Actually we have two times, our “internal cloc” that “time tags“ every one of our experiences - that’s how we remember what we did last Saturday night or scenes from a movie we once saw. - and whatever the local time is. I wrote a paper on this very subject with Peter and May Belt.
I mentioned the nuclear weapon aspect in my note to @benb, and the BBC puts it succinctly:
"Ironically, it’s the difficulty of making weapons that explains why thorium designs have yet to become commercially viable. The roots of nuclear power lie in the race to make atomic bombs, prompting many countries to adopt uranium and plutonium-based designs."
The concept has been mooted.
Drones equipped with solar panels could fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet, putting them high above air traffic.
Power from the drones could be beamed down as microwaves and turned into into usable DC power. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...ld-put-solar-and-wind-power-plants-in-the-sky
When they get nuclear weapons that fit into a briefcase im moving to Canada. They probably already do.
Don't know about briefcase but a small tactical device will probably fit into 'hand-luggage': that is huge if the last time I flew commercially is anything to go by!
By 'air traffic' I was assuming something under Air Traffic Control - not sure the U2 operators 'phone ahead'! 😉
I suspect they probably are, at least while in ATC area of responsibility. Of course other countries have ATC too, they prolly wanna know what the heck is that?!
UFOs might be a different story, though, difficult to say.
UFOs might be a different story, though, difficult to say.
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Yes, I omitted the "most" that should have preceded "air traffic". Concorde could cruise at 60,000 ft!
I suppose I should clear this up. I didn't mean to confuse the different ways currently used to make/attempt nuclear fusion. It's just a hobby horse I have, specifically about the NIF and its announcement, implying that it's being done to somehow develop commercial fusion power (going by everything they said EXCEPT those two sentences). As best I recall, no news source I read or saw made any reference to the content of those two sentences. Were these sentences intentionally ignored, or did it fly over the heads of the reporters?
I'm even more doubtful about the NIF contributing to commercial fusion as much as the other projects built with the express and sole reason of developing it. It's not that NIF is "working on (thermonuclear) bombs," it's that it's pretending to do something more noble.
And as as been discussed before (and beyond my point about the NIF), and surely widely know here, even the others are misleading, by going by the energy gain of the plasma itself and not by the energy input vs. the final energy output of an electric power plant based on it. Here (again) is Sabine Hossenfelder's video on it from a couple years ago, more aptly named by the headline in it "Nuclear conFusion:"
How close is nuclear fusion power?
PI in the sky.
More down to earth the UK has numerous redundant or soon to be obsolete oil production platforms in the North sea. There is abundant wind and wave energy in the North sea. What is lacking is a process to deliver energyfrom platforms to land. Having seen the entire US automobile fuel industry convert from heptane-isooctane to Methy-tertiary-butyl-ether and amy-butyl-ether in a decade, I am impressed by the ability of chemical engineers to mold molecules to order in refineries. If hydrogen from electrolysis could be added to carbon from waste or coal on the north sea, the resulting methane could be stored as liquid in tankers by processes well understood and priced. Methane once gasified in port can be delivered economically by the existing UK natural gas network. The proposals I have seen in the news about the UK prohibiting home heating and cooking via methane at the stroke of a pen strikes me as the effort of people owning copper mines to vilify a historic institution with huge investment. Natural gas from holes in the ground is a CO2 emitter, dirty. Methane from electricity of wind and wave energy and generated chemically has the possibility of being as green as any technology. Especially as new power lines and substations will have to be built to enable an all-electric heating economy. Plus all the electric cars that will be charged in future. The recent dis-utility of electric cars in the recent cold snap around Chicago calls into question the whole assumption of electric cars being the technology of the future. Especially if UK loses the Gulf Stream, which keeps it from being as cold as Norway.
Ahead of the 2016 World Pie Eating Championship, a man from Wigan sent a pie 30 km into the sky.
It was thought the pie would freeze on its ascent and be cooked as it reached "massive speeds" on re-entry. 😀
If the pie ascended by balloon then there would be no/negligible relative momentum between it and the atmosphere, therefore no friction on its return, therefore no heat.
Felix Baumgartner didn't cook himself while freefalling from over 36km, breaking the sound barrier on the way down.
At 30km the pie cannot truly be said to have left the planet, so it's questionable whether the term 're-entry' applies in the accepted, spectacular inferno, sense.
However, from the fact that the vast majority of the atmosphere was below it at 30km, it could be argued it was re-entering.
Shouldn't the more pressing question be whether the world really needs a World pie-eating championship?
Felix Baumgartner didn't cook himself while freefalling from over 36km, breaking the sound barrier on the way down.
At 30km the pie cannot truly be said to have left the planet, so it's questionable whether the term 're-entry' applies in the accepted, spectacular inferno, sense.
However, from the fact that the vast majority of the atmosphere was below it at 30km, it could be argued it was re-entering.
Shouldn't the more pressing question be whether the world really needs a World pie-eating championship?
Best contact James Dyson then. He's pretty good with tech stuff!
I'm surprised he hasn't produce a spherical heater called a .....
I'm surprised he hasn't produce a spherical heater called a .....
I vaguely remember talk about wireless power from "space" making an excellent weapon. The idea goes way back even to Asimov.
The FT has a short article on the current interest
With a single power station in Britain (Hinkley Point C) set to rack up costs of £23bn, the report’s estimate of £16bn to develop the technology and launch an operational 2GW solar satellite seems a bargain. Subsequent satellites at £3.6bn make the proposition even more attractive.
The size of the satellite presents the biggest challenge, which in Frazer-Nash’s scenario stretches to an unprecedented 1.7km wide. Such scale ensures efficient transmission of power to earth.
https://www.ft.com/content/96d7add4-7e91-44c1-90c7-8c905aa74a66
I wonder about efficiency but 24hr sunlight can be arranged + cosmic rays and debris.
The FT has a short article on the current interest
With a single power station in Britain (Hinkley Point C) set to rack up costs of £23bn, the report’s estimate of £16bn to develop the technology and launch an operational 2GW solar satellite seems a bargain. Subsequent satellites at £3.6bn make the proposition even more attractive.
The size of the satellite presents the biggest challenge, which in Frazer-Nash’s scenario stretches to an unprecedented 1.7km wide. Such scale ensures efficient transmission of power to earth.
https://www.ft.com/content/96d7add4-7e91-44c1-90c7-8c905aa74a66
I wonder about efficiency but 24hr sunlight can be arranged + cosmic rays and debris.