will_ run out, theres no bridging the gap, and that will spell agricultural and industrial disaster at a time when we'll probably need the capacity for both _worldwide_.
"Remember that, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush and that Al Gore was a staunch supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and environmental legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases."
WTF happened, then? Rhetorical question, mostly, because we do follow the political machinations of other countries, but it's taken four years for the present administration to admit to their being a problem, despite that vote.
"The possibility of denial shows this can't be science."
You obviously don't have any idea of what science actually is, or read journals. Denial happens all the time in science, which is why it takes a paradigm shift to accept possibilities. Go check out what Max Planck said about the advance of science, then tell me why you think he's wrong.
"You want sycophantic, slavish AOL'ing of your opinions."
Not really, we want people to start checking out the sources that come up with the pro side rather than repeating the party line from the nineties when the Repulican party was saying that there was nothing wrong while Glasgow became a skin cancer cluster. It's just that coming on here and talking about still attracts the same dumb attitude that it's not proved, when the US Government has actually stated that there is a link. It's not that hard to comprehend, even if you want to hedge your bets and say 'if GW does exist'.
The problem is that the constant suggestions that there's no such thing could put us on even shorter notice to find a fix. It's arguing over which bucket to take to put out a fire. And it's frustrating that every major CO2 producer on the planet has ratified a treaty that the US won't.
The US is lagging seriously when the rest of the world would like you to join the party.
"remember that we are indeed at the end of an ice-age."
Where did you get that from?
"global warming is a theory based on very little information, to begin with."
Circa 1995 Republican party. Good thing they're politicians rather than scientists.
"And countries like China which surprisingly exempt from the tenets of Kyoto pollute a lot"
We're talking about global warming, which is linked to pollution, but thank you for essentially crying 'no fair'. Always refreshing, that one.
If America did come into the Kyoto fold, then China wouldn't have a leg to stand on when they do start emitting CO2, but no, you have to allow other nations to cry 'no fair' ad infinitum. So while your objection is because it's 'unfair', your government is objecting on which basis?
"finger at the US"
It has something to do with SUVs, fossil fuel consumption and the amount of CO2 you produce. Call it envy, but we admire your bullheaded denials to even look at the problem.
"The Earth has withstood much worse conditions"
Rock is known for this level of stubbornness.
"so has life, thank you very much."
You don't have a huge amount in common with Eurkorytes, and their conversation skills are limited, not to mention their ability at producing medicines.
"If the worst were to come, we'll adapt and pull through quite fine."
Okay, you have 100 years to evolve flippers. I wouldn't hang around.
"There's a far greater risk of us blowing ourselves up or a rock from space sending us off to extinction"
The former is a matter for states to sort out, the latter is dumb luck and Jupiter, although there's a chance we could sort it, given enough warning. However, the warnings are been given about an environmental problem, WHETHER natural or man-made and you're suggesting that we can adapt in the limited amount of time we have. Given that your children could be living in an artificial environment because people weren't happy about giving up their Escalades now, aren't you just a little bit concerned?
"half-baked theory on global warming with hardly a century's data on climate."
Twat. We have core samples, which you might have heard about when mentioning the 'end of an ice age'.
"Undoubtedly, the epitome of pure evil and greed."
Mostly just greed, although talking about the population of the planet you could argue that inaction is 'evil'.
However, your nation has spearheaded efforts recently in creating alternative fuels to the extent where a veritable blizzard of press releases have arrived over the past month talking about cross-discipline alternatives. You don't think that the energy industry maybe suspects something you don't?
"To fuse any nuclei one has to provide enough kinetic energy to them (ie heat)"
You just have to overcome the repulsive force. The mechanism you've mentioned is one way, and the way that the ITER might manage in useable amounts in what, another twenty years or so?
"I'm putting my money on the fact"
How much, and where can it be collected from?
Y'see, I follow science, and the number of times that they come up with cool doohickeys to get over unsurmountable problems is dizzying, so I always chortle a little when people use their 1950s references to things like fusion, fission, nuclear structure.
Slashdot Mirror
"Actually we have real football"
Trolling is so damned easy on here, no wonder people do it.
"We have apple pie and constitutionally protected rights"
You can't be British, then.
"we also have fair, open elections"
Yeah, definately not British.
"All Creative need to do is add Bluetooth"
And hundreds can watch the thermometer bar crawl across while transferring data at really low speed.
This got modded insightful by people who've heard of Bluetooth but never used it.
"The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic"
And build a list of IP addresses to allow the botnets' ISPs to cut their accounts until they speak to someone about not being a Typhoid Mary.
In fact, it's getting close to the time when we should be doing this.
"So you get people doing things like: speaking quietly on their phone when in company, ignoring calls and texts during a conversation and leaving the room or going somewhere private to answer the phone."
Dangerously communistic, mon frere. Where's the law? Where's the enforcement for people who cannot conceive of the disapproval field generated by PO'd people? How do the lawyers afford their Mercs?
It'll be anarchy if that etiquette and politeness thing catches on. Anarchy, I say.
" I'm sure they revere and respect Patents equally and will hasten to ensure that they are free of all infringement immediately."
Sarcasm aside, it could have the effect of driving P2P software completely underground/free and chill the rest of software development, particularly as it's overbroad.
"Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons?"
Not really. Water is better.
"Breaking water is not very efficient and requires electricity in the first place. So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil? Where does the hydrogen come from that it's so clean?"
If this isn't a troll, then you're being deliberately obtuse. You may not have noticed, but electricity doesn't have to come from oil.
"No where else in the whole fucking world do people say shit like this."
Yeah, but they don't have football, apple pie and constitutionally protected rights, you communist peacenik.
"How exactly does ones ability to learn morse code relate to ones technical skills?"
I don't think it does, but removing the morse requirement would tend to make HAM similar to CB radio in some people's eyes.
Incidentally, I had to fight the temptation to try and answer in morse...
"I think it is e.g. a good thing to require a HAM to be able to explain WHY morse code is a good mode."
And not actually know morse?
"How crazy is that?"
Not. Check out the average monthly income, then consider the amount of money required to create a modest revenue channel in legitimate content. We _can_ afford to be gouged, so we are. Essentially the MTV music awards are the amount that we're gouged for.
Try the same in the poorer places in the world, and you simply don't have the sales. Now aren't you happy that globalisation has destroyed trade barriers?
"Any given week I'm sure one fellow sold 20 or 30 CDs at five bucks a pop."
He takes the risk, and will get caught for it eventually, because the greed will overtake common sense. Also there is a different scale of charges to have copywritten material and selling it.
But, for example, I'm mildly interested in how bad 'Battlefield Earth' actually was, so I download it. Watch, cringing, then delete it. There's no outside perceived difference between me and the other guy.
I don't have a problem with that per se, society will level, either by producing a model that can take into account the fact you can feel mugged after leaving a bad movie (especially if you're going to have to sign an NDA not to SMS friends on how bad it was) or by sueing the population into a frenzy of rioting, or something in between. Someone somewhere will always consider me a heathen or evil. Hell, my love for pork chops marks me down for the Taliban. The basic point is I don't care about the game of moral twister that an industry that promotes "Sizzla's" brand of homophobia should squeal about freedom of speech in one breath, then thump the book of the law when they think they're losing out. F*** 'em.
The main problem is that the profits of the companies that are claiming to government that they're hurting are rising pretty steadily. Can you plot a similar line for any other industry on the planet? Again, F*** them.
I have _every_ sympathy for artists that make 70c off their albums. I would personally be honoured to pay the artists direct and get around the advertising budget, A&R, marketing expense accounts and the like. I like the product because I like the product, not because I watch the Saturday rotation, or radio has drilled it into my head. I'm a music fan...my tastes have been honed by nights at home, lucky finds of rarities on market stalls, and swapping...yes...swapping tapes with friends. The music industry cannot _fathom_ or control this level of viral marketing, and you can be sure as damn that there isn't a lot of money in it, but the secondary effect is that the back catalogues of the greats are selling across generations and ARE still selling despite the fact that the industry has _destroyed_ the retail market through greed.
So F*** them in their ear.
"At the call center where last I 9-5'd"
Pay well, did it? A little supplement to the income has greased human evolution since time immemorial, and black markets have been around for quite a while. And nothing scares people like finding out that _everyone_ has dealt with a black market at sometime or another, and the scale of it. The digital content people have found out, and it's scaring them. The majority don't realise that it's been the status-quo since the year dot.
In fact, all of this roughly parallels what happened with the printing press when it arrived, but you don't see anyone shouting that down because some people lost cash. In fact, you could argue that without early print piracy, modern literacy wouldn't be at the stage it is now.
"I would be indignant about the pirates SELLING this stuff"
I am, which is why I would never charge anyone for a copy I made for them of anything. I'm not entirely morally bankrupt, but given the examples of moral behaviour by governments, rich individuals and people around me, I'm not going to be preached at over a couple of CDs, especially given that this is a minority worried about pr
"A number of people I know insist on claiming Eckener's scenario is _true_ just because alternatives they don't like are _either_ disproved or distasteful."
It's bad to only accept a hypothesis that you like, but a lot of what you mentioned seems to be completely unprovable under any circumstances, and therefore an item of faith.
"I am not sure what you mean here."
Relying on photographic or film evidence as a primary source of investigation, rather than relying on the material at hand. One thing that did strike me as I got sucked into this was that wreckage would contain clues as to what happened in particular places; similar to the way the NTSB reconstructs planes to look for stress patterns, it should be possible to check wreckage for telltales. My ignorance will come to the fore here, but is the wreckage still about? What was the supporting framework constructed from? Do you have any resources regarding the construction of the Hindenburg?
"Little pieces to be sure but they do verify that _without_ the presence of hydrogen, the stuff burns slowly and needs some prodding to get started."
Were the tests re-run in a hydrogen atmosphere, or under a hydrogen jet?
I know that it might seem that this is a forgone conclusion, but it would extend the pool of knowledge a little more.
"Thermite and rocket fuel then are very different things. And doped aircraft skin material is a third thing."
Fair enough, although I would point out that explosives are simply materials with burn rates in the region of kilometres a second, and rocket fuels have been known for their volitility, especially using recombustion. I've forgotten the names, but the two-part propellent for the Messcherschmitt Komet had a reputation for being unstable. T-schtoff may have been one of them.
"Anyway, it is the purpose of many people who are interested in airships for historical and other reasons to restore accuracy to the discussion."
Likewise for hydrogen fans, but I don't think that Slashdot is the place...;)
"Clearly also, the Hindenburg's designers had the longest experience of anyone in the world, and with the most success, at avoiding hydrogen fires"
I read elsewhere that the Hindenburg was using Hydrogen because helium was scarce at the time. Surely this would have meant a design that was geared towards helium rather than hydrogen, possibly with retrofits to be able to handle the different gas. Is this wrong?
"he thinks that the image of the fiery destruction of Hindenburg is a barrier to acceptance of hydrogen."
Well, it doesn't help, but it's a matter of pointing out that eighty-odd years of progress has moved us a little past that problem, and there are tanks buried under Florida and Alabama that hold waaaay more than the Hindenburg. First time I saw a hydrogen plume in the flesh was at Redstone.
"It is evident to me that concentrated, insulated fuel tanks are different than huge, thin-walled buoyancy cells."
As are the solid state materials developed that suck up hydrogen, hold it in a matrix and release it under certain circumstances. That's the grail...weakly binding hydrogen to an inert substrate. I'd personally be scared witless if they tried to apply the current 'forecourt' model to hydrogen fuel use.
"The question was, what created a spark where there was a mix of air and hydrogen to burn?"
This is the place that I'm at, despite only dipping a toe into the subject. Do you have any details on the construction of the gas bags themselves? The main problem with storing hydrogen is that it's a small atom. A lot smaller than most materials, which means that your airtight container can steadily leak hydrogen with no real trouble. Getting a hyd/ox mix would simply be a matter of time if there was an unventilated void.
"beloved feature was that the fuel is also far less volatile than gasoline"
"Hindenburg contained some 15 tons of cotton fabric based gas cells and outer covering. You essentially have a 15 ton broom in a seven million cubic foot hydrogen fire."
What's that in hogsheads and furlongs?
I think the point that I personally was trying to make is that the initial mushroom cloud that vents up from the mid-portion around the tower looks more like a fuel/air explosion than secondary combustion from a hydrogen plume.
The thing is that this is essentially arranging deckchairs on the titanic, or more accurately, measuring the stress on the bulkhead rivets as the ship went down.
I'm personally dubious about the IPT claim because the constituents of thermite are there, but not the actual mixture, and you wouldn't have seen the support spars hit the ground. There would have significant damage from the _enormous_ relative temperature of the 'thermite', compared with the more stately 1500C produced by a hydrogen jet, but this reinforces my original point; people are getting caught up in details after the fact.
Gaseous hydrogen is dangerous. Noone disputes that fact, but there does appear to be a large number of people that think that a hydrogen economy can't trap, process or use it safely. Go take a look at the volatility of petroleum distillate.
"The flame front races ahead through the hydrogen gas cells"
Where is the explosive increase in pressure? Newton's first law would tend to suggest that combustion of hydrogen and air would create forces to push in a particular direction. I don't have any figures, hence the hand-waving, but I haven't seen anyone take on this viewpoint.
Dammit, now I've got to go find the archive footage to set up a timeline. This is the very reason my living room still needs plastering.
"Fallout just never really caught my attention even though I tried to like it."
Shame. I was grabbed by the size of the thing and the obvious care and attention to the graphics. The 'crit' effect of full auto at close range shredding your opponent was curiously satisfying.
"Actually, I'm trying to remember a game I played by them,"
If you didn't play any of the Fallout series, then you missed a treat (apart from 'Tactics', which was very disappointing). I was also very pleased with Planescape:Torment and the Baldur's/Icewind Dale games, even though the latter got extremely formulaic.
"BTW you _have_ to use a torch; sparks do not set these things ablaze."
Both studies and experiments suffer from flaws in duplication because they're concentrating on an extremely tiny section of the whole, when something as innocuous as the tielines could be responsible for acting as an accelerant.
I've never been that convinced either way, and I consider people using pictures to model something like a large scale combustion to be naive at best.
I certainly haven't seen anyone apply the same methodology with a hydrogen-filled bag under the simulated skin to check out the possibility of minute traces of hydrogen migrating into voids; a similar idea to what apparently downed TWA800 when the center tank filled with fuel vapour, or even anyone that's looked at the propulsors. I'm sort of assuming that there were internal combustion engines fairly close to a hydrogen envelope.
I think the only conclusion that is worth a damn is that your risk of seeing flames increases if you lob around an enormous series of hydrogen bags, but I have a pragmatic bent that sometimes overrides interesting hobbyist studies.
"erroneous claims of Dr Addison Bain one after another"
From the paper;
"In this paper, we demonstrate only that the IPT is fatally flawed and hence is not applicable to the Hindenburg fire. We do not defend any competing theory as being correct."
It's a concentrated refutation that doesn't supply another hypotheses. Now, I'm interested in the propulsors for the Hindenberg. What fuel did they use, and would an explosion of that produce the tell-tale 'mushroom' toroidal cloud that broke the spine of the Aircraft?
"But even with a fireproof and antistatic covering, I don't think hydrogen zeppelins are safe."
Everyone agrees with you, which is why they don't tend to do it.
"Definitely NOT something to use to build a huge airship."
Planes used to use a lot of doped cellulose, which burns extremely quickly; plastics and rubbers from the 40s/50s were also hazardous, and the 'Komet' used to sit the pilot in between the two propellant tanks and used a skid to land. We still fly planes using different materials, techniques and safety measures.
Why is it so difficult for people here to apply 21st century technology to an old design?
"Hydrogen is too flammable"
Nah. Hydrogen/oxygen mix is flammable. The more accurate problem is that Hydrogen is a small atom that can leach through most other materials, which is why, as a fuel source, you'd bind it in a material that released hydrogen in a controlled manner.
The main problem with the entire thread is people taking a single disaster and applying it across the board as the hazards of hydrogen, which is dumb. You learn from mistakes, rather than running for the hills and pulling a blanket over your head. This is why we're still climbing into space, despite the relatively high risk.
"not yet aflame when the fire busts forth."
What colour does Hydrogen burn?
I mean, generally it's colourless, but you must be looking at a fairly exotic hydrogen to see the flames burst forth.
As an aside;
There are some fairly interesting rumblings happening on the gravitational front because of weird behaviour from pendulums and the deceleration of the Pioneer probes. Given that our experiments are deep in a gravity well, are you willing to entertain the possibility that what we know about gravity is wrong?
It's a bit of a pop quiz, but one of things I've had to do is remain open-minded to experimental information and take it on the chin if I'm wrong. I would expect other people to remain open-minded to the possibility and tend to describe cosmology to show them the stuff we find out about using inference. The trouble is that there are people who're utterly dogmatic, and sometimes they're quite loud compared with us moderates.
" I never mentioned anything about hot fusion."
Sorry, you obviously have a different term for the fusing of nuclei using heat.
"whether or not this is popularist sensationalism."
People are using the word 'fraud' in this thread, and Martin Fleischmann had to deal with journalists hounding him. 'Popularist' is stretching a little. 'Urban mythology' would be a lot more accurate.
"No free lunch is another way of saying that "energy is conserved""
And e=mc^2 is a way of relating the energy content of matter, which if you apply it to a given unit of matter would show you that there is a shitload of energy to be grabbed in annihilation. Note that your 1950's textbook would never have mentioned Muon-catalysed fusion, would have skipped over the esoteric uses of lasers to cool atoms, and would have laughed at quantum entanglement.
"In fusion mass is converted to electromagnetic radiation."
Depends on the fusion. Solar (proton-proton chain) fusion releases leptons and gamma radiation, but DT fusion gives rise to a Neutron and Alpha particle, which is the one that looks most promising for it's low ignition temp versus power output.
"explain to me how you can modify the electromagnetic field produced by nucleons so that they will readily fuse with low kinetic energy."
Get over kinetic energy, for a start. It's a descriptive term to say what kind of energy you're using at the time and you'd be better off just using the term 'energy'.
Personally I'd use muons. They're big, orbit close and shield the charge of the nucleus enough to allow tritium-Deuterium fusion at room temperature without reaching break-even.
It was originally proposed around 1950 by Andrei Sakharov, but the problem is that muons are unstable and you can only get Q=0.2, which isn't enough to break even on reactions.
"No one has a theoretical framework for this behaviour"
You're calling Andrei Sakharov a liar, now. For shame.
"No one has a theoretical framework for this behaviour, and at best there is some dodgy experimental evidence for it, which has been refuted over and over again."
Mainly by large budget 'hot fusion' proponents that have had the field sewn up for the past fifty years based on the _next_ experimental results, despite the number of tokamaks, Z-pinch toroids and laser-fired cartridge systems out there, and if you want to check into the bitch-slapping session currently taking place over the ITER, you'll see that science can be a fairly nasty field to be in.
Likewise there have been some really interesting developments in the past few years, from sonoluminescence through various experiments on a quantum scale. The important thing is that detractors usually have more of an axe to grind than the sanctity of science, which you'd notice if you checked into some of the dumb things that eminent scientists have said. Lord Kelvin, for example, refused to believe that X-rays were real.
My personal problem is that having met the people that _seriously_ check into these claims, and they are real scientists with little or no budget, there are plenty of charlatons out there, but it's nothing compared with the people who're ignorant about the difference between fact and fiction in the first place. Case in point; 'Erototoxins'.
Incidentally;
"I drive a VW Golf TDi (diesel) which gets 45mpg."
16v Ford 'scort Zetec. Roughly similar mileage.
"Since moving into my house, I have upgraded the old AC to a very high-efficiency heat-pump with a computerized "set-back" thermostat."
My AC consists of a window and a fan; central heating is zone controlled and run by a natural gas boiler. Double-glazed throughout, with additional insulation on walls. Brick construction. Water meter.
"microprocessor controlled to minimize energy usage by analyzing demand and adjusting temperature accordingly."
I have a button that heats up the water when I need it.
"I use compact flourescent lights in most ceiling fixtures and lamps throughout the house."
All my light fittings are flouro, and because of the 60Hz flicker I tend to turn them off and bask in the glow of monitors.
"I have motion sensors on outdoor lights and my driveway light comes on only at night."
Luxury. We dream of outside lights.
The point being is that the above is largely standard for the UK, and pretty much comes under the remit of standard living conditions. Our energy bills rose by 9% recently over inflation of 3%, meaning that our staple costs are rising quicker than the economy can handle, not to mention the reliance on Russia for Gas.
"Not all Americans are like the ignorant buffoons on Slashdot who deny the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming."
The rest of the world recognises that, but please tell me that you don't think you're representative of your peers. Hell, the reason why these flame wars spring up is complete and utter frustration at the inability of some people to actually engage with the possibility. You live in a nation that has the vastest excesses of anyplace on the planet, coincidentally based on ancient Rome, and nobody there even wants to think about it coming to an end. Personally I don't like eschatology of any stripe, but it's fairly simple that fossil fuels _will_ run out, theres no bridging the gap, and that will spell agricultural and industrial disaster at a time when we'll probably need the capacity for both _worldwide_.
"Remember that, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush and that Al Gore was a staunch supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and environmental legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases."
WTF happened, then? Rhetorical question, mostly, because we do follow the political machinations of other countries, but it's taken four years for the present administration to admit to their being a problem, despite that vote.
"The possibility of denial shows this can't be science."
You obviously don't have any idea of what science actually is, or read journals. Denial happens all the time in science, which is why it takes a paradigm shift to accept possibilities. Go check out what Max Planck said about the advance of science, then tell me why you think he's wrong.
Meanwhile, enjoy some 'erototoxins'.
"You want sycophantic, slavish AOL'ing of your opinions."
Not really, we want people to start checking out the sources that come up with the pro side rather than repeating the party line from the nineties when the Repulican party was saying that there was nothing wrong while Glasgow became a skin cancer cluster. It's just that coming on here and talking about still attracts the same dumb attitude that it's not proved, when the US Government has actually stated that there is a link. It's not that hard to comprehend, even if you want to hedge your bets and say 'if GW does exist'.
The problem is that the constant suggestions that there's no such thing could put us on even shorter notice to find a fix. It's arguing over which bucket to take to put out a fire. And it's frustrating that every major CO2 producer on the planet has ratified a treaty that the US won't.
The US is lagging seriously when the rest of the world would like you to join the party.
That's where some of the annoyed people come in.
"remember that we are indeed at the end of an ice-age."
Where did you get that from?
"global warming is a theory based on very little information, to begin with."
Circa 1995 Republican party. Good thing they're politicians rather than scientists.
"And countries like China which surprisingly exempt from the tenets of Kyoto pollute a lot"
We're talking about global warming, which is linked to pollution, but thank you for essentially crying 'no fair'. Always refreshing, that one.
If America did come into the Kyoto fold, then China wouldn't have a leg to stand on when they do start emitting CO2, but no, you have to allow other nations to cry 'no fair' ad infinitum. So while your objection is because it's 'unfair', your government is objecting on which basis?
"finger at the US"
It has something to do with SUVs, fossil fuel consumption and the amount of CO2 you produce. Call it envy, but we admire your bullheaded denials to even look at the problem.
"The Earth has withstood much worse conditions"
Rock is known for this level of stubbornness.
"so has life, thank you very much."
You don't have a huge amount in common with Eurkorytes, and their conversation skills are limited, not to mention their ability at producing medicines.
"If the worst were to come, we'll adapt and pull through quite fine."
Okay, you have 100 years to evolve flippers. I wouldn't hang around.
"There's a far greater risk of us blowing ourselves up or a rock from space sending us off to extinction"
The former is a matter for states to sort out, the latter is dumb luck and Jupiter, although there's a chance we could sort it, given enough warning. However, the warnings are been given about an environmental problem, WHETHER natural or man-made and you're suggesting that we can adapt in the limited amount of time we have. Given that your children could be living in an artificial environment because people weren't happy about giving up their Escalades now, aren't you just a little bit concerned?
"half-baked theory on global warming with hardly a century's data on climate."
Twat. We have core samples, which you might have heard about when mentioning the 'end of an ice age'.
"Undoubtedly, the epitome of pure evil and greed."
Mostly just greed, although talking about the population of the planet you could argue that inaction is 'evil'.
However, your nation has spearheaded efforts recently in creating alternative fuels to the extent where a veritable blizzard of press releases have arrived over the past month talking about cross-discipline alternatives. You don't think that the energy industry maybe suspects something you don't?
Just highlighting the funny bits;
"To fuse any nuclei one has to provide enough kinetic energy to them (ie heat)"
You just have to overcome the repulsive force. The mechanism you've mentioned is one way, and the way that the ITER might manage in useable amounts in what, another twenty years or so?
"I'm putting my money on the fact"
How much, and where can it be collected from?
Y'see, I follow science, and the number of times that they come up with cool doohickeys to get over unsurmountable problems is dizzying, so I always chortle a little when people use their 1950s references to things like fusion, fission, nuclear structure.
"there is no such thing as a free lunch"
So explain the downsides of hot fusion.