Bolonkin Bags

No, it doesn't. Electrons aren't atoms and cannot occupy significant volume. Remember "1 mole of gas occupies 22.4L at NTP"?

Please excuse me. I am an ignorant in Informatics.

I do not know how to link the URL

<http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0805/0805.0230.pdf>

Chorete

I made the effort to read what you friend wrote about his life and projects. I feel sorry for what he suffered in his fight for freedom and human rights but I consider that even if he is a Dr of science his ideas are VERY far from reality. As with respect to your question I would like to mention that around 1700 some body said the lightest is vacuum so that if we have a sphere without air it will go up and float over the atmosphere! Unfortunately it is not so. External pressure requires an envelope which will not deform under its effect and the weight of it is such that even the lightest weight of vacuum will not be compensated. This put in a form you can understand. His other ideas are not feasible. As you said his time in the camps and prisons had an influence on his way of thinking. If what he writes is true then he was in a high position but who knows ? Looking at his ideas I have some doubts.

Not all of the answers you received were silly answers. Some addressed problems they saw with the physics of what you had described, and raised questions about what you (or Bolonkin) were trying to do. If you can't answer those questions, don't expect serious answers when you re-post the same subject.

I've glanced at the article you are concerned about, the arxiv paper by Bolonkin. My quick impression is that he requires an unknown material with insulating properties that are unheard-of for the tube material. (He also says this material must be charged positively to repel the electrons, which seems clearly wrong to me; a positive charge would attract the electrons.)

I am suspicious when I see a 'scientific' paper where nearly all of the references are to previous 'papers' by the author himself. That's a red flag that the author may be a crackpot.

Also of concern is that there is no indication of this paper having been published anywhere other than the e-print service site, nor of peer review.

To this and your earlier posts - when physicists speak of an "electron gas", it refers to some of the electrons within a conductor (usually metal) which are free to move under influence of an applied electric field. This concept helps to visualise the properties of a conductor. But as others have said, electrons cannot form a gas in what would otherwise be a vacuum.

Cheers........Codey

I must sincerely say that I am surprised about how a simple High School question that should be correctly answered by practically everybody, receives only a few not demonstrated anwers.

In fact I am surprised not to be able to respond it myself.

Is Bolonkin right or wrong?.

Take an old diode electronic tube.

Well known facts:

1º- As soon as the Cathode is heated in the vacuum, the electrons start "evaporaing" into this vacuum, forming a Cloud around the Cathode, that disperses due to mutual repulsion.

2º- When a positive charge is imposed on the surrounding Anode. the electron cloud is sucked by this Anode, creating so an electric current, that can be extremely heavy.

3º- This current is continuosly fed by the electrons eveporating fron the Cathode. The current can flow from Cathode to Anode but not the other way. This is why this tube tube was used as curent rectifier.

So there is a very dense cloud of electrons in the vacuum traversing from one elctrode to the other.

Now: What happens when we interpose an insulating wall between tha Cathode and the Anode?

Does the cloud of electrons pass accross the wall?.

Do electrons, Atracted by the Anode, rebound in the wall, creating so a static electron cloud that presses the wall, due to atraction to the Anode and also to mutual repulsion between electrons?.

All these are extremely simple questions, and as I say, I feel angry at myself for not being able to answer them.

I remember somebody replying that electrons "Stick" to the inside of the bag.

Even, if this is true: Does this electron layer produce a pressure in the bag due to mutual repulsion?.

The problem with Bolonkin is that it is difficult to decide if he his a Genius or a Crackpot.

I tested one of his Absolutely Crazy ideas and it is Absolutely Correct.

Disregard, for the moment, subtle effects like Coriolis acceletration. Or satnding waves.

If we shoot a high power rifle directly up, the bulled rises some Kilometers high, stops and falls back exatly to the same place it was shot.

Now assume that the rifle has such a rate of firing that the bullets travel touching each other. The result is the same.

Then assume that the bullets have been joined making a continuous chain.

We'll have a chain that rises vertically very high, turns back and falls in the other side.

The "Firing" mechanism is a very high speed wheel, specially designed for this.

There is a "receiving" wheel at the top.

If this second wheel is installed lower that the maximum capability of the chain, it can sustain a mass suspended in the air at very large heights.

I made an experiment which showed that the assumptions were correct, but that also showed that this contraption is very dangerous.

At some thousands of meters per second the energy of every small section of the chain is devastating.

In fact a flexible tape was used. And it keeps erect in the air with an enormos resistance to be bent by anything.

Bolonkin calls this Kinetic Tower. Really it is a very resistant tower.

For example if made of high strenght wire or wirerope, it will slice a 747 in two easily.

I helped Bolonkin refining real designs for the Firing Wheel and the Top Wheel.

But I really believe that it is a CRAZY idea even if it works,

Chorete

I shall try to explain. What is pressure ? It is the sum of the impacts of gas molecules on the wall of the container. To give you an order of magnitude since this what you do not have:

nitrogen has under normal conditions a specific mass of 1.25 E-6 kg/cm^3

The mass of an electron is 9.1094 E-31 kg

How many electrons do you need per cm^3 to obtain same effect ? Or put it an other way pressure is related to present mass and its velocity. If you reduce the mass then you must increase velocity and this is limited and if on the 2 sides of the bag pressure is not the same then it will collapse! So that you need a stiff envelope and this one has weight it follows all apparent advantage is made nil. You see I use High school level to make it understandable. There are in what you give a&s second idea some aspects to be considered. A force is a derivative of the impulse= F= d(m*v)/dt = v*dm/dt + m*dv/dt where m is the mass, v velocity of considered mass and t the time. When you shoot a bullet straight upwards first you encounter the air resistance and second during its travel the shooting origin has a displacement since the bullet moves to other radius than the one it had when fired. When the bullet comes back on earth after reaching the peak height it will accelerate under gravity and again encounter air resistance, during this trip back earth moved so in fact the bullet will NEVER come exactly on same spot. Coming now to what you say you "tested". OK let us have a wheel with a chain on earth and an other wheel some where in the air on which the chain can run. As you also write the chain is send upwards, at some point it is tangent to the second wheel and let us assume it turns it. But can it turn it ? To turn it with the rest of its kinetic energy the shaft should be stable on some sort of bearings which are some where in the air at some height. If not the wheel will go with the chain and fall back on earth with it. So let us think further. The chain is "pushed" by the wheel and all elements leave the wheel with same speed. This means that when due to loss of kinetic energy in the gravitational field an element of the chain gets a decreased speed it will be supported by the following and so on. In fact the result is "pushed" unstable chain. As you know in a movement pushing leads always to a risk of deflected trajectory only "pulled" movement is stable and maintains the trajectory. High school physics allows to understand it and as well behaviour of cars with front or rear active drives. I do not know if your friend is or not a crackpot as you say but his ideas are not realistic when you look at them from an engineering point of view and using ONLY basic physics, as you say, "high school level". His other ideas as the AB generator or the dome are of same kind. You see I had a good look.

Hello, To your example of a diode electron tube, I suggest you look at a triode tube function the the screen/control grid. It regulates your electron cloud from blocking to full conducting to the anode. When the control grid is blocking, the cloud does not see the anode as the control grid is more negative than the cathode repelling the electrons emitted by the cathode, so the electron cloud stays around the cathode.

In your example the insulating wall would be like the glass tube the electron cloud over time will deposit the metal from the cathode to the glass. This is one reason tubes darken with time. Same thing with halogen light bulbs. The heating element be the cathode or filament overtime wears out.

Similar principal methods to vacuum metal deposits.

As to the bag idea first you would need to overcome atmosphere pressure, be electrically/temperature insulated enough to overcome the electron cloud from the cathode and be able to emit enough electrons to counter the atmosphere pressure. Kinda like having a big fan mounted on your boat blowing into the sails to move the boat.

Having this to float up in the atmosphere not going to happen. One reason a helium balloon can float is it displaces more air than it weights. Same as a boat or ship on water they displace more that than they weight. A small piece of metal dropped in a deep enough body of water will find a buoyant level neither going deeper or rising. Unless some outside force changes it.

The electron gas from a hot Cathode in vacuum has pressure related to thermodynamics, but it is very small due to the small mass of the electron.

But the important part of the pressure against a wall is the electrostatic atraction by the Anode plus the mutual repulsion, that also exerts a pressure even in absence of any anodic voltage.

The importan fact here is: Does an electron rebound in a nonconductive wall? Even inside the anodic electric field, if it has enough kinetic energy?.

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Why did my experiment on the Kinetic Tower succeed (Apparently)?.

1º I had to invent a "concave" wheel, so it could be pushed by the chain/tape. (It is not a wheel with a groove).

2º My "firing" wheel was of 0.2 m and at 5000 rpm. The tape was a hemp rope 6 mm diameter. The mayor problem was the splice in the rope. It needed to be really smooth. The closed loop rope was injected into the firing wheel from a displacer magazine, so slowly increasing the eight of the tower from zero up.

The thing was dangerous due to the kinetic energy imprinted on the rope. so I never dared to go higher that 10 m.

The first experiments were made without any top wheel. the rope ascends, makes a very tight turn and descends.

Why did this happen, against your predictions?.

Simply: at this velocity of about 50 m/s the rope could attain more than 100 m, so by bending it down at only 8 meters, there was still a lot of energy converted fron Up to Down in the 180º bend, producing a very strong "Up" force tensioning both sides of the rope.

So the rope stayed up very strongly like in a Circus act.

The air friction is not enough to bend the rope.

According to your analyse, the rope should have bent inmediately after leaving the firing wheel.

What is this tower good for?.

Bolonkin dreams of many kilometers high towers. But say a 500 m tower capable of maintaining in the air a radio and Tv transmitter would be very desirable. ( Of course, with all the necessary obstruction lights and day signs).

I do not say anything about the Coriolis forces that you indirectly mentioned nor the possible bibratory effects on the rope, because for not too high towers they are secondary to the main "Pulling" effect.

As for the power needed to keep to towers up, it is not too high.

Please read bolonkins calcs.

Do not worry about Bolonkin's practical designs, I have made some serious engineering designs, including the "Concave Wheel"

Chorete

I really like good controversies!

"But the important part of the pressure against a wall is the electrostatic atraction by the Anode ..."

The electrons may be attracted towards the wall, but the wall is also attracted back towards the electrons. There is no net "outward" force, so you can discount that part of your argument.

Thanks. I believe you have hit the right point.

It is the typical case of bad application of Newton's 3º Law, which is by far the most difficult to understand in real life.

A Cathode surrounded by an expandable balloon and the whole thing surrounded by a "FIXED" in space Anode.

Aplying a voltage to the Anode, the balloon will inflate against the atmospheric pressure UNTIL HITTING THE ANODE.

So Bolonkin invention, altough interesting, is useless in practice,

Because at the end you'll need a rigid tube to support the atmospheric pressure.

So the FLOATING properties do not exist.

May be it could still be interesting as an expensive quasi superconductor, but not as expensive as the low temperature ones.

Relative to the Tower. I have found some drawings from the patent ( That was never forwarded), but I must consult with my friend first.

Next I will try some of my own ideas

They are usually serious engineering attempts at solving some of the technical problems we face due to the historical evolution of Technology during the Last Century

Then every thing is perfect why do you ask for opinions if every thing works fine?

Good luck with your development. As you made a test and it worked with the "concave wheel" I would appreciate to see a picture of the working device.

If you use the right browser you can send a picture and I shall congratulate you.