tommygdawg

Hey all, Basic question here. I'm a noob starting out with electronics and I've had a hard time getting an answer to the question this topic poses. I've got a basic electronics project I'm putting together: I have a small wind turbine I've put together that generates some electricity. I also have a small solar panel I'd like to wire into this circuit to basically add to my total output and charge a small battery. What would be the best way to go about this? I've heard that charging from multiple sources of varying voltage can be bad, this will obviously be the case considering the wind turbine will not always be spinning and the solar panel will not always be receiving light, and sometimes they'll both be going at the same time. Do I just want Schottky diodes on everything and then basically wire it all in parallel down to the battery? Or am I thinking about this totally the wrong way? I'm starting small: one small turbine and one solar panel just to get the hang of it. As soon as I know I'm generating and wiring properly, it's onward and upward! Thanks everyone!

Hey all, I've recently come across this work by a man named David Pares and I was wondering what you all thought of it. At first it seems far fetched, but he also seems to be attaining results; what do you think? http://swdllc.paresspacewarpresearch.org/ From the website: "The research team from Omaha, Nebraska, not only believe space warp is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but have produced evidence of the phenomenon in a laboratory environment. David Pares and Matt Judah of Omaha, Nebraska are therefore applying for a provisional patent to protect the ongoing development and evolution of our Space Warp Drive Motor technology and methodology. David Pares and Matt Judah designed their laboratory experiments based on a scaled- down model of electrical fields found in thunderstorms. The team started with the use of a compatible RF powered tripole arrays to emulate the internal electric fields generated by thunderstorms. The experi-ments resulted in compressing a laser beam using a modified interferometer, measuring the shape of the micro warp field and the red shift of the frequency/wavelength. The results obtained at that point were encouraging. As the experiment evolved it became apparent to see if a device could be construct-ed to demonstrate a movement induced by linear displacement i.e. (the compression of the fabric of space) . A small physical size was needed that also maintained the integrity of the frequency and wave-length used for testing. It was concluded that the solution would be best represented in a fractal array design. As the evaluation continued the variable tripole phased fractal arrays yielded a measurable compression metric of .1 mm / sec at 100 watts of power with a total displacement of 1.2 cm in a 2 mi-nute time frame. This series of experiments demonstrated the ability to artificially induce a sustainable micro-space warp bubble which compressed the fabric of space." A number of things jumped out at me about this and how "out there" it might be, for instance...what on earth is a tripole?! But I desperately want it to be true

Thanks, Baryon! I appreciate it. I figured as much. It's just so frustrating dealing with issues like this; I guess I just wondered if there was more specific research into these areas I could look into.

Hey all, I recently came across this article by a creationist, and I can't find alternative answers to what he provides. I firmly believe evolution happened, but I'd be interested to know what the answer is to some of these questions. This is the article: http://blog.drwile.com/?p=12162 This person is saying that basically Gansus yumenensis was found much earlier in the fossil record than it should have been, therefore evolution is false. The author also goes on to state that some amber was found in a layer that was much too old for amber to have appeared. This is the exact quote: "I discussed some amber that was found in Carboniferous rock that is supposed to be 320 million years old. This amber has all the chemical indications of being produced by a tree that belongs to the group of plants we call angiosperms (flower-making plants). The problem, of course, is that angiosperms weren’t supposed to have evolved until about 180 million years ago. Thus, the amber was found in rock that was 140 million years too old. Did that give evolutionists pause? Not at all. They simply said that there must have been some kind of gymnosperm (a tree that produces uncovered seeds, like an evergreen) that just happened to produce amber that is chemically indistinguishable from the amber made by angiosperms. Gymnosperms were supposed to be around 320 million years ago, so if this amber came from a gymnosperm, there is no problem." Any thoughts you all have on how to answer these issues would be great Thanks! - Tommy

Hey all, I'm not sure if this should go in Quantum Theory, or Amateur Science, so I just went with Quantum Theory! Since I'm just getting into this stuff, my question is pretty basic: are things REALLY fields, and are things at the quantum level REALLY probabalistic? The reason I ask this is because I'm starting to get confused on what to use as a mental image or a visual model, and what these things actually represent. My understanding of quantum field theory is that there is a field for every subatomic particle we know of: an electron field, a quark field, and then various force-carrying fields such as a gravity field, higgs field, etc. Following from this theory, everything we see in the universe is simply a vibration in this field, like dropping a ball in a tank of water, where the tank is the universe and the ball is an atom. The pushing aside of the water would be a vibration or movement of the field. What I don't get here is the distinction between fields and particles. As I understand it, particles are just what we call a bump or a vibration in the field. What we think of as an electron, is merely a point in space and time where the electron field has risen above it's resting state to a higher energy. Assuming I got all that right, the question is...how sure are we that that's the case? What is the math/evidence for fields? I'm thinking my biggest issue here is breaking the visualization barrier. The other question I had isn't necessarily related to fields, but it is definitely quantum theory. The quantum world is probablistic; that's why we have the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It's impossible to know both where an electron will be and when it will be there, we can only make estimations. Is this actually the way subatomic particles work? Is their movement, energy, location, etc. TRULY random with only a probability of a certain value? Or, is it merely a matter of us not knowing how to properly measure these events? I guess what I mean is, are quantum mechanical events TRULY probablistic, or do they just appear that way to us? Sorry for the noob-ish questions. I'm a newcomer to science (graduated college with a music degree last May), but I've discovered this passion for it, and I'm trying to read and learn everything I can. Since I don't really have any teachers or anything like that to ask these questions to, I often find these boards a good place to go Thanks!

Thanks, Pears! I appreciate that

Hey all! Thanks so much for the replies. Sorry for my delay, been busy as heck! In regards to the question of if I graduated uni, I have I came away with a music major in guitar/voice. But I actually want to write/direct films, and now be a scientist! lol I don't want to go into too much backstory or offend anyone, but basically I come from a very fundamentalist Christian family. I've questioned things all my life but buried the questions due to fear of hell and fear of science sending me to hell! Alas, in the past year or so I've been through a lot of life changes, depression, etc. and I had to confront the questions I've been burying for so long. For better or for worse, I came out of it an atheist, and what I found is an absolute love for science (which actually wasn't that surprising to me) and a more satisfying purpose in life. So, it's never too late to start learning! I'm eating knowledge everywhere I can. My issue with the atomc/subatomic is that...I guess I'm picturing them like bullets, if that makes sense. What I see in my mind is proton bullets fired out of a big gun called a particle accelator. Or, electron bullets fired out of a battery. Now, I'm trying to unify this with the idea of quantum field theory and understanding what exactly these particles are. If my understanding is correct, quantum field theory states that there are no "particles" per se, but rather bagillions of fields, such as a proton field, electron field, quark field, and even a higgs field! What that means then is whenever we detect a "particle", it's really just a disturbance in one of those fields? I think this is a lot of my issue, trying to figure out what exactly is meant by particles and fields. Is an atom actually a physical object? IE, if you could blow up an atom millions of times, could you actually hold it in your hand? The same question pertains to all of the subatomic particles such as protons, neutrons, quarks, etc. Sorry if I'm being really confusing, it's frustrating for me too

Thanks! Learning those things is on my list of things to do. All I want to do is eat until I explode...that is eat knowledge until my brain explodes I guess I'm still looking for answers, because my question more relates to how do we select a certain type of particle for a certain event? IE in the particle accelerators. How do they only fire protons at protons? Or electrons at electrons? etc. I don't have trouble visualizing a cartoon atom with it's electron shells and quarks in the protons and such, but rather I have some kind of mental disconnect between the cartoon atom and the real deal.

Hey all! First post here! The basic story is, I've just recently come into this newfound love of science. There's a lot of backstory for it, but I won't bother with that. My issue is with just now coming into science (I'm 22), I'm having a really hard time visualizing/understanding the subatomic world, and I was wondering if you all could help me. The main issue is that I don't really understand how we can perform experiments and operations on particles such as the electron or the protons, quarks, etc. if they're so small that we can't even see them. Let me give an example: electricity. The most basic way I've heard it described is the movement of electrons. How exactly do we know that we're moving electrons? Moreover, how do we intentionally move an electron instead of, say, a positron, proton, neutron, etc? Another example is the idea of particle accelators. The LHC slams protons together, but I don't really understand how they're able to only slam protons together and accidentally slam a neutron into a proton, or an electron into a proton, etc. Do these questions make sense? Again, my primary issue is with visualizing and understanding how we operate on the atomic scale. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!