The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

Fear not, Tordels! You always make good points.  Rumour has it that Tesla found a way...  Maybe the answer isn't in physical machines but some kind of standing wave or interference effect to 'bleed off' energy in some way.  My long-suffering physics teacher, Mr Bowler, was a lovely chap but taught me only two things: First, the best way to get out of sports was to join the AVA Club and claim pressing needs for such things as VHS recordings inventories and that electricity and magnetism are interchangeable. "It's not called 'electromagnetism' for nothing," he once told me an instant before his blackboard duster whistled in a cloudy arc past my ear. I wasn't very interested in physics, to be honest - not when I had Michaela Wilson and her enormous boobs sat at my table. Poor old Michaela - I bet she has a really bad back by now    Anyway, maybe there might be some way of using the Earth's magnetic field to power or partially power nanomachines. If it wasn't for those majestic knockers, I'd know a lot more about this (and everything else).

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

It's Faraday's Law.

The induced electromotive force in any closed circuit is equal to the negative of the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through the circuit.

You can make shit move around by running an electric current through a magnetic field, and it works when it's rearranged. You can make an electric current by moving around magnetic fields.  The Earth's magnetic field is quite weak, so it's not as useful. Take fridge magnets*, They're cheap enough and they're strong enough to completely ignore the Earth's magnetic field not to mention the gravitational pull of the entire planet.


*Halbach array

[The Legendary Shark]

Somebody's designed a machine: www.magneticenergy.org.uk/Romag/Romag%20Generator.htm


No idea if it works or not - any bright sparks out there fancy building one?

[Jim_Campbell]

Somebody's designed a machine: www.magneticenergy.org.uk/Romag/Romag%20Generator.htm

From the link:

Magnetic energy is also called life force energy (an energy occurring in all life and all things), zero-point energy (an energy that occurs even in the absolute zero temperature of space), ether (an energy that interacts with gravity and exists on a cosmic scale to guide celestial bodies and life) as well as other terms.

So many things wrong with that sentence that it makes my brain want to implode.

So, to summarise: idiot makes patently absurd claim on the internet. Film at eleven.

Cheers

Jim

[Richmond Clements]

Ether? Seriously?
Can I just check: this *is* the 21st Century, right..?

[Jim_Campbell]

Ether? Seriously?
Can I just check: this *is* the 21st Century, right..?

What's your problem, bub? You'll be dissing phlogiston next...

Cheers

Jim

[The Legendary Shark]

Interesting response - almost religious in its tone. One of the OED's definitions for "ether" is: "...informal air regarded as a medium for radio." Bloody OED crackpots, eh?

[Jim_Campbell]

Interesting response - almost religious in its tone. One of the OED's definitions for "ether" is: "...informal air regarded as a medium for radio." Bloody OED crackpots, eh?

Notice the word "informal", meaning "colloquial". I use the word frequently about missing emails "disappearing into the ether". That doesn't mean that I actually think the emails have become lost in some mysterious pseudo-element, rather that I am using the term informally.

The notion of it as an actual, scientific term vanished in the Victorian age. Conflating Earth's magnetic field and zero point energy is also an indication that the author has not the slightest fucking clue what s/he is talking about. Honestly, Shark, stick to the conspiracy theories, because this stuff makes you look like a credulous idiot.

Gah.

Jim

[The Legendary Shark]

As I think I said, I don't know if this works or not without building one. Also, I don't mind looking like a "credulous idiot" just for having my interest and imagination piqued. If the author has actually got one of these things to work then it doesn't automatically follow that he/she knows how they got it to work and is struggling to put it into words.

.

Of course, it may be complete moonshine but, in this modern energy-dependant world I think one should always approach things like this with a scientific "let's test this idea" as to do otherwise would make me look and feel like a close-minded simpleton.

[TordelBack]

Conflating Earth's magnetic field and zero point energy...

That is a particularly good one alright, although to be fair Einstein was still redefining both the mechanical and electromagnetic ('luminiferous') ethers in terms of Special Relativity well into the 1920's: redefining it, that is, in such a way as it bore no resemblance to Newton or Maxwell's conceptions .  Anyway, seeing as we were working through the chapter headings of an introduction to modern physics, I'm surprised we didn't just go the whole hog and invoke dark matter and quantum entanglement.

[NapalmKev]

EDL Humiliated in Exeter!


http://exeteredlnews.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/edl-humiliated-in-exeter/


The report does contain comments from EDL members, but I'm sure the enlightened amongst you can see through their putrid mumbling waffle!


Cheers

[Theblazeuk]

Magnetic energy is also called life force energy (an energy occurring in all life and all things), zero-point energy (an energy that occurs even in the absolute zero temperature of space), ether (an energy that interacts with gravity and exists on a cosmic scale to guide celestial bodies and life) as well as other terms.

But this is as patent a load of bollocks as anything ever written.

I don't know if this works without building one. However I am very very certain that this sentence reveals a complete disconnect to the working models of physics without any framework to accomodate existing evidence of natural forces. Or in shorter words, there is no such thing as life force energy and it certainly isn't the same as magnetic energy.

Mind you if it worked no one could argue with it. But it don't.

[Professor Bear]

Out of curiosity, I have a question for the board boffins: if they invented a super-efficient method of converting solar energy to the extent that if you roofed your house with solar mirrors you could meet your energy needs without using the national grid - even in winter because hypothetical scenario that's why - how would this impact the economy?  It seems to me that no-one would actually want that technology to become viable considering (in theory) you can't tax the sun, but then you factor in the impact on energy firms, the mining and oil industries, etc and I can't see that cat ever getting out of the bag.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Invent new taxes and raise others.

[JOE SOAP]

Out of curiosity, I have a question for the board boffins: if they invented a super-efficient method of converting solar energy to the extent that if you roofed your house with solar mirrors you could meet your energy needs without using the national grid - even in winter because hypothetical scenario that's why - how would this impact the economy?  It seems to me that no-one would actually want that technology to become viable considering (in theory) you can't tax the sun, but then you factor in the impact on energy firms, the mining and oil industries, etc and I can't see that cat ever getting out of the bag.

You tax the material required to make the panels. The impact on industry would be more one of adjustment to a new infrastructure since the demand for such technology would be very high and presumably all households in the developed and devloping world would demand it, and rather than the economy, it would be putting a huge strain on resources- a problem which eventually will be solved by nature running short.