🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <1992Dec21.193621.12001@microware.com>, troyf@microware.com (Troy F
r
>ericks) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec19.192819.1816@adobe.com> pngai@adobe.com (Phil Ngai) wri
t
>es:
>> >If I were a terrorist, I would drool at the thought of being able to
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>> >BOOM!
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>AARRGGGHHH!
>
>Flame on.
>
>The rampant idiocy on flywheels just continues.  How many ways do people have
>to be told about conservation of energy?
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>Get it through your thick head - energy is conserved.  A flywheel that can pow
e
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>realize how big an explosion a few gallons of gas can make, when properly mixe
d
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>> >My opinions are my own.
>Good thing - they're pretty damned stupid for anyone else.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>stead@seismo.css.gov
>
I am sure there is no need to tell you, Richard, that there is more to Physics
than the conservation of energy....  As you know, there are laws of thermo-
dynamics, laws of plasma physics, and one or two other 'laws' that explain our
physical surroundings.   If I took a megajoules worth of Gasoline vapor and the
perfect amount of air and compressed it into a mythical light alloy housing
and then applied an erg or two of electrical discharge, we both agree that it
would be terribly unhealthy to stand nearby.  And I doubt that we would argue
over the difficulty of finding all of the pieces of the housing...  These laws
of thermodynamics we are both familiar with.  Now let us take this same housing
and pass two large electrodes into it. One through each bearing sleeve.  I mean
two inch in diameter, fully intergrated into the housing, Humongous electrodes.
Then let us place about a kilogram of graphite directly between them.  Now let 
us discharge, as quickly as power source resistance will let us, a megajoule of
energy through the graphite.  This is where we will part in our agreement.  My
thoughts are that a person standing next to the housing would here a very (very
,
very) loud bang.  If they turned to look at the housing, they would see it
turning bright red.  And if the housing temperature exceeded the plasticity
limits of its material, they might even see the housing begin to collapse as 
the vapor pressures of carbon and the light alloys quickly fell to nothing...
Same energies vastly different results...  All within the bounds of some 'law'
of physics here or there...
Again, I am sure we might disagree somewhere....
Bye...  Ted..