Wacky Science - an open invitation

This can only gum up the works. But why not slow down the all ready over worked brains of those who take time to sit and type while others just browse. My internet connection is already on over load.

No, no. Once you already found a wacky video, just keep the URL for us to examine and discuss. We need our daily fun, don't we?

I guess so.

Great Idea!!

Windhexe is a device that apparently works as advertised, instantly converting almost anything (bricks, eggs, grains, glass bottles, chicken droppings, etc, etc.) to dry, sterile powder.

EEstor claim to have a super capacitor battery (a bunch of supercapacitors, with charge/discharge regulating built in). You can treat it as a battery with voltage of your choice, with the actual capacitors being charged to 3200V. Sounds plausible, but the storage densities seem unrealistically high -- way too high. If this is the real deal, it will stand the EV world on its ear. Whadya think?

The whole peswiki site is full of all sorts of alternative energy devices. Some are clearly legit. Many are not. Some of the bogus stuff is promoted by people who appear unacquainted with basic physics. Other bogus things are promoted by people who are clearly scam artists.

Windhexe - Haven't come across this one before (and I work with AlfaLavel, still it doesn't surprise me). Reminds me of the Dyson vacuum cleaner tornado action. The principle is also used by at least one air conditioning company to create an enclosure cooler using only a constant stream of compressed air in a special chamber. You really need to be given more information on how it operates and what sort of baffles, etc are inside the chamber (it doesn't work well at breaking down elastic and fatty substances). Think of it in terms of a dry air-powered waste disposer, oh, and it certainly is not instant.

EEstor - You are getting power density and energy density mixed up. Supercaps / ultracaps / ELDC's / etc have very high power densities but not the high energy density of batteries. This means that they can only provide lots of power for a short period of time before running out. They really are designed to be used in conjunction with batteries (the best of both power and energy density worlds). Nothing wacky here.

Peswiki - So many free energy and over-unity generators, so little a clue (or free energy for that matter). Rename to really cool looking loads and motors, possibly made by MacGyver when he was a child.

Re Windhexe: I couldn't (re)find the videos of this thing in action (which I'd previously viewed) but you'd get a kick out of watching them, if you have the time to find them. Of course, when I said "instant" I was exaggerating, but a sucked-up bunch of bones comes out as powder is a matter of 2-3 seconds.

Re EEstor: Actually I didn't use the terms "power" or "energy" for the reasons you state. The EEstor device is claimed to be substantially better than current state of the art in both respects: much better energy densities than batteries, and better power density than caps. And no, it is not intended to be used in conjunction with conventional batteries, but to replace them entirely. Thus, the scepticism. Further the price is to be far less than supercaps. Standard supercapacitors are often used in newish EV prototypes (and even oldish construction equipment) for exactly the reasons you cite.

Hmmm, I thought I found all the ultracap players in the world but I have not come across EEstor before (it sounded similar to another ultracap manufacturer or brand). It is probably because they are so secretive. I was able to track this down thou.

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html

Really it is an ultracap (1 million cycles, fast recharge, etc), but with a calculated energy density of around 385 Wh/kg (31F at 3500V in a 336 pound package) it means that it will perform in the battery class. Price is incredibly low too.

This product is very promising but I cannot help feeling a bit sceptical, especially over the massive superiority compared to anything else on the market at the moment or under development, in either the ultracap or battery camps. Also working in the marketing and engineering departments has given me a healthy scepticism for excessive claims and half-truths.

I will have to keep an eye on this development also.

EEstor: The abstract proposed in patenting the device is too cryptic to realise what's-what in there, let alone to understand the workings of the proposed device. We cannot even tell if a successful prototype was built to back the claims.

Given that current-day capacitive electric batteries, are of relatively poor efficiency, it's not impossible that someone improved it's electrical-current capacity, by chemical means.

If so, they're likely to become very reach, and soon, because the main hinder to both pure electric and hybrid vehicles, is the poor capacity of the battery.

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~plynch/SwingingSpring/springpendulum.html

My Brother Ian, named his Girlfriend's sweet and adorable King Charles Spaniel Puppy; "Jackson Pollock"

Go to this link, and think "Carpet"....Mmmmm?

Enjoy!

This reminded me of a magnetic repulsion pendulum, looks much like yours, only with a few magnets layed opposite to have a repulsive field. Once you let go, it may have an erratic movement, sometimes up to fifteen minutes before slowing down to rest on some equilibrium.

What a "Team"

A "Wacky Science Project" in an old Squash Court, with a pile of graphite bricks.

Who are these fellas? For a moment I thought it was the Colossus Mafia from Bletchley Park (who I admire so much), you know, Alan Turing vs. German-Enigma from WW2

- - - - - - - - -

Got it, got it!

The Manhattan Buggers, Enrico Fermi (bottom-line leftmost) and company

Niels Bohr (bottom-line second right) in the rain-coat?

Right?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3078131163857744253&hl=en

Yup! You spotted Enrico Fermi. My Grandfather, Capt F.H. Farmer (Royal Artillery) was convinced Enrico borrowed his name, he was called Mr. Farmer. Francis my Grandfather had been requested by the War Office to investigate reports of Historical Nuclear Explosions in India. (He was Chairman of the Indian Co-operative Society) He was able to report back in the affirmative, and that therefor little danger existed of igniting the atmosphere, as had been feared. From "The Mahabharata" we read:-

"Ghurka, flying a swift and powerful vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all it's splendor.

It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, and birds turned white. Birds croaked madly... the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The Earth Shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon...........Elephants burst into flames and ran to and fro screaming in a frenzy....over a vast area other animals crumpled to the ground and died.

....After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected..... to escape the fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment".....etc.

Mohenjo Daro Harappa, Kot Diji and other ancient cities have a 'Writing' known as 'Ancient Dravidian, related to Tamil, the glyphs are 'identical' glyph for glyph, with Rongo Rongo script from Easter Island. Jesuit Priests arrived two centuries ago, took copies of all the wooden scripts, and having ensured that the Native Population were unable to read their own texts, made a bonfire of all of them. A few artifacts survived. A 'Sacred Phallic Staff' was recently partly decyphered...... Bletchley Park Boffins would have come in handy Yuval,......The staff speaks of a great 'Angry God' who rises like a huge penis cloud to copulate with the sky. this comes after a lightening flash ten thousand times brighter than the sun. After copulating with the Sky, Scorpion Fish poison rains down upon the earth. (If you tread on a Scorpion Fish, my brother has witnessed it, you will beg to be mercy-killed, so great is the pain) These remaining wooden artifacts have been analysed, they are not from Pacific Island or Antipodean Species, The wood comes from India and is very old.

Mmmmmm? The Citadel of Mohenjo Daro, Eh? The place is still radioactive. The bricks have been glazed just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and from the shadows one can pinpoint exactly where the Holocaust exploded......Mmmmmm.....FACT...NOT....WACKY SPECULATION. Mmmmmmm?

...this comes after a lightening flash ten thousand times brighter than the sun...

Remember the Tunguska incident, just before the Soviet Revolution? It turned that the incoming trajectory allowed the meteorite to completely incinerate, leaving no evidence on the ground, other than the shockwave impact. No residual radiation, no suspected isotope trace (was revisited more than twenty times since), nothing.

...After copulating with the Sky, Scorpion Fish poison rains down upon the earth. (If you tread on a Scorpion Fish, my brother has witnessed it, you will beg to be mercy-killed, so great is the pain)...

Yes, These are residents of the red sea, as an estuary of the Indian Ocean. Turists to Eilat (adjacent to Aqaba, Jordan) are warned to look-out for those. These look like Feather-Head American-Indians

"No residual radiation, no suspected isotope trace (was revisited more than twenty times since), nothing."

A 'Soft' impact as they call it. indeed that is what makes these ancient nuclear? explosions so disturbing, there is plenty of residual radiation. Indian and Soviet Scientists measured 50 times more radiation, with isotopes similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Mohenjo Daro site. so clearly we can discount the soft meteorite impact hypothesis, especially when we read the testimony of eye witnesses in Ancient Histories.

I am glad to hear that later this year the Egyptian Dept. of Antiquities have announced they will be showing a live opening of the Secret Chamber inside the Great Pyramid. Hopefully Anti-Historians will not be able to corrupt the data yet again. These folk go to great lengths to burn down Libraries with embarrassing information. I suspect the Cruise Missile sent to blow up President Milosevich in 1999, who it was well known was NOT living in Tito's fantastic Library, was intended just to destroy the Library and not Slobodan Milosevich. It is speculation, but Andrew Carnegie was a great collector of Books, after he visited Kinnaird Castle in Brechin Angus Scotland, our Family home. It had one of Europe's finest Libraries before Andrew's generosity added priceless works to it. Then soon after an inexplicable fire broke out, and when the Fire Brigade from all around arrived. They had the wrong fire hoses. just a month before, A Fire Officer had been to Kinnaird Castle to ensure New Fire Hydrants were in Place, to comply with the new regulations. Satisfied that they were in place, he refused to allow the New Fire Hoses or even 'Adaptors' to be brought to the fire. Then when there was no smoke in the Library, He refused to allow folk into the Library to rescue millions worth of precious books. That was the Final Straw! We ignored the stupid twit, and recovered most of the books. Attempting to help, This same fire chief sent his lads in to help, Interestingly my grandfather noted that they only rescued bound periodicals of no value, like Illustrated London News. etc. Even when asked they refused to help carry a Gutenberg Bible for instance. If it's Old, don't touch it, seemed to be the orders. Mmmmmmm????? Anti-Historians? This incident inspired a work of science fiction "Farenheight 451"

".......This incident inspired a work of science fiction "Farenheight 451"

He He! A confession, Farenheit 451? ....Fahrenheit 451, but search engines will direct anybody making the same spelling mistake!....Tup Tut! "Wacky Science & Wacky Spelling"....but with a Wacky Scientific Purpose.

Postscript:- Oh All right then,.....I had better reveal to those who might be interested, that one of Scotland's most precious books was rescued from that dreadful fire. It's my personal favourite. A Treatise on Golf.

Abstract Synopsis;-

How to train your Hawk, Take one feathery golf ball and a golf club. Whack your ball as far as you can, Your Hawk will have been trained to pick up the ball and drop it down a pre-prepared hole, often marked with a flag. You walk up to the hole to retrieve your ball, dip your hand in and pull up an Egg, to the delight of your Pet Raptor. The hawk knows that only by dropping the magic egg down the hole, will provide a tasty meal.. Burning Books is criminal vandalism. History and precious knowledge is destroyed, Karl Sagan said it was the greatest crime of Humanity. The Science of Golf may not seem important, but to some folk it is!

Worlds worst loss - Alexandria library ? .

I know what Capt. F.H. Farmer would have said, Finsrud's Perpetuum Mobile Sculpture is a 'Great Work of Art' but it is also in a glass cabinet, lit by spot-lights, those in turn would create a toroidal circulation of air..... Those "Chaos Pendulums" He would want to know if they still waved about with the spot-lights turned off, probably several hundred watts of them at that. Granddad was no fool either.

...Those "Chaos Pendulums"...

Could go-on for amazingly long periods, alas, eventually slow down, subject to mother-nature's capricious nature.

If She was only a bit more forgiving, we could all have our way

Could go-on for amazingly long periods, alas, eventually slow down, subject to mother-nature's capricious nature.

Or maybe the hamster got tired

The one Alastair put, introduced there as a "perpetum mobile" was probably one of those long period (forty minute) moving contraptions. True, forty minutes is a bit shy of eternity, but impressive nevertheless. - Perpetual it's not, in any case (mother nature, you know).

Agreed . It's a fascinating clip to watch , but as you say no more than an elaborate pendulum . I once met somebody who had never seen magnets - the look on his face when I used one to draw another around inside a glass was amazing . I suspect we are all like that , in as much as ther are phenomena that can bewilder us if they are outside our growing-up process. I could read about magnetism all my life , but still find observation of it slightly surreal . No wonder ignorant mobs in the Middle Ages were keen on witch-burning. If you went back in time and showed them a modern lighter , you would probably be burnt at the stake .Xenophobia has to be one of the worst human traits , all the more so because it manifests itself within a mob. cnpower mentioned the Mpembe effect in another thread - it's interesting not just as a bit of science , but in dismissive reaction it provokes. The classic case of hysterical experts is the 'Monty Hall' problem and the response to the answer by the amateur Marilyn. I have wasted hours trying to persuade people that the solution by Marilyn is correct , but the counter-intuitivity of it is insurmountable for some . One day I'll get over my laziness and learn how to put in a link (I try to convince myself that people see more when they try to figure out what the heck I'm talking about ) . Look the Monty Hall one up though 'Co's it's very telling of human nature etc.

...very telling of human nature...

Yup, the cunning, restless, push-the-boundaries, little apes that we seem to be (Not that we are, God forbid)...

Thanks for the reminder Kris,

The Monty Hall dilemma was a classic, Robert Sachs, Ph.D, George Mason University, wrote:- "As a professional mathematician, I'm very concerned with the general public's lack of mathematical skills. Please help by confessing your error......WRONG! Robert Sachs was the person in error!

Scott Smith Ph.D. University of Florida wrote:- " You blew it and you blew it big! I'll explain: After the host reveals a goat, you now have a one-in-two chance of being correct. Whether you change your answer or not, the odds are the same. There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don't need the world's highest IQ propagating more. Shame!"..... WRONG again!

Professor E Ray Bobo Georgetown University, "You are utterly incorrect about the game show question, and I hope this controversy will call some public attention to the serious national crisis in mathematical education, If you can admit your error, you will have contributed constructively toward the solution to a deplorable situation. How many irate mathematicians are needed to get you to change your mind?"....WRONG again.

It's a beaut of a problem, and what is more 'Shills and Hucksters' have been working this scam for centuries. Mathematicians are their favourite target! They all go home broke! and never realise what utter idiots they are!

They fell like nine-pins eah ! The trouble is I read the saga before anybody posed me the question , so I shall never know if I would have fallen into the trap - phew. There are some cute carnival games that rely on quick mental binary math - the fun part is that the simplest of folk could develop the skill since it doesn't really hang on years of prior learning . The diversionary dressing is a bit like sending an apprentice for a left handed spanner. 'Can't see the wood for the trees' is a great phrase much employed by hustlers/politicians etc . Perhaps we should learn Python at skool -"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK......"

Thanks for the reference Alastair . There are so many topics that I have a woeful lack of knowledge in . It's slightly chilling that many problems come down to statistical analysis - dangling on the end of a confidence limit takes a measure of bravado . The ' unlikely' is certain to happen some time .Probability is not (to me) in any way intuitive - I can wrap myself in knots very easily (95% of the time).

>> "....dangling on the end of a confidence limit takes a measure of bravado..."

Very nicely put Kris, We can only ever be 'almost certain' of anything, probability only justifies our belief, we can be wrong.

Take the 'Identical Twin's' example; A Lady Teacher is introduced to a new school, she is not yet aware that two identical twins are in her new class. She sees one of the twins and then later sees the other in another room where both twins happen to be playing. Later she says to the twin she 'did not see in the room",.... "I saw you in the room a little time ago".... That twin, who at the time was playing hide and seek and saw her from his hiding place, says "Yes I saw you as well"...... This true statement is not actually 'symmetric' as the teacher did not see that particular twin, but the statement reinforces her misconception. Later on when the she sees both twins, only then, does the Teacher modify her judgement, recognising 'uncertainty'. Meanwhile the wrong twin who was hiding, also makes a false assumption, he may believe the new Teacher has X-Ray eyes!

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1935/chadwick-bio.html

Sir James Chadwick, who was head of the British Delegation to the American 'Manhattan Project' (He co-discovered the 'Neutron' with Rutherford, and was instrumental in forwarding the project, against a great deal of opposition. President Truman had to be kept entirely in the dark, as had he known, that in today's terms, Billions of Bucks were being 'Wasted' on such a speculative venture, he would have cancelled it immediately. The Manhattan Team were not even able to determine what the final yield would be, some anticipated much lower yields, at the start, some even feared it might ignite the atmosphere. I believe it was Professor Porter? who constructed piles of bricks at expanding radius, just in case the expensive monitoring equipment failed. (As indeed it did fail! due to the unexpected magnitude of the blast) They had to use the data from Porter's 'house-bricks', to calculate the yield.

"Bravado and dangling on the end of a wide confidence limit," writ large!

My dear old Grandfather Capt. Francis Hamilton Farmer, (The other Mr. Farmer AKA Enrico Fermi detonated Trinity point on his Jubilee Birthday July 16th 1945...ahem?)

warned me very early about a whole load of scams, such as 'Chain Letters' and the like. He told me, but did not call it Monty Hall, that it was one of the most dangerous 'Shill/Huckster' scams on the streets. The psychology is simple, as the pompous mathematician immediately suspects 'fraud' .....Then he is caught in the trap....the hucksters invite him to recover the losses he has made, but naturally as he has intimated that they! ......honest hucksters....are cheats, then he, the mathematician must go and buy a fresh pack of cards, and that 'he' will have complete control. Now as the gambling will be off the street in private, they know of a snug in a pub/whatever, the stakes can be much higher, and after they have cleaned out the dumb mathematician of cash, they willingly accept a cheque to whatever sum he cares to bet. as long as he writes his address on the back.......The lads come round later to arrange for his eviction, and put his effects up for auction, if the cheque bounces..... Like stealing candy from a kid, yet again.

Hi Kris:

In this link, you can see three different approaches (intuitive, mathematical, and via simulation) to proving that Marilyn was correct re the Monty Hall problem.

The simulator is perhaps the most convincing for die-hard skeptics, because you can run it one game at a time, and watch the probabilities, or let it run continuously, and see the numbers converge on a reasonable solution. (However, in the simulator, the "player" does not stick to a particular strategy, so his randomly switching strategies means that the worst he does is win 50% of the time, whereas if he consistently stuck with his first choice, he would have to win only 33% of the time.

(I suppose the simplest, and perhaps most intuitive solution is that if you do not switch, then you are clearly making a one in three choice: your probability can only be 33%. By switching, your odds can only improve. The non-mathematical might say, "Who cares by precisely how much the probability improves?)

Of course, I wish I had even a 33% chance of winning a new car! (I've awakened several thousand times and looked out the window to see if a new car was there, and so far, not once was one actually there!)

A famous chain of fast-food outlets is running a competition, each order gets a scratch card. A Jewish Lady shouts out "I have just won the top prize a New Motor-home! wow, I have always dreamed of owning one of those" The Manager says; "That's impossible, the highest prize is a small van".... "No" says the Lady, "It clearly states here that I have won a Motorhome!"...... "Let me see" Says the manager, and examines the scratch card, "You have scratched too hard Lady, that ticked should read, "Win a Bagel"..... Better enter more 'Win a Car' competitions Ken, and just put up with the postman delivering your mail in a sack. Thanks for the great analysis/explanation of the Marilyn vos Savant puzzle.

Thanks Ken. I resorted to writing a computer simulation , and was met with the response "the program must be wrong" ! Aaagh.

My reasoning was : It's more likely that the contestant has selected a door with a goat . This implies that the host is most likely left with the 1 goat/car option . He is more likely therefor to have to reveal the remaining goat (ie not the one you have probably picked as first selection) , and so the untouched door is hiding the car.Hence you change to the untouched door and collect a car ( in the 2/3 cases where initial choice is a goat).

Kris, I've often wondered about the 2/3 problem myself. The math makes sense, but (as you say) if you've picked the goat, that's about as low as you can go. However, everything being somewhat a winning situation, how do you figure in the intentions of the host? That goes beyond pure probability. A gun to the head I'm assuming would help.

survival ≠ Getting a laugh

Not sure I get your drift old chap/chapess . The host has no intent/choice (except when you have originally picked the 'car' door , and even then it makes no difference to the overall situation)- a computer chip could do his job (even a simple wiring set up ). My brain can't deal with that horrible probability notation , hence the more descriptive spoken one given . In once sense , the structure of the scenario inverts the odds in favour of the contestant (deceptively).

Ya know, I'm thinking that Monty Hall owned that game: Producer, director, and host!

So, what if Monty is having a bad day or he just doesn't like you or you seem to be an especially sympathetic contestant and wants to play you up. Under a stressful situation, I could see Monty having an affect on the outcome. All it would take is a sideways glance of the eyes to the wrong or correct door, "just 'cause he wants to mess with ya!!! " This brings psychology into the event. Which means all beats are off, and why poker is not just a game of probabilities, and why it's so damn interesting!

I have to agree with you there vermin, Poker is a damn interesting game. One quip I heard from a seasoned Poker Player, The Late Garry Lee, (CEO of Evolve Software Ltd. one of the first companies to produce Poker Software) "If you don't know who the sucker in the game is? go to the bathroom and look in the mirror" Garry told me how a Professional Poker player will always network, he knows who is at the table, and he also knows that a 'sucker' can be a valuable ally. Just as long as that sucker never cottons on.

The method used is to offload your winnings onto the 'sucker' at the right moment in the game. He then leaves the game with all the pot, feeling very happy. Naturally he has been invited to play again in less shark infested waters. An invitation that would never be extended to the other players. (Better company) Then he loses the previous gains. not all of it to the Professional Poker Player, he will want this 'sucker' invited back, again and again. Yes indeed, Poker is psychological as much as anything. This was the point raised by the Reverend Thomas Bayes, "Probability is also just a state of mind" or in other words "Psychological"......"Wacky Science?" again.

A gun to the head I'm assuming would help.

As the problem is sometimes presented, the function of the host is not completely clear. In effect, he does have a gun to his head: he must reveal a goat every time: intention has no part in it. By doing so, he is improving your odds of winning the car, if you always switch from your first answer.

I like Kris's explanation: 2/3 of the time, you will pick a goat on your first guess. (Even the dim-witted math PhD's will agree with that!) Therefore, 2/3 of the time, the host must reveal the other goat. At that point, the host has "told you" where the car is (2/3) of the time. You simply change your answer and you win the car. Provided the contestant knows to change his first guess, the contest is "rigged" in the contestant's favor.

The simulation I referenced above brings up another possibility (beyond always sticking to the first guess [33%] or always changing [66%]). Suppose that, given a second choice, the contestant simply chooses randomly: in other words, neither sticks with his first choice (33% chance of winning the car) nor switches (66% chance of winning the car): in other words, over time he picks one alternative half the time. You'd expect, then, that his probability of winning the car would be 50% (the average of the two probabilities). That is what the simulation does, and that is the number it converges upon for the "no strategy" alternative.

Suppose a second contestant takes over for the first after the first has made his first guess. The first contestant does not tell the second what his first guess was. Obviously, then the second contestant is faced with a simple choice between a car and a goat, and without benefit of knowing what the first guess was, his chances have to be 50%. Suppose the audience is full of PhD mathematicians who thought that paying attention to the first guess made no difference. Half will be shouting choose door B!" Half will be shouting choose door C!" The original contestant was allowed to sit in the audience, and he is shouting choose door "C," because he knows that he chose door B the first time. Unfortunately, his voice is drowned out, and the second contestant chooses at random, with a 50% chance of winning a car.

His luck is bad, and he wins the goat.

The next day, a two-week the famine comes, and he is able to slaughter the goat and feed himself for two weeks. All his friends attempt to eat car parts, and perish.

Nicely put ken . You have far better typing /explanation skills than I do . This would have made one of the most fascinating Challenge Questions ever if the audience was not primarily American (and thus not familiar with the problem).My acquaintance , who happens be a mathematical award winning engineer from Imperial college (!) , still does not accept it. There comes a point when you can say no more (other than "I'll make you a bet..").

As a general concept , inverting the problem or redefining it often helps . I like to think "if you don't know the answer , you haven't understood the question ". It certainly makes me feel better when I'm at a loss !

This would have made one of the most fascinating Challenge Questions ever if the audience was not primarily American (and thus not familiar with the problem).

I'd make a tiny edit to that:

This would have made one of the most fascinating Challenge Questions ever if the audience was not primarily American (and thus not familiar with the problem, math, or probability).

We should offer it up as a challenge question anyway! I'll propose it, and change the name of the problem, to make it a little more difficult to simply do a web search for the answer. Actually, we have a popular show here, "Deal or No Deal" which is probability-based, so that would be a good lead-in.

Propose it ken , it truly is a contender (credit to 'Marilyn I think) - the outcome will be a cr4 classic.

One condition - never mention 'Deal or no Deal' unless you are prepared to buy me a straight-jacket ! It sends me into fits of rage. I am already growing too annoyed to articulate these. "think positive" "I've got a feeling" "let's do a sweep". If I really wake up in hell ... Noel Edmund's has sunk to depths that no other could imagine. I am in severe need of coffee , catch you later Ken.

...I am already growing too annoyed to articulate these...

Think positive: A three-door challenge, all with a goat behind.

"Lower your expectation to avoid disappointment" is old wisdom of the disappointed, as in "I'm not a pessimistic, only an experienced optimist"

yeah , but they're more common than sheep round here if you know what I mean .

I remember asking you once: Why is the camel called "ship of the desert"?

Not that I'll give you a public reply. This is one secret safe with me.

I missed the humour Yuval ( as usual ) , but as the Welsh say of their flock - get 'em on the cliff edge and they push back harder ! (camel on a sand-dune is too much to picture . Though I do have a funny holiday experience with one...?)

...missed the humour Yuval ( as usual )...

Most do. It's a reminder to some nasty, never-to-become P.C. silly "conundrum" which I thought was originally British, therefore assumed you might already know it.

Don't mind me, I'm just being myself here.

Uhh ..... Ohhh!

I already submitted it with the title "xxxx or No xxxx"

Straight-jacket on the way -- I wasn't sure re size, so I ordered a "one-size gives fits to all."

straight jacket... No problem , it leaves room for the voices in my head.

"....My acquaintance , who happens be a mathematical award winning engineer from Imperial college (!) , still does not accept it. There comes a point when you can say no more (other than "I'll make you a bet..")....."

Fantastic news, Kris, we can have fun, your engineer chum, is just the same as quite possibly the greatest mathematician of recent times. Paul Erdo"s, Laura Vazsonyi (another Giant of mathematics) saw the light, and told Erdo"s the solution, "Switch Doors", after an hour Erdo"s came back really irritated!....'You are not telling me why to switch!' ....he said; There is a deep misconception about probability here, Physical Scientists seem to have this idea that somehow 'probability' is 'fused' in some way with the object, a coin for instance. They tend to think that a fair coin if tossed will generate on average, a 50/50 heads/tails result. If say a coin was tossed a thousand times, and it landed heads each time, (even a hundred times) then the Physical Scientist would attribute the extremely unlikely event to some property of the coin. about once every 1.267 x 10^30 [2^100) we could almost be certain a run of 100 heads or tails would occur. Take that shot of whisky from the bar, with a million million million million molecules in it. with an interaction every micro-second, as the clock ticks each second, a similar 50/50 one hundred 'chain' of metaphorical heads/tails events takes place, almost certainly before you have had time to drink it.

The game-show host, knows which box contains a car, and the two that contain goats, he will always be able to open a 'goat' door. To convince her readers, Marilyn vos Savant (Guinness Book of World Records 228 IQ) asked them to imagine a million doors, "You pick No1," she wrote, "Then the host, who knows what's behind the doors and will always avoid the one with the star prize, opens them all except door No 777,777, You'd switch to that door pretty fast, wouldn't you."....Still this was not enough to convince the Professors! Their letters became even more irate, even calling Marilyn a stupid nanny goat, saying that women were incapable of logical thought, etc. their brains were wired differently.

The Bayesian view of probability, differs from the view of those Physical scientists who conceive of 'probability' being 'attached' to certain things. Bayesian probability allows for 'upgrade' of information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability

Good old Reverend Thomas Bayes (1702 - 1761), has a lot to teach us. The classic Ramsay Problem, that can be phrased in terms of 'guests at a party' "What is the minimum number of guests that need to be invited so that at least three guests will all know each other or at least three will be mutual strangers?" (The relationship 'mutual knowing' or alternatively 'mutual stranger' is naturally 'symmetric') despite the permutations being 32,768, you can show that a party of five is not enough, the required quorum can be shown not to work (sometimes called the Minimal Criminal Proof) For a foursome, after years of struggle by Ramsay Theorists, 18 was determined to be a necessary and sufficient number of guests. Somewhere between 43 & 49, is the current answer for a 'five-some'. They don't make computers large enough yet!

Now think quantum communications, and photons that are paired, i.e. they have the same axis of rotation/whatever. We now know that this relationship at the detecting end, may not be symetric,.....My poor brain has blown many a fuse trying to calculate just the 'threesome' Ramsay Problem, where knowing and stranger, is not mutual. the relationship might be asymmetric? How many guests are required then? "Big Deal" one might say, but the implications for the quantity of data that could possibly be sent down fibre-optic cables is huge. We have arrived at "The Wacky Science Frontier" It's like the Good Ol Wild West beyond. Careful how you go, that Blacksmith is also the Preacher, and a Hanging Judge!

Are you forgetting Bernoulli?

Ah! Bernoulli Triangles, vermin,

Simply inspirational, check out:- http://www.undercoverexperience.co.uk/lolran.htm

Schrodinger of the "Atomic Random Explosive Device with Cat in a Box." fame wrote a marvelous book, "What is Life" that I have yet to find a copy of to read, but here is the gist from Wikipedia. In the UK we call cats, pussy. The Bernoulli Triangle link may be related. After all, where life comes from must enter the equation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_Life%3F_%28Schrodinger%29

...In the UK we call cats...

"Pussy Galore" from Bond's whichever, I just cannot recall now:

James Bond arrives in Moscow at night, right into a sleazy bar. Approaches the barman with: "I'm Bond. James Bond, how are you?" Barman replies: "I'm Gay. Sir Gay. I'm fine thank you"

I presume you checked the Bernoulli Triangle link then Yuval, This is no laughing matter, There is a very serious project underway, about as "Wacky Science" as you can get, but science all the same. Let's call it the James Bond G-String Project, Licenced to thrill. As we know a bullet fired at 11,200 meters per second out of James Bond's gun, will fly round the world and hit him in the back, about half a minute short of the full hour later, but James knows not to stay still that long, he has nearly a whole hour to chat up Pussy Galore. "Q" has developed a zero-friction bullet, so we can discount air friction.

The purpose of this 'Top Secret' mission is to test the "G-String"., a mission James Bond willingly volunteered for. The "G-String" is a special carbon nano-fibre hollow string/tube, with triangular pieces of fabric attached......honest, would a man of the cloth tell a whopper?......A Fleet of Aircraft await "M's" orders. they will fly an Equatorial path. all going East. The number of Aircraft is still top secret. but each one is a large transport plane. Out of the back of each one, a G-string will be payed out, call it "Flying a Kite" if you like. The kite naturally has it's own avionics, flaps, etc.

There are sufficient of the large transport planes to pay out over 40,000 kilometers of this special G-string tube. (Do the sums) When all the aircraft are nose to kite-tail, so to speak, the sections of G-string are connected, Then the power is switched on, inside the G-String tube, are countless bullets, magnetically driven and suspended. we know that, the number of Joules required for a kilo mass to reach say 31,623 meters per second is about a billion, or a Giga-Watt Second. 3600 kilos would need a full Giga-watt hour. or a million units of electricity. Needless to say the G-string is evacuated.

The specifications have yet to be finalised, but this Anti-Gravity string/cable should theoretically reach outer space very rapidly.

http://www.thespacereview.com/index.html

Quote:- "Last week Robert Bigelow took the wraps off his company's business plan, revealing the types of customers he was targeting, the services he would offer, and the prices he planned to charge. Jeff Foust dissects the details of Bigelow's plans and the challenges he faces in implementing them.
Monday, April 16, 2007" .......Q James Bond Theme Music.

Errata:- a giga-watt hour assumes 50% efficiency. also let's not forget the need of cross-counter rotation for those internal bullets, otherwise action-n-reaction problems arise.

"Schrödinger concludes this chapter and the book with philosophical speculations on determinism, free will, and the mystery of human consciousness. He is sympathetic to the view, common in Indian mysticism, that each individual's consciousness is only a manifestation of a unitary consciousness pervading the universe."

I had a feeling he'd say that (despite the delightful diversion of Lola) !

Pussy Galore , Yuval , was in Goldfinger I think (where she ran a sky-diving School ) The one where Auric wanted to raid Fort Knox.

Thanks for the information Kris,

Erwin Schroedinger's astute anticipation of DNA, cited bt Francis Crick himself as the best........Quote:- "....... theoretical description, before the actual discovery of DNA, of how genetic storage would work. In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds."....Is fairly impressive, would you not concur. Bonds you see, James Bonds, all that nooky/exercise with Dolly Birds has inevitable consequences, In Scotland their Coat of Arms would display a Bar 'Chequey' Sinister. denoting the fore-title "Fitz" to the surname Bond. or Fitzbond. If the Wee Fitzbond was conceived after a formal dance, the Bar may be 'Dancy' not 'Chequey', A fine distinction. That G-string link has top secret hyperlinks, here is one of them :- http://www.secretsommelier.com/public/ which will hyperlink to this :- http://bushclintonkatrinafund.org/?goog Don't forget the mystic power of Isabel, Countess of Erroll, and Wife to "M" , she can summon pentagon's to the hurricane's eye. Now that has to be magic. Check "M's" Birthday Blog for the 20th April.

Here, in the US (as in the UK, I think), a nickname for Priscilla is Pussy. One of my mother's friends, nicknamed "Pussy" married a James Breed. Pussy Breed always seemed to me to be an unfortunate name.

On the subject of names, Alastair: In Pittsburgh, there are many references to Carnegie. In New York, there is Carnegie Hall. New Yorkers say "car' nuh gee." Pittsburghers say "car nay' gee." Who is right?

If ever there were a whacky scientist, the designer of human reproduction would have to be right up there with the whackiest. Even the governing "equation" itself has been generally accepted to be an inequality, has it not?

Hi ken, lovely bit of information, one of my children's Aunts is named Priscilla and her pet family name is Poosey. Now I know why. thanks. You asked, "in New York, there is Carnegie Hall. New Yorkers say "car' nuh gee." Pittsburghers say "car nay' gee." Who is right? "

Strictly speaking neither. but Pittsburghers are closest. In Scotland they address me as "K'neggie" with just the slightest hint of a 'rolled' 'r' twixt the 'abbreviated 'K' for "car", it sounds a bit like "Kir" as the Scots say "Kirk", and the 'ne' in neggie is similar to what you correctly describes as "nay" ...g as in gun, not gee-whiz.

Woof!!! That's an awful small piece of cloth for an awful lot of money! I noticed they were in British Pounds! Strange, though, they somehow seemed worth it. Left a tang in me mouth!

Actually, I was talking about Bernoulli's principle regarding probability. The one where he says "a coin will give exact 50/50 odds, but you have to flip it an infinite number of times." as i > ∞

Sorry vermin,

The James Bond prompt, was far too tempting to resist, what with the recent movie launch. There is an Engineering relevance, now that a Movie Blockbuster, can cost half a billion bucks to make, a lot of that money is spent on sets that have to be engineered. Films set in the future have to look convincing, otherwise they date very fast. Kids are very technologically savvy.

Indeed Bernoulli's principle does introduce a 'mystical' component into probability, with the concept of 'infinity'. Probability goes from zero to infinity, so to speak. a non toss of a coin, or zero toss is total uncertainty, an infinite number of tosses is total certainty. Note carefully that you can conceive of a negative number of tosses, as in the expression "let's toss a coin, best of three" and after one or two tosses, a toss still remains. or does it? if it lands heads or tails the first two times, then the third toss is cancelled.

This statement may seem 'trite', but from simple little statements, powerful theories have arisen. This is the Wacky Science Forum here. not the Non-Science Forum. That would be an interesting thread on it's own. The overlap in 'Set Theory' of Science and Non-Science, is the area under debate/dispute. may I propose that the exact boundary is out of focus and slightly fuzzy.......Some so-called main-stream concepts, may actually be non-science. With charitable intent, (browsers from the world of alternative technology with money to burn, might be tempted to go to the Bush/Clinton Hurricane Relief Foundation. They might get lucky?) Just as pure luck determined that a 'pentagon' formed in the centre of Hurricane Isobel..... but the odds were not ZERO, as there was a mechanism. A mechanism for which a simple computer algorithm exists. Take two computer numerical stores 'A' & 'B', Enter a value for 'A' (i.e. 1), Set a return point #R, ....Ent A. #R: 'A' = 'A' +'B': 'A' = 'B' - 'A': Print 'A' : Goto #R. if you enter the value 1, then the print-out will be 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,1597,2584,4181,6765,10946,17711, etc. the series is asymptotic to The ratio 'Phi' "1.6180339887498948482045868343656 or half (the square root of five plus one). Hurricane Isobel may be the result of butterfly effect imperceptible changes to the 'chaos' data-set, but a process is involved. how else could a pentagon form? or was it 'Witchcraft'? only girls are allowed to bewitch. hence my own Bernoulli Triangle link. There is a lot of pseudo-science out on the net, this looks like some here:-

But do the same rules apply at the nano-scale, as apply at the macro-scale? Real Science is about finding out, not glib dismissal. Woof Woof!

Just a quicky ( the occasional one is good ) - Fibonacci should carry some kind of warning (of a Faustian type ) , or at least a quick look at the volumes of Fibonacci Quarterly be recommended. The relevance of rabbit breeding goes on forever .

If you think that a pentagon appearing in the center of a hurricane is interesting, check out this image of an exploding star. This is not a made up picture. The star really looks like this!

Thanks Vermin.

That reminds me of a Bose Quantum Vortex...."Well Cool "as we say in Pendle Witch Country Lancashire.

...The star really looks like this!...

April is probably full of... SURPRISES!... What?... I wasn't gonna...

Vermin! Are you having your daily fun with us?

This must be an optical aberration. A star must be spherical because of the reaction's geometry.

Isn't it? Now I'm not sure anymore... You being yourself, manage to appear so convincing. An attribute no doubt, or is it?

What? What did I say? Aberration? is this foul?

http://www.space.com

Search on "square star." The astrophysicists have a reason why this happened. Check it out.

You're good!

How did you come across it?

Although a nebula, it is indeed impressively rare case of symmetrical explosion, according to this article, folks, credit the man. He's vermingly right!

Great Link V,

Gone straight to my favourites under "Quantum Vortex" File.

Better give 'credit' where credit is due, to where I picked up my "Quantum Vortex" formula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vortex

Now follow the mathematical extrapolations, "boootiful!" as they say in Norfolk!

BTW. Alfred B. Ford & Mary Gregg, (Henry's brother) would like to post the picture above, painted by their friend Visnu Dasa in 1990, entitled "The All Attractive Couple" Lord Krishna and Radha ji, His Consort, Mr. & Mrs. God. as Hindus see it. The Lady on the right is the Artist who designed the Cosmos, as a gift to Her Beloved. Also for The Gurkha Signals (Hindu) and especially Merlin Hay's Man Friday "PV" (135th Gurkha Rifles. P.S. 59 Birthday bumps 4 the Boss today)

If I recall, this was taken by a Cornell guy, in the morning. While adding sugar to his coffee, a sugar grain fell on the telescope mirror, producing this interesting refraction effect.

Vermin,

How do we get to give you 500 bumps. like Birthday-bumps. Looking through your many fabulous contributions, This one has to be the GEM! a Ruby of great price.

Sorry for so many verbose posts here, some slightly off topic. There is a reason. There needs to be some camouflage, as we have sailed quite close to the wind at times. Gemstones need to be set among precious metal. The humour and wit presented here by all the contributers, in my view fills that criterion very nicely.

Wacky Science, is it a hoax? we were asked. Probably most of the time it is a hoax, The rare gems that are not hoaxes, are well worth investigating.

That's an awful small piece of cloth for an awful lot of money!

What would Keynes say? It's not that the cloth is rare, after all. I think I'm going to get into the business of making these things. Imagine the board meetings:

J.B.: I'm afraid our competition is outselling us because their G-strings are skimpier than ours. What can we do?

Biff: Could we make ours smaller?

J.B.: Gosh, I don't know. That would drive our material costs down, and I'm afraid that would increase our profits. That would mean we'd pay more taxes. That can't be good, can it?

Biff: I wonder if we could eliminate the cloth altogether? That would mean we could sell them for even more.

J.B.: You seem to be missing the point. What would we do with the excess money?

...

Ken, allow me to stop crying, I can't see the screen for laughing! I think this issue relates to 'packaging' ......click the picture and admire the 'product'....ahem! if I can be so gauche and tactlessly non-PC. Now how could an enchantress really say she is 'clothed' in these garments, 'decorated' would be a more justifiable description. When Merlin Hay interviewed me for chaplaincy. Poor man, the matter had been thrust upon him. I had jumped through all the hoops, he knew that I was an anointed Roman Catholic, with vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. "As long as you are not a "xxxxxxx" prude Alastair, I suppose we can cope." (extemporised).

I think with all this Global Warming etc., a good selling point would be to emphasise the ecological benefits of thrifty use of scarce resources. Less is definitely more here, no oxymoron. I was orphaned at a young age, and was raised by grandparents who kept strict Victorian sensibilities. I regarded the commandment to "Go forth and multiply" as an instruction to pay extra attention to my mathematical studies. When we went to the Movies, I had to cover my eyes (and I did) if ever there was a screen kiss. "Prude???" ...Merlin, if you are reading this on the 20th instant, Firstly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY...second; you have no idea what the meaning of the word 'prude' means to me? A prude is somebody who faints at the sight of an uncovered table leg. My dear Aunt Jean, once invited a friend round for tea, and asked if she would care for a small glass of sherry. "Oh!" said the friend, "I had no idea you drank?" with a stern look of contempt.

I think I first saw the cartoon below at my fathers' retirement home (aka old folks home).

It was captioned "Proof of Global Warming"

I'd credit it, if I knew where it came from. Just now I entered six or so words into Google, and to my surprise it was on the first site listed. (Maybe it originated there?)

...hamster got tired...

In the broad picture, it's really, basically, the same.

Even a hamster is a thermodynamical system.

It, too, needs to import some form of energy into the system, to continue. No escape. Not even for the humble hamster.

Dear Laurence Gardener, a competent 'Revisionist Historian' but out of his depth on Science, (Would you allow a plumber to perform Heart Surgery? even though he was an expert on 'pumps-plumbing'?)

That's Laurence Gardener for you. You wanted Wacky Science?.......You got it here in droves!

I'll have to find time for a good look at this . If someone looks down a microscope far enough , I wonder if they will see someone looking back with a telescope (and vice versa of course ) . How on earth do you find all these terrific links Alastair ?

Fun thou it was trying to watch the whole of this streaming movie (I didn't get very far), could you perhaps summarise what he was on about. I got something about gold turning into exotic monotonic dust, ever changing laws of science and the universe and some link to religion and the ark (the ant was pretty neat thou). I am going to throw out a guess and say he was trying to eventually prove an argument based on the fact that it cannot be proven, so therefore it could have happened (existence of the golden ark perhaps).

Why does this remind me of a recent episode of the Simpsons (on teaching creationism in schools) where the church put forward an impartial witness to testify in court. He was a minister with a degree in "Trutholgy".

Big boy book version with the big pictures please for those of us with little bandwidth and/or patience.

I have had fairly good reports from folk that have known Laurence Gardner, he is a great lecturer, but I feel far too trusting. This White Gold, for instance, take it to a Goldsmith, and he will show you the door, NO GOLD present. This sounds like a scam to me. It's so pure and refined, he enthuses, the analysis can't detect it|? Oh yeah!

Next we will see Laurence in his underpants, telling us his clothes are woven from such fine thread, that only very wise people can see it. and his tailor told him the threads were mono-atomic gold.

The trick is to sort the wheat from the chaff, there might be some very important information from ancient civilizations that would be of immense benefit to us today. That may take years of dedicated scholarship to unearth. These folk are our Ancestors, everybody should be at least a little interested.

...It's so pure and refined, he enthuses, the analysis can't detect it|? Oh yeah!...

Not unlike the Homeopathic claim: the more it is diluted, the more potent it becomes...

I was under the impression that no mater how diluted it became, the result could be the same (not better), even thou it shouldn't be. Scientific tests have actually proven it.

One of those bizarre things. There is a link somewhere to her research.

Here is a main overview of a similar phenomenon - the Placebo effect

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060630_placebo.html

And an additional one from the other side of the fence (ie- why you should not just rely on the Placebo effect alone).

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060407_quack_clinics.html

I've got on of those plastic pyramids - I never have to sharpen razor blades and it preserves food . It's true because people like Lyell Watson said so. Got to dash , the shaving rash itches and I have bad diarrh...

...Historical Nuclear Explosions in India.

I had a rather late , and strange , thought . One School of reasoning suggests we could deal with nuclear waste by chucking it into subduction zones where tectonic plates meet , and here are claims of ancient nuclear type activity at a tectonic boundary under India . I bet that Eric von Daniken would have an interesting explanation for that - God was not just an Astronaut etc .

http://levity.com/eschaton/timemachine.html

Google video - Elizabeth Bradley

christine.lodge@oxford.anglican.org,

(For the Retired Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries)

consular@german-embassy.org.uk For The "Classified" (Ultra Top Secret) Peenemunde "Time Delay Glass" Data/Files (Also at Kew) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peenem%C3%BCnde

Course Description
Explores nonlinear dynamics and chaos theoretically and through computer simulations. Covers standard computational and analytical tools used in nonlinear dynamics and concludes with an overview of leading-edge chaos research. Topics: Time and phase-space dynamics, surfaces of section, bifurcation diagrams, fractal dimension, and Lyapunov exponents. Important Note: This course requires individual student presentations during the last week of the semester. When possible, distance students should come to campus to give their presentations in the classroom. Otherwise, students at a distance from campus may videotape their presentation and send in the videotape for viewing by the class.

Hi Yuval,

Watch Professor Elizabeth Bradley's Lecture, and Then Play again with the Java Pendulum Toy.

Enjoy CR4, "The Stairway to Heaven" is about to be climbed.

This journey may take many lifetimes, so prepare yourselves with a little music, by watching and listening to this lady play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt_PYw0R_i8&NR=1

That piano's a WOW . Is it just me , or do the left hand notes not sync . No matter , she's certainly a prodigy. How do so many well known (and lesser ) people have such a precocious talent. Such people leave me feeling surplus to requirement. I wonder if they lack/loose some other faculty , to achieve a few astonishing ones. Reminds me of the 2 youngsters with an astonishing ability with primes (until the intervention of the social engineers who decided fitting in was more important than inner happiness). If I wasn't reminded of pendulums I'd be depressed.

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

Quote:-

• "The Twins" - about autistic savants. Dr. Sacks tries to connect with twin brothers by joining their game of finding very large prime numbers. He cheats and uses a book; neither of them can read or even do multiplication. They instantly count 111 dropped matches simultaneously noticing that 111 is three 37s. This event, with toothpicks in place of matches, and other of Dr. Sacks's observations on autistic savants^{[citation needed]}, were used in the film Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman.

Thank Alastair . I read the 'Man that....' book but had forgotten that's where I'd come across the story (It is referenced quite a lot). The 'Rain Man' guy has been on TV a lot (I think he even spoke at Cambridge )- again daft me can't remember his name offhand. There is a very insightful novel called 'The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night ' - http://www.mostlyfiction.com/contemp/haddon.htm

As you can imagine I have info on this topic stuffed away all over the place. Another good read is http://www.amazon.com/Newtons-Madness-Further-Clinical-Neurology/dp/0060162562

Ah , the rain-man commeth back to me; http://www.amazon.com/Newtons-Madness-Further-Clinical-Neurology/dp/0060162562

The simulator in your link is great fun to play with. I'd found this site some time ago, and then lost it, so am glad you posted the link. Upside down pendulums are fun to play with too.

Thanks Ken, I liked the "Jack the Dripper" (Jackson Pollock) Arty-Farty Possibilities.

Wow! if only I could drip paint all over an 8' x4' sheet of builders fibreboard and sell it for $75,000,000 . I wonder if he was ahead of his time? anticipating Chaos Theory? Zero Point Energy? and stuff.

Here is a good link,

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=b000108_sp_zeropoint

Very professional presentation on zero point energy, for those interested.

Hi Alastair:

In another thread, Europium offered this, which can only be taken as proof positive of the existence of zero point energy.

We secretly conspired to perpetrate a fraud based on this diagram (although we'd collect no money -- so it wouldn't qualify as real fraud, just mischief).

By analogy, the diagram clearly shows how "over-unity" machines can work: conventional thinking dictates that these two diagrams must be of the same area, but obviously they are not. The extra area in the lower diagram is just like free energy -- you simply need to know where to look for it. Based upon the special geometries discovered by Europium, we are now building a generator that (by fitting extra coils into the space normally occupied by standard generator coils) generates at just over 100% efficiency: In fact, its generating efficiency (as a percentage) is actually slightly over the ratio of areas of these two diagrams (due to the 3D extrapolation elucidated below).

For non-believers, we will be building a permanent magnet generator. In it, the "extra space" will be filled by permanent magnets. Clearly (and completely obviously), this new generator will produce just enough higher efficiency than the best current generators to put it significantly over unity.

Europium has discovered additional geometries (which he is keeping under wraps, for now) that expand this "extra space" concept to almost 15% over unity in area. As scientists know, by extrapolating this two-dimensional gain into three dimensions, the volume gain is then 1.15 x 1.15 or 1.3225. Europium believes that this ratio cannot go beyond phi (1.618) even with future refinements, but even 1.3225 is very impressive, and would enable anyone to set up a series bank of such generators, each run from the last through efficient electric motors.

Many motors are now available with greater than 95% efficiency, so even then, the system efficiency would be about 25% over unity, per generator-motor pair, and therefore, limitless in series. Thus, anyone could generate enough electricity, for free, to supply a neighborhood, or a city. (Naysayers would say: "Well, don't you need at least a 5 HP gas engine to run the first generator?" To that, we would say "Good observation! You will need to invest in the 5HP engine, and as many generator-motor sets as you like, but you can see that, by selling the electricity, you can recoup the investment in less than a month.")

My Psychic Antenae, were pre-prepared for this. Prepare for the Higgs Boson, emerging from the Lorenz Attractor actuated by the Cornell-Weiman Lamda density discontinuity in the Quantum Vortex of the Bose-Einstein Condensate,

Check out:-

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall2003.web.dir/Rodney_Guritz%20Folder/becondensate.htm

A word of caution, Pythagoras had students who made fun of mathematics executed.

We know that a series of "Pythagorean Triangles' exists. 3.4.5, for instance. 5,12,13. is the next one. There is a simple algorithm that generates these triangles. nowhere in this series of right-angled triangles is the hypotenuse smaller than the base. Merlin, .....When shall I be required to perform the 'Last Rights'? I insist they go to heaven after they drink the poison prescribed. I believe the feet go numb first, then the legs, next the thighs, and after that there is very little time left to play silly buffoons with mathematics. 100% is the only mark acceptable in my class. Jake Marshal just got second place out of a snap national mathematics exam. They both got 100%, But Jake did not show all his workings, subsequently losing out. Try harder next time Jake, if you are reading this. (Copy to Mum) but congratulations all the same! (being second out of the entire UK is not so bad)

BTW, for anyone still awake and following this thread: It's fun to cut out (from graph paper) the triangles above, so they can be rearranged as shown. Good practice for geometry students. Also good for getting puzzled looks from many geometry teachers.

"BTW, for anyone still awake and following this thread: It's fun to cut out (from graph paper) the triangles above, ...."

Why waste good graph paper? as Major Pennington (he may be a Colonel by now?) of The Dept. of Military Survey, will doubtless not object to revealing one of Great Britain's most closely guarded secrets. especially on The Occasion of The Knight Marshal of Scotland's Birthday.....but being a little 'Cryptic', all the same.

Why not?

Cut up an Old Ordnance Survey Map.

Check out the British Museum for The Lord Townley Bequest, and start from there.

Sir Isaac Newton always referred to Boyle's Law as "My Lord Townley's Hypothesis"

There are two intersecting Roman Roads just south of the Town where the Noble Lord unearthed the then greatest Roman Treasure, bequest-ed to any Museum.

A 13 mile square??? a well in the Centre named "Walloper Well"....????

A drinking trough at bottom right hand corner?

Roman Milestones at all salient points.

Apologies to Dr. Clarey, Prints and Maps, at the British Museum, sorry you had to fork out £50,000,000 at Leominster, and again near Thomas Payne's Pad with another £50,000,000. You were very kind to set the Treasure Trove at so modest and agreeable sum, we did not want to argue the toss. and to go higher, we would have recouped far too much in Insurance premiums.

5 x 12 x 13 Eh! Saint Francis had need of the dosh!

5 x 12 x 13 Eh! Saint Francis had need of the dosh!

This one would be closer to the well known 5 x 13 x √194.

Chuckle.....Cryptic Eh!....I hope you did not use a calculator! but it might help to solve this one?.... (Not open to the General Public.) Prizes all the same. contact the AIC.

I've sworn off calculators. Fortunately, in this case, all the areas of the littles pieces are integer values: 5,7,8 and 12. I think that adds up to 32... or 33. It can be shown, after all, that .999r is really 1, so what's one digit?

Well Ken,

How can I resist? one more to go eh?

That Ordnance Survey Map of Ribchester, It's very interesting, The two Roman roads intersect at near perfect right angles,

One of those Roads is the A999, ......ooops turn that upside down.

The Roman road that goes North and South is interesting as well, You can throw a 'Great Circle' all the way round and back again. It passes through some very interesting places on our Planet. Just south of Lancaster, middle stump/rifle shot, on the "Lay" line, is The Scot's Marker Cairn. A third Roman Road......I will spoil the surprise...... My lips are sealed.

Ahhh, the Ribble. Does it dribble or rush? I'm sad to say that we seem to have very good resolution satellite imagery of the area. That usually means we're thinking of doing some bombing there. Any reason why King George would be displeased with someone from the region?

Please send money for furtherance of our zero-point machine.

Well Ken, For your Millennium, This is a rather poor photo, the light is fading here in UK tonight, I have just snapped it. It is a Painting I completed in about five hours, back in the summer of 1987, staying at James Cecil Scot Moores's Pad in Noting Hill. Sir John Moore's Grandson. The painting is derived from a book "Islamic Patterns",

By Keith Critchlow, an analytical ans cosmological approach, with Forward by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Page 95. The Title is "Govinda Jai Jai" (Dedicated to Alfred B. Ford AKA His Divine Grace Ambarisa Dasa and Mary Clegg)

Monty Python Comedy Production, "The Life of Brian" Scripted partly by the Royal Chaplaincy and Cambridge Footlights Theatre, was funded by George Harrison.

That picture is entrancing . 'kurma the frog' - a variant on karma or korma ?! I had a nice Shakti album once , but forgot the title of it- a scan of the net revealed nothing that jogged the mind . That'll teach me to remember titles.

For Ambararisa Dasa !

Please Forward to:- Robert Strange McNamara, & Dandavats Praphu.

With Love from Vivisvan Dasa.

Title "The Ford is my Motor"