Sensei

If you have code: if( x > y ) { z = x * a; } else { z = x * b } You can replace it by f.e. z = ( x > y ) ? ( x * a ) : ( x * b ); or simpler z = x * ( ( x > y ) ? a : b ); Comparison operators > or < can be replaced by subtraction (they're subtraction in fact in CPU, but result is forgotten and remaining is only CPU flag register). So, ( x > y ) can be replaced by a=x-y; and then you have to check whether a is positive or negative value, or equal 0 (x is equal y). If value is negative sgn() or sign() function will return -1. If value is positive sgn() or sign() function will return +1. If value is 0, it'll return 0. So, if( x > y ) can be replaced by: sgn( x - y ) max( x,0 ) will return 1 only when x is equal 1. max( -x, 0 ) will return 1 only when x is equal -1. (assuming x is result of sgn()) So whole equation should looks like: ( max( sgn( x - y ), 0 ) * ( x * 100 ) ) + ( max( -sgn( x - y ), 0 ) * ( x * 50 ) ) which should be equivalent to if( x > y ) z = x * 100; else if( x < y ) z = x * 50; I hope so I inspired you a bit.

Result of plasma shot is destruction or damaging of thing that you shot, not "exerting a force" like it would be some kind of slowly moving ball... On website's movies where you found above screen-shots you can see how they damaged target. Space shuttles and space station look like Swiss cheese (under microscope) due to constant hitting them by protons accelerated to relativistic speeds from the Sun and other stars. Holes have diameter of single atom or so. Imagine you have piece of metal/iron, and turn on powerful electromagnet above it. Metal "jumps" attracted to electromagnet. So imagine couple electromagnets in row, one more powerful than the other. And they are switching in right order, precisely synchronized. When previous stops working, next one in queue is starting attracting... Difference between particle accelerators and plasma railgun is just in details (like using vacuum in accelerators (which limits loses of energy), large size, and circular path). Positive electrode of DC circuit attracts electrons. Electron escape atom, and goes to circuit. Then atom that's near first ionized atom gives its electron to previously ionized. And it goes and goes through medium. Electrons starts flowing through path made by positively charged atoms. Negative electrode of circuit has excess of electrons (they are residing inside of capacitors) and gives them to ionized atoms. At 10-12 kV of DC made by CW generator I can see how it SLOWLY happens. It builds up a few seconds. It's the best view in darkness. Violet photons are emitted by thin a few cm length thunderbolts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_discharge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_discharge When these lines of ionized atoms from positive electrode join negative electrode, there is "explosion" and instant discharge of CW capacitors (and we see flash, loud voice, and sphere of plasma like in #3 post), and everything starts from beginning. Energy is charge in Coulombs * Voltage E=Q*U Q=I*t Q divided by e is quantity of electrons in this case. 1 C/1.602*10^-19 C = 6.25*10^18 electrons. If we have voltage like 6 kV it will make plasma when distance between electrodes is like 1-2 mm or so. If we will move them a bit further, nothing will happen. But when we will increase voltage to f.e. 12 kV, it will again start working. After further moving away, it's stopping working again. For really large distances there are needed millions of volts.

You can see it on your own eyes, not just on photo, in cloud chamber.

You should watch this video: Don't try to lost consciousness on street in cheap cloth (at least in France).

Inverter should be after electricity meter.. When solar energy is produced, energy goes to inverter, and is used by electric devices. But when there is no sunny day, or night, obviously solar energy is unavailable, and used is energy from power station. If you're outside of home whole day, and returning at night, obviously you're mostly using power station energy, not solar energy. There is needed storage for solar energy, so whole sunny day it'll be loaded, and then used at night.

How to create antiprotons is described in this article http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/particle_creation.html Protons must be accelerated to v>0.99c.

And wearing Karategi/Kimono makes you almost Bruce Lee.. One of mine favorite:

CW generator doesn't work with DC at all. It requires AC, AFAIK. I have tried with 240 VDC, and it simply didn't load at all. You can, or if you're using ceramic capacitors even have to, first convert 240 VAC to DC, then make your own AC from DC with required by device higher frequency than 50 Hz. And then multiply voltage by CW to really high. A lot depends on pressure of gas. Krypton is inside of hermetic tube. It can have pretty low pressure. Checking it would require destroying device. I don't have experience with rail guns nor plasma guns (who on this forum has? ) But I think you mixed two things. (typical) electromagnet requires DC (with pretty low voltage, it's after all just wire with low resistance). And the higher current you will provide to electromagnet (or just wire), the higher magnetic field you will receive surrounding them. If you will swap direction, you will change electromagnet from attracting to repelling. But 50 Hz constantly switching back and forth directions will be probably completely useless for railgun (that's typical transformer). You want attract projectile once, then repel and done. When first stage is repelling, second stage has to be attracting with even more power, so projectile is accelerated in that direction. AC for CW generator is another circuit, independent from electromagnets. CW current is always DC on output. It's purpose to ionize, and nothing more. You don't use such high voltage to power electromagnets (it would be senseless and most probably would blow up wires and/or capacitors). In electron gun, indeed such high voltage is used to attract electrons. And they fly through hole in anode. Real magnets are disallowing them to join with anode, and then they continue flying further in vacuum.

There are generally two. I can switch between them, by just reconnecting wires. (mine has more than 70 stages)

No. It's very small red spot. So small you probably wouldn't see it if I would make photo (something like 1-2 mm). Mine point was- you cannot change color of plasma.

Vacuum would definitely increase distance plasma is traveling Electron gun requires vacuum. It will be ionized. After all it's helium, neon, argon, xenon, etc. gas. That's how these elements were discovered - by spectral lines present in air spectrum. Scientists compared air spectrum (from discharge tube) with pure nitrogen and pure oxygen spectrum (from electrolysis or chemical reactions producing them) and noticed difference between them. Yes, of course. One mine colleague touched it when it was loaded 3 kV and since that moment he doesn't touch anything in lab anymore without asking.. You could smell of burning flesh (literally).. I touched CW generator electrodes with 6 kV accidentally once too. Somebody called me, in the middle of experiment, and I forgot to discharge capacitors entirely. When I returned, touched it and fall it.. Mine hand shake after several hours after that. I had to use something that is not metal. It's 1mm thick cardboard. If we will place it between two electrodes with 25 kV, and wait couple seconds (double or triple as long as without cardboard between them) electric arc will be very powerful and will cut cardboard making pretty big hole in it. There is no glass, there is nothing surrounding it. When you will take glass tube/pipe, attach electrodes from both sides and seal ends, and fill by some gas (hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, I have created from electrolysis, CO2 from dry ice, air), optionally lower pressure, you will have self made discharge tube. Pretty close. They are standard wires for connecting breadboards. Mine cascade generators are on breadboards, so I can freely connect/disconnect them together. Although I saw on the net people are taking transparent kitchen plastic boxes like this one making 4 holes, attaching banana connectors to it from both sides, and putting capacitor bank inside, filling by mineral oil, and sealing them permanently. But if some capacitor will blow up, you have problem how to fix it. Free nucleus is attracting free (or not) electron. Electron is emitting photon, or multiple photons with various frequencies, and is attracted more and more by nucleus. And these photons is what we see as color of plasma. With graphite electrodes I had red sparks.

Increasing core quantity is cheap and easy way to increase power of processor without bothering with smaller scale elements etc. We certainly (and thankfully) didn't hit the limit of how small transistors and elements can be, yet. Graphics cards are now coming with 2880 cores btw. http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/graphics_cards_buy_now_uk.html CPU can go GFX card route too. But it should be done by changing architecture permanently, and limiting instruction set (which is quite obsolete, basing on Intel 8086 from 1978), which will simplify making core. So there will be possible to pack them together in larger quantity tightly. This would make all currently Intel compiled software obsolete, so industry is trying to avoid it as long as they can.

6 kV is not very high. I have Cockcroft-Walton generator producing ~40 kV (and expanding its capabilities with time). It's used in experiments with x-rays in cloud chambers. To fully load you need couple seconds (by 240 VAC @ 50 Hz). At least with electrolytic capacitors (which have pretty high capacitance). These are screen-shots from video with ~25 kV setup. I have videos showing difference between 6 kV, 10 kV, 25 kV, 40 kV setups. I can send you videos privately if you're interested. (whole "explosion" takes less than 1 frame of recording it camera, so sometimes there are misses, recorded just voice without actually picture. I will need to get high speed camera some day..) That sounds to me that you want to accelerate plasma using quickly changing magnetic field in barrel. Is that right? Plasma is highly reactive. It will steal electrons from surrounding it matter, and unpredicted chemical reactions will happen. Production of ozone is very high with mine above setup (especially with continuous coronal discharge when we will prevent "explosion"). You feel like after summer thunderstorm in seconds.

Shape of physical object changes depending who is watching it, and distance to object. Distant galaxy seen by naked eye or cheap telescope looks like spherical blob. Metal plate, or wall, looks flat to us, but after large zooming by microscope they will reveal to be mountain-like irregular. So, observed shape is or might be just an illusion, depending on capabilities of observer or device and/or distance. Just a thought irrelevant to whole discussion. ps. I have no idea why it was moved to Philosophy..

For Earth's scale objects typical method is sending photons to object and after reflection, detecting returning signal delay (t=2*d/c) It's used in radars, using radio waves. But if you attach mirror to object, or retroreflector (like on Moon), you can use normal visible range photons. For our solar system and galaxy scale distant objects we can use knowledge about position of Earth around Sun and Pythagoras triangle. At one day of year Earth is closer to some star or planet, at other day of year Earth is farthest from it. You can deduct that tangent alpha is equal to ~1 au (=~150 mln km) divided by distance to measured object (from Sun). I have made picture for you to visualize:

That's not an issue. That's normal. You misunderstood idea described in article. It's meant to be storage facility, not regular power station. Energy is produced elsewhere, and solar panels and windmills are example power stations that are periodically working. Once they lost energy source (at night, or when there is no wind), energy is restored from storage and customer continuously receive energy. I stay doubtful. How did you calculate that your idea will be 95% efficient?

Each light year is approximately 299792.458 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.25 = 9.46*10^12 km 53.0 million light years * 9.46*10^12 = 5*10^20 km distance between us. 3.2 mln km/h = 888.9 km/s 5*10^20 km / 888.9 km/s = 5.641*10^17 seconds That's 1.78*10^10 years. 17.8 billion years. Not millions. Article is wrong by factor 1000. Not first and not last time journalist shows his inability to calculate. "First of all, even at its current speed, it will take more than 17.5 million years to get here."

We have protons at rest. Accelerating part of them to v > 0.99c and hitting them to other protons at rest. Result is production of protons and anti-protons: p+ + p+ -> p+ + p+ + p+ + p- Like this has been showed in this article at the bottom: http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/particle_creation.html And from frame-dependent kinetic energy of particle, two new real particles appeared..

Start > Run.. regedit Then search for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run And add new key. With value path to executable. Or rundll32.exe [dll name] [function name] if it's linkable library (or Windows service - this one can be controlled by administration service panel). The most of mine Windows applications have option to run them with Windows, minimized, and in tray icon. I like to have them at hand.

According to article, wind turbines or solar panels are producing energy first and using it to pump water out from tanks on the ground of ocean, when there is windy weather or sunny hot day. Tanks are now empty. Then water pass through turbines and fill tanks back. producing energy (according to article 80% of that produced in 1st stage, so 20% is lost). That's smart idea. Currently power stations have to lower their production when there is not enough power consumers on the other end of wire. On the other hand, instead of building it at ocean ground, we can simply make large artificial lake. Wind turbines and solar panels will be all the time used to pump water from ocean to lake, no matter if consumers need it or not. And then energy will be just produced in normal dam. Which "their issue"? In article I don't see they mention any issue. Do you mean you have created 5 times stronger concrete?

You can't beat protons & antiprotons in magnetic traps.. Today I read economic article that in the next 25-50 years there will appear the first trillionaire (10^12). And the first thought was that it could be somebody who will find a cheap & fast way to produce antiprotons.

IMHO they are real. And energy is real. It flows from one particle, or body, to other during interaction between them. Hot-fast particle shares energy with colder ones until they're all in equilibrium. That's why it's always conserved. At least in classic & high energy physics. The problem with photons, as with the most neutral particles, is that until they're absorbed, or decay (pion0, neutron etc), we have no idea about their existence. Once we know about it, photon is gone from the system, making illusion it was not real. Instead we have increased energy in our eye or detector. Such splitting fields is kinda artificial. After all electron and positron can be made of photon(s) in pair production. And reverse in annihilation. Muon will have it's own field, and tau yet another? IMHO the key is f.e. answering why exactly photons in pair production must have frequency equal Compton frequency 1.23559*10^20 Hz Why it's not any other value? What is so special in this frequency.. ? (Yes, I know that me=9.11*10^-31 kg, or me=510999 eV/c^2 and Ee=510999 eV, 6.62607*10^-34*1.23559*10^20/299792458^2=~9.11*10^-31 etc) String theory author Leonard Susskind, tries to answer why physical constant have value we know by introducing infinite number of universes, each one with different properties. But again IMHO it's road to nowhere. Answer without answering question. How to visualize magnetic field? Use array of compasses. And each of them will be pointing in direction defined by magnetic field. But what was first, egg or chicken? To have some effect we need magnet, electromagnet or other magnetized source. Which are all made of particles. Particles in compasses will show us where are other particles and their attributes. XIX century authors introducing electric and magnetic fields had no idea about particles. No particles in the first place, no electric or magnetic field around them. No attraction or repelling between them.

Do you mean how to show sample source code? <code>A piece of computer code</code> W3Schools is good resource about HTML/CSS http://www.w3schools.com

There is "just" 0.035% of CO2 in the air. To create just 1 cm^3 of Kerosene there would be needed to process (with 100% efficiency) 3656 Liters of air. You can't do it during flight. Boeing 747 burns ~4000 cm^3 (4 L) of fuel per second.

That's job for somebody who has a few years everyday experience in writing software.. Figuring out device models and checking manufacturers websites for SDK, if not found maybe writing e-mail to them is the first thing you need to do. Such devices often comes with software to install, so maybe SDK is already on CD/DVD or installed?