Linky goodness from NEDoD

[unixronin]

First, the radial-engined motorcycle built by Jesse James.  What's even cooler-but-crazier, if you read the comments on this article about an alternate take on the radial-engine concept, some guy (see the second comment) is thinking about building a motorcycle with a rotary¹ engine.  Not rotary as in Wankel; rotary as in WW1 rotary aircraft engines, where the entire cylinder array spins around a fixed crankshaft.

And, for a different kind of cool just because it's such outrageous snake oil, check out the miracle hydrogen-power solution to the world's energy needs from the guy who's invented the "very unique¹ elecrolysis process" that turns H2O into the magic wonder-gas HHO.  Just think, if he used his wonder-gas to run a generator to drive his electrolysis machine, he could have a perpetual motion machine!

(....Not.)

[1]  Dammit!  I used the word 'rotary' three times in this post.  And each time, I consistently typo'd it as "rotaty".  And somehow I only spotted ONE of the three typos each time I checked it........ each time I fixed one and glanced at the others to make sure I'd got them right, the others looked OK.

[2]  Last I knew, the formal definition of "unique" was something like "there exists precisely one such".  Does something that's "very unique" use a smaller than usual value of "one"?

Comments

[juuro.livejournal.com]

I'd be a bit hesitant about a rotary radial engine in a motorbike. The gyro torques generated might be a bit awkward to handle in the turns.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking that myself. Not to mention that having a whirling set of cylinders snag the fringed chaps that the custom-cruiser crown seem wont to dress up in could be, um ... highly sub-optimal.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

it *looks* awesome, but yeah, my first thought was 'that looks like it would be a bitch to ride well' and i'm not even a biker..

still, pretty.would love to see video of it in action, I imagine it's got a pretty unusual engine sound for a bike.

[greyman.livejournal.com]

The "HHO" technology isn't that dumb, not really "perpetual motion" stuff... I think it's the coverage and hype that fails.

1) It ain't running off water, it's running off electricity. "HHO gas" is just a way to make a conventional engine run off electricity.

2) It reduces our dependency on fossil fuel to the extent that electricity can be generated from other sources.

The *real* question is whether electrolysis/combustion is more or less efficient than charging batteries. I suspect it is much less. The electrolysis part is efficient, but the efficiency of a heat engine is easy to beat with an electric motor and battery.

(plus, where do you store the gas? I seriously doubt he is pouring water into his test car... if it runs off HHO to any great exent he's got tanks of gas, hopefully H2 and O2 in separate tanks...)

I wonder if there are different kinds of singularity, like there are different kinds of infinity...

[databeast.livejournal.com]

hrm, good question, if 'infinity approaching everything' has different aspects, what about the 'infinity approaching nothing' version?

yoink!

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

There are actually multiple types of infinity. It's totally an abstract concept but it does play a part in math. Here's an example. There are an infinite number of integers. There are also an infinite number of real numbers, which include all integers and all fractions. For two infinities to be "equivalent" you have to show that there is a one-to-one mapping between them. It can be shown that you can't create such a mapping between the integers and the real numbers. No matter how you try, you will always be able to generate a real number (usually by just adding another digit after the decimal point) that isn't mapped to an integer. In fact, you can generate an infinite number of real numbers for each integer. Thus, there are "more" real numbers than integers even though both are infinities. Integers are an order 1 infinity, real numbers are order 2.

Man, the stuff I remember from college....

[gdmusumeci.livejournal.com]

To be a little bit more precise (sorry, this is one of my favorite topics). N (the natural numbers), Z (the integers), and Q (the rational numbers) are all the same size (countably infinite, with cardinality aleph₀. R (the real numbers) cannot be put into one-to-one correspondence with any countably infinite set (Cantor originally used N): instead they have cardinality c,¹ the name of which is derived from "continuum."² Note that the set of reals between 0 and 1 -- that is, the open interval set (0,1) -- has the same cardinality as R, which is somewhat interesting. I leave finding a mapping from R to (0,1) to the reader.


1: The Continuum Hypothesis would state that c = aleph₁ = 2^aleph₀.
2: This is how we got into the Continuum Hypothesis and transfinite set theory (which Hilbert called the "paradise of the infinite").

[databeast.livejournal.com]

here's my favorite way to explain infinity to non-mathnerds

You own a hotel
it has infinite rooms
on Day 1, an infinite number of guests check in
your hotel is full
on Day 2, a second batch of an infinite number of guests check in
..you ask all the guests from day 1 to move up to their next even-numbered room
..the new guests check into the odd-numbered room
everyone gets a room
your hotel with infinite rooms and infinite guests is still full.
repeat as neccessary.

granted, that's a purely integer example, but it's a nice way to answer kids who (like we all did) ask questions like 'whats infinity plus one?'

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Can you really explain infinity to non-mathematicians using infinity in the explanation? Seems to me it'd be a circular-reference problem.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

yes,the example I gave is exactly that, it takes the layman's version of 'infinity' and plays with it to demonstrate the concept.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

My Dad always called out any use of a modifier with "unique" precisely because of its definition.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I think that "nearly unique" should be valid, but not everyone agrees.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

"nearly" or "almost" unique, sure. But "more unique", "extra unique", "very unique"? Nope, either it's unique or it isn't.

Old-style rotary engines

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

There are some new rotary designs where the piston stroke is very short so that the engine rather compact. The engine is also encased in a cylindrical housing so you don't have to worry about contacting the rotating engine casing.

Interestingly, a single-crankpin can be considered a two-cylinder slice of a radial engine. A few years back a guy by the name of Jim Fueling took one of the then-new Harley-Davidson Twin Cam 88 engines and modified it to accept a third cylinder. The resulting engine was called a W3 and could also be considered a 3-cylinder slice of a radial. He used to have a website (can't find it now) that had audio samples. It sure sounded interesting. The firing order was 2-1-3 where the middle cylinder would fire on the first rotation, then cylinders 1 and 3 would fire in relatively rapid succession on the second rotation.

Re: Old-style rotary engines

[nuclearbiker.livejournal.com]

Radarrider,

Jim Fueling was an engineering genius who passed away in 2002 (which is why you can't find his website anymore). The W3 was just one of his accomplishments, and was initially developed with HD. When HD decided not to market it, Jim began producing his own W3 engine, different enough from the TC-88 to avoid any patent infringement. The one I got to test drive was very smooth, and it's 150 Hp effortlessly launched my 300 lbs body faster than my hopped-up old V65 Magna.

Last I heard, the company was being sold in pieces. I would buy a W3 if I could find one, but not much chance of that now...

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but coverage on Fox News and the appearance of a Republican politician seem to be reliable indicators that a con is in progress.

I suppose the Fox hacks journalists will just chalk it up to experience (i.e. forget it by Monday), but Senator Domenici is going to have a bothersome collection of sound- and videobytes out there for his opponents to needle him with.

Mr. Klein may be blushing too when he finds out there are people in the field ahead of him: http://www.eagle-research.com/index.html

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

coverage on Fox News and the appearance of a Republican politician seem to be reliable indicators that a con is in progress

I think either one of those would normally suffice. :) Oh, and the word "Republican" is probably redundant in that sentence.

(I'll grant there are exceptions.)

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Yes, either one. And you are absolutely right about "Republican" being superfluous in that context; Democrats are just as gullible. I think I put it in there because Senator Domenici is a Republican, and because I think the Republican mythos is biased towards the garage-based-inventor mythology of Mr. Klein's repackaged Brown's gas.