🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1goebdINNik@gap.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
|> Er, the amount of energy that escapes is exactly the amount of energy you
|> started with.  Law of conservation of energy comes into play.  All the energy
|> from the flywheel will have been converted into these other forms, as you point
|> out.  That doesn't mean we can ignore it.  True, we're not likely to be talking
|> about hypersonic bits of the flywheel.  But enough energy to move that vehicle
|> on the order of 100 miles at freeway speeds is still around there someplace. 
|> It didn't just vanish.  And that's a LOT of energy.  And it got dumped FAST.
|> 
|> In other words:  BOOM!

|> Unless you wrap the flywheel in a massive enough container that it can absorb
|> all that energy without vaporizing, you're going to have an explosion.

The particles will fly off linearly, but what if the housing surrounding the
flywheel was turning? Then the breaking flywheel may just cause the housing
to turn faster. The flywheel particle momentum is lost with a less
forceful impact (prolonged impact) because the turning housing is moving at
a lower speed relative to the flywheel particles (which in turn move at a
lower speed relative to the housing). It's a flywheel inside a flywheel inside
a flywheel.

What has four wheels and flies?

-- 

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca

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