Are we using Alien Technology?

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Sure. There always existed persons who said we were reaching or had already reached our scientific limits (and doomsayers always sold well :wink: )...
As an example (an historical joke) one "chief inventor" (or a similar job) of queen Victoria resigned arguing that everything that was to be invented had already been discovered (an honest public servant).
Personaly I don't think we are going all that fast, maybe on the opposite - if you see "future thinking" literature (AKA science fiction) of the middle of the century we should be living in a Jetsons environment by the turn of the century. Maybe the writers were overly optimistic regarding technical advancement, but we are not advancing all that fast.
What are the limits of science and human ability? We'll find out when we get there but, I would say, not in this millenium...

How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
 
"gravity will decelerate us from our velocity as long as we don't reach solar escape velocity (I don't know what this is, but it's the same principle as launching things into orbit.... if you don't go fast enough you'll come right back down). the son's gravity reaches out much furthur than pluto (note: comets exist out past pluto but aren't going fast enough to break solar escape velocity so they keep cming back). so it would still be able to slow us down."

Don't we allready have solar escape velocity, since we are not falling into it?
 
Well put, but the heliocentrism was the deed of Corpenicus, not Galileo (a great man nontheless) (to be accurate there was a greek dude that had sugested the same some 2000 years before, but Copernicus was the first to make a good argument for it). And despite church opposition, Galileo's ideas and work had imediate effect on the society and philosophy in general - although it took some time (and a genius) to create the newtonian physics - in the meantime, the observations and work of a myriad of "scientist" were invaluable to its creation.



How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
 
That would be cool to have an ion drive in a jet car (ion drives are much more powerful and effecient)

--
It's Princess Leia, the yodel of my life. Give me my sweater back or I'll play the guitar.
 
Heh heh...that'd be funny...

But I'd still rather have my V8 push-rod chevy small block... =) I love gas powered deep throaty sounding V8's......and the torque....oh baby.... =) heh heh

-MeTaL RoCkEr
My <font color=red> Z28 </font color=red> can take your <font color=blue> P4 </font color=blue> off the line!
 
Gas = Pollution. If ion drives can be produced safely and used safely in cars then an ion drives will power the cars of the future. However, I believe Hydrogen will come first. So cars will basically be water powered and release oxygen as exhaust.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
Hey that would be very kewl, cuz than we'd never run out of oxygen, but there would be major performance hits (like 0-60mph or 1/4 mile times) obviously better for the environemnt.......but than we'd all be driving Honda and Toyota Hybrid looking cars.......man are those things ever UGLY.....

Still, I'll stickw ith my old fashioned gas powered torque monster =)

-MeTaL RoCkEr
My <font color=red> Z28 </font color=red> can take your <font color=blue> P4 </font color=blue> off the line!
 
Hmm, they don't look that bad. It's just that they are all hatchbacks. A hybrid sedan or sports coupe would be nice.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
Problem with ion drives is, for them to generate enough thrust to overcome friction etc in a car, you would have to be spewing leathal amounts of radiation out your backside, nice for driving, but you wouldnt want to be behind one in traffic.

~Matisaro~
"Friends don't let friends buy Pentiums"
~Tbird1.3@1.55~
 
The keys to technological advancement were

1. Transportation. Inventions and information could be moved and were not stuck a single locale.

2. Communications. I think printed books had a lot to do with the rise of technology. Information could be stored and shared with large numbers of people where formerly it could not. Now we have computers with nearly unlimited access to information. Information on nearly every form of invention is available to anyone, (well anyone with internet access). With the free flow of information no one has to reinvent things from scratch. One can simply build upon what already exists.
 
maybe not .. can ya Jibe em ?? or luff the spinnaker .. more importantly can ya reef em for solar storms so ya don't broach

Lagger

<b><font color=blue>Never try to idiot proof anything..God will always make a better Idiot </b> </font color=blue>
 
I didn't think it let off radiation? There were people in the test chamber in the program Deep Space 1. Also wouldn't the radiation affect the electronics equipment onboard.....

--
It's Princess Leia, the yodel of my life. Give me my sweater back or I'll play the guitar.
 
hydrogen + oxygen = explosion that is much more powerful than gas.
problem would be keeping it together, intense pressures, seriously intense heat...
I think there is still a way to go with dino juice... detonation is capable of 10-15 times more powerful than the controlled explosion.
again, it comes back to keeping it together.

----------------------
Independant thought is good.
It won't hurt for long.
 
Actually that's about the stupidest thing I've heard spouted, and it's been spouted for longer than I've been alive. The exhaust would actually be water, not oxygen, and the hydrogen would have to be manufactured, as in electrolysis, as in using energy from another source, such as a power plant. And until we find enough space for all those huge wind or solar powered plants, that means burning fuel to make fuel.
Hydrogen engines have actually been around since before gasonline or diesel engines. But there's a problem besides producing it-containing it. Hydrogen is a gas, you can compress it, but even at around 100PSI a 10gallon canister would only take you a few miles. You can liquify it, but then you have to vent it in order to keep it cool, which is a severe fire hazard. And the pressures of liquified hydrogen at room temp are huge, your canister would have to be over half an inch thick to survive the pressure. And any damage to the vehicle could result in an explosion large enough to take out several vehicles just bey percussion, pus the big ball of flames that would follow.
No there is a technology that can covert hydrocarbons to electricty through a chemical process that does not involve expansion of gases. It's called Fuel Cell technology and is already in use for home and industrial fule cells. The process is much more efficient than what happens in an internal combustion engine, and results in fewer Oxides of Nitrogen. You still take in air, but the Nitrogen in the air is no longer part of the reaction. The hydrogen is chemically combined in to water, the carbon into CO2, with no CO emissions either. Now CO2 is going to be part of it, but right now there is no simple way around that. Water can't be used because it takes as much energy to break apart the bonds in water as you can extract from water, and since there in no perfect process, you will loose some energy (heat) to the surrounding environment. What this means is that you produce less energy thatn you consume, and therefor have no excess energy with which to propell the car. To say otherwise would be to violate a simple law of physics-energy cannot be created nor destroyed. And there is no stored chemical energy in Water.

I'm so tired of cookies I'd settle for spam!
 
Why can't a battery do that? The water would be used as the fuel then the car would, via electrolysis, split the water to hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would be compressed and controllably ignited to power the car, while the oxygen would be the by-product. I've read about it before, but I can't remember where. The problem is it's too risky right now. The chances of an explosive are too great.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
"The water would be used as the fuel then the car would, via electrolysis, split the water to hydrogen and oxygen."

How do you generate the electricity required to do this? Via the standard nuclear and coal burning power plants? I thought so.


"The hydrogen would be compressed and controllably ignited to power the car, while the oxygen would be the by-product."

The process of burning something is to chemically combine it with oxygen. You would simply be turning the hydrogen back into water. Thus, you started with water, separated the molecules, and combined them back together. You gained nothing. In fact you lost a great deal of energy due to heat dissipation. You end up spending X units of energy to break apart the molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and then gain back X/2 units of energy by burning the hydrogen. It would be more efficient to simply use all X units of energy to directly power the vehicle as an electric vehicle. Though you'd still have the pollution issue. The generation of electricity to power these vehicles pollutes a great deal.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
Yes, but probably not right now.

Things (oddly as it seems) are still fairly simple right now (meaning things are complex, but composed of multiple simple ideas put together). I'd say we are in the beginning of the ramp up of this curve our technology is growing on.

One person alone can still invent something, it just doesn't seem as easy as before. Unlike the past (where people were sometimes tortured for their findings) people are awarded for their inventions/findings (assuming they are useful). So what I'm really saying is all of the easy shots are probably taken.

However, I believe there is less inventing and more optimizing going on today because of our economical structure. Today, businesses look for ways to increase productivity and decrease costs, so most of the R&D goes to efficiency rather than something new. With products that sell by the masses, if the cost to produce that product is reduced even by a cent, that decrease in costs will increase profits.

So my final answer is we are not advancing in technology at the rate we could and yes the range of things to invent is decreasing. Right now, the top priority isn't getting to the next galaxy, but how to make more $$$ we can make with our inventions. Just as your signature states, if we combine AMD and Intel technologies we get the absolute best technology. This isn't what we're doing, instead we're fighting each other to make more money rather than having the best technology.

There's my vague answer for you. But I will say this, because of all of the new findings we have made, it takes more education for someone to learn about all of the current technologies to the point where they finally know what hasn't been invented and thus can begin inventing. Otherwise you'd probably be in for a rude awakening when you find someone else has already used your idea. That's my best explaination "it is harder to invent these days."

Along with that, businesses striving for profits and not technology is my answer to the exponential increase in world polution. We could have electric cars or something else...but that would simply cost too much for all of the automotive companies.

And for world population, well, i don't know about that one.



<b>Does it work?</b>
Yes!
<b>Ok, How <i>well</i> does it work?</b>
Uhh...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by tknd on 08/24/01 06:47 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Ok, then all heard was bogus. Ok, I'm no scientist right now, so I wouldn't know exactly how they would do it but I know that it is being researched and that there maybe a feasable hydrogen engine coming up that greatly reduces pollution. I don't know how they will do it though. I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but I'm just telling people what I heard.

My question is then, how would they do it?

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
Ion driver create thrust by ejecting energized ions out the back, ie radiation, it is directed so it wouldnt affect the electronics or the front of the vessel.

~Matisaro~
"Friends don't let friends buy Pentiums"
~Tbird1.3@1.55~
 
Why is that most theories and upcoming technologies aren't explained properly to the public? Do they think we're stupid? Do they think we don't care? WHAT IS THIS!!! I want to know what is happening in the world! Why is that the world has such secretive governments with rumoured technologies (Area51 anyone?) that no one can explain. I bet that the U.S. government already has interstellar star ships that travel via warp technology. Maybe there aren't any aliens but it's us. Maybe the U.S. government has designed saucer like ships, and teleportation technology to kidnap people, experiment on them, wipe their memories and return them home. What possibly could be so important at Area 51? A-bombs? Baaa!!!!!!! Experimental aircrafts? Big Deal! I believe it maybe far superior than that.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
If they could collect hydrogen without having to expend lots of energy, such as running electricity through water, then it might be feasible. This might be possible by collecting particles in space, but I don't know how many particles we could feasibly collect. Once the hydrogen gets to the earth, it almost always combines with oxygen to make water. Getting hydrogen from water is less efficient than using the electricity to actually propel the vehicle.

Most people don't realize that electric cars pollute more than gas powered cars. The burning of coal to produce electricity is far worse for the environment than the burning of the gasoline products we use today. The only benefit is that we can move these coal-burning and nuclear plants to areas not inhabited by people. Then the pollution is moved to an unseen area, similar to how we have garbage dumps away from people. It may be out of site, but it's still there.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
Raystonn, some points

A: large power generation facilities are vastly more efficent than many smaller ones.

B: the hydrogen creation can be powered by static solar panels, or perhaps a clean fusion source.

C. a hydrogen burning engine is far more efficient, than any electric motor we currently have.

~Matisaro~
"Friends don't let friends buy Pentiums"
~Tbird1.3@1.55~
 
"A: large power generation facilities are vastly more efficent than many smaller ones."

This is probably true, but current methods of electricity generation all either harm the environment (coal burning, etc.) or create negligable amounts of power (solar.)


"B: the hydrogen creation can be powered by static solar panels, or perhaps a clean fusion source."

The real issue is the generation of electricity. Fusion would be great no matter what we actually use it for.


"C. a hydrogen burning engine is far more efficient, than any electric motor we currently have."

The burning of hydrogen is inherently inefficient as it releases much of its energy as heat instead of movement. We can create high voltage electric motors that are far more efficient than an internal combustion engine. The only question is that of storing the electricity.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
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