Every mad scientist or evil genius needs a way to power his empire..
Here's one which has been tossed around a while but nobody has looked at in detail - solar wind can be used to generate power, a whole lot of power. And i don't mean propellers. (Although that could work too)
In a practical sense tho something more like a giant space capacitor that charges off solar wind energy is do-able. Even if it just had a collecting plate at the front and back the difference from the lead edge to the trailing edge would give you a few electrons flowing down a wire.
Also -
A space elevator would also be very badly effected by Nicola Tesla's Tower (or radiant energy?) effect, if it doesn't have a plasma power generator on it, the juice generated by wiring up the upper and outer atmosphere to the ground would generate insane amounts of electricity. I am talking power entire city amounts. Goodbye energy crisis. Hello free energy Crisis. If our cable was strung up over one of the poles (ignoring all the obvious centrifugal torsion problems) you likely have a permanent lighting bolt.
Footnote: the following is basically my own mad ravings on the topic, so don't take it too seriously!
— Overlord PhoenixX 2010/03/06 04:15
The universe is made up of atoms, these form elements and the structure of our universe. For simplification, I am going to discuss this in two dimensional terms like Einstein did with the famous energy formula. For all intents and purposes this is accurate, but remember we dont live in exactly a two dimensional universe, but two dimensions can still exist within the dimensions of our universe so, technically discussions based on data in two dimensional representations are still going to work. If you can understand just what I am implying there, then to use an outdated term, god help us all.
Basically you have atoms, they can have a positive spin (or charge) which is matter, or a negative spin which is antimater. If you wanted to confuse matters, you could also say an atom with negatively charged electron, and positively charged proton is matter, or with a positively charged electron and negatively charged proton is anti matter, to confuse matters even more, you could say a negatively charged electron, and a postively proton is matter, and an atom with the protons and electons positions reversed would be anti matter. You could also suggest that neutrons with faster than light electrons and protons is anti matter but that is incompatible with this discussion. (Although it is a discussion on its own, since should these sort of antimater types would when combined with matter make both cease to exist which is why it is thought faster than light and slower than light particles are physically impossible to combine since they exist on different sides of the light speed barrier) Technically these could all be correct in one sence or another.. but there i go deviating from my two dimensional model again sorry..
Ok lets go back to the nice easy laymans term model of spins.
In all of the above you also have neutrons. These creepy little buggers exist in matter and antimatter largely the same. Although they could have spin on them who knows what goes on at that level
Anyway. Einstein tells us that Energy = matter multiplied by the speed of light multiplied by itself. or E=MC² (Personally since the universe isn't flat I would think that ² should be a different figure, such as ³ or π (pi) but how can you multiply C as C x C x C x 0.14159 26535……………… etc.. but there i go rambling again, but for our purposes flat works, and we wouldnt want an atom bomb to become a black hole bomb would we.. hmm nevermind, smart man that Einstein… with what he told us, and equally what he kept to himself)
So lets see here. Entropy. Energy and lethergy? What can we learn here. Well those creepy little neutron buggers are neutral which means they either attract everything or nothing, including themself. There's a pickle for the quantum physisists to work out for themself. But basically energy is what happens if you flick off a few of those pesky electrons or protons. Cause they will fly off and bump into another atom, and throw it out of balance. It goes out of balance because then it finds itself trying to be some half assed version of another element - so it can either shoot a bit off or pull an extra bit in to go up or down the periodic table to get balanced again. Trouble is the shooting off or pulling in bit. Cause that means:
(Lethergy WTF you say - where everything is sitting around happy and stable and not all energetic like, not falling apart or ripping into each other)
This still leaves us with the sticky mess of the positive spin and negative spin. (or charge, or positions) Now these guys dont all play nice together, so for the most part you dont see matter and antimatter hanging out together. Cause they tend to cause fights and rip each other to bits too only more so. Surely these fellows do bump into each other at the cosmic post office, club or pub or whatever. Yup they do. What happens then is… interesting to say the least.
Thing is - the periodic table is sorta wrong.. you see it's, missing number 1(or rather it can't have more than 1 item at 1). The reason? Probably the way the periodic table works, number 1 is the exception to the rule, and since it doesnt apply to every other element, they left it out. Cause electrons (electronium? erm no Electricity), they get lonely, and protons(protonium? Just proton i guess) too.. they wander about looking for neutrons, and generally avoiding themselves. We call this energy. Which by nature is unstable. and as far as atomic weight, well that strictly is less than 1 or not. Doesn't matter it is energy and unstable so it is not allowed on the table. But neutrons (Ahhh Neutronium ? the missing element maybe?).. now these buggers are interesting. They wander about but they don't need to necessarily have friends, and they are mostly indifferent to each other. But they have an atomic weight which strictly is what “1”? Thing is most of the time they have those pesky electrons and protons chasing after them. So they are considered energy too. They have weight and mass and all that, and if you shoot one fast enough you get some very interesting things.. like a hot knife through butter.
Actually gravity as a measurable equation at its purest sence is probably the combination of a: the sum total of all the neutrons in a given space (weight, and size of curved space), combined with b: the interactions of the sum charges of the elements the neutrons in that space comprise(energy and speed around curved space), with some passive reference to the passing of time and entropy(the shape depth or rotation of curved space, and the ability of matter to cross or be captured by it before breaking down). Probably why nobody has worked it out, it may be simple, but the science terminology has not quite caught up with the complexities of explaining mass over charge over time over curved space. The Branch of science known as “Time space” or simply a scientific definition of time as it relates to space hasn't really been invented yet, and its nearest cousin “Space time” sounds so similiar and is used by Astro Physics, and indirectly by Quantum Physics - and since most branches of science tend to be a rather rude self obsessed lot, who have a tendancy to specialise, they dont play nice together long enough to work it out. Give it time. The language of science may catch up. The “newspeak” effect is also subject to entropy, it has to break down and change eventually to catch up.
But anyway side tracked again, remember basically neutrons can exist on their own. But they also exist largely uneffected in both matter and anti-matter. That is the key here.
So using my spin analogy. Why doesn't matter and anti matter play nice? It is simple really, going back to our simplistic 2 dimensional model -
Imagine an atom lets use a nice symetrical one like carbon. Lay it out flat on a table. What you end up with is sort of a clock with 6 electrons spinning clockwise like a second hand, and 6 protons inside spinning clockwise around the middle like a minute hand which has 6 neutrons spinning clockwise like an hour hand. (well technically that is the orbit, and a more accurate approach is the rotation of each given like a planet turning but that is harder to visualise in laymans terms so i'll keep it a little inaccurate for simplicities sake) Although i suspect neutrons don't spin at all but anyway.
Now imagine that these things MUST spin/move clockwise and they can never stop. Also that when they come in contact with other atoms it is like another clock facing the observer stacked on top, push hard enough and it can sneak through the other clock as all the parts move in the same direction, likewise if even one part lines up with the other clock, it WONT be able to sneak through the other clock. As it will rest on top. But in either case except for some electons changing clocks occaisionally nothing exciting really happens. If you put them side on, similar result (except if you are thinking turning gears your thinking gears will grind? not really) you would think something odd would happen but you have to remember in real life there is more than 2 dimensions, “side on” all that would happen is they would swap some electrons but remain essentially the same and keep moving the same direction.
Now imagine another carbon atom - except all the spins are reversed, this one runs counter-clockwise. (Now these spins work like charges as well but that complicates matters (but probably relates to why our universe is more than 2 dimensions)) now if you stack these atom clocks on top of each other - you have a problem. They cannot change their spins. But likewise two atoms (or their component parts) cannot exist in the one space - so what we have here is some nasty entanglement. (now this is where you get some cosmic gears grinding) - what happens next is impressive - the two “clocks” will smash off all the parts except the neutrons, and all the electrons and protons will all fly off looking for a new place to live. Here is where we get problems. You see now we have two stacks of 6 indifferent neutrons, with a bunch of incompatible spinning electrons and protons all competing for them. What will happen is they will keep trying to combine into stable atoms, before being smashed apart again. Each time a bit is torn off, it will interfere with another nearby atom (see above rinse, repeat) Eventually the neutrons will be either torn appart and thrown off (and grab some protons or electrons) as lesser elements, or the majority of the electrons and protons will be thrown off and escape.
Think very very big BOOOM. This is why matter and anti matter is rarely in the same space because they naturally end up throwing each other apart and by natural chaos/cluster theory tend to accumulate with each other.
Now - If you had two different sized atom “clocks” smash into each other you will get another problem, if the sum total of the two results in no possible stable combination of elements even for a moment, you may eventually end up with some neutrons all by themself - most of the time the energy of the incident will shoot the neutron off somewhere (it may even move so fast it becomes a Tachyon but who knows) - BUT if you get too many by themself, they may accumulate to the point where there are too many neutrons in a given space for any stable atom to ever form. In other words you have mass and subsequently gravity - with no possibility of stable “lethergy” forming from entropy. Oh my - perpetual motion? No (although you could call it that in a sick joke sort of sence) what you have now we already have a name for.
It is called a black hole. And yes, you can escape a black hole.. if you dont mind being ripped into electrons and protons, chewed up and eventually spat out with, if you are lucky some new neutrons. But I doubt it would be much fun since you would mostly be hydrogen - although eventually you would probably become a star.
Interestingly going back to the sick perpetual motion joke.. you could as a mad scientist, force this situation to occur on purpose - with three possible outcomes.
Last month some random crackers started hacking some of the pages. Mostly spam - Oddly enough one hack actually made some sense if bad grammar - Copied below.
I find this analogy faliry accurate and found it makes sense to some people (at the ~high school level):Take a long trough of water, like pigs drink out of. Throw a pebble into the trough at one end and you know what happens a nice wave travels down the trough towards the other end and eventually dies out due to friction in the water. This neat little wave is like a particle well defined in space and time. The wavelength of this particle is maybe a few inches meaning the water is flat, then within a distance of a few inches rises up, then back down again, then is flat again.Now take a much shorter trough, just a few inches long, about the same as the wavelength of our wave/particle, and again throw a pebble in one end. At first a wave travels down the trough again, but then the front of the wave hits the other end of the trough and bounces back just as the back of the wave is getting formed. Pretty quickly you just have a short tough of water sloshing around! You can't say where you expect the water to be high or low or flat at any given place or time. This is like the electron in an atom it is spread all over the area within the atom.(You can go on to use this setup to discuss quantum uncertainty the fact that if you stick your hand down at some particular time, you'll be able to find the water is high at some particular point, but now you've also affected the wave in some unknown way, so if you go in to measure the wave again later you still have no idea where to expect it to be high next time.And you can discuss quantization, that if the wavelength matches the length of the trough in a nice integer multiple, the front of the wave bouncing off the end of the trough will match up perfectly with the back of the wave getting going, and the result is a very organized sloshing pattern that is constant in time, with a steady amplitude of oscillation for each point in the trough.)