TonyMcC

Many applications use UTC ( also known as Zulu Time) where it is essential that there should be no confusion over this issue. Examples include navigation satellites, aircraft planning schedules and internet servers to name a few. It was also used (and I suppose still is) by the British Armed Forces. I don't know, but I expect things like cruise missile timing and organisation rely on it. In places like radar control rooms there was often a pair of clocks , one, distinctly marked, showing Zulu time and one showing local time. So UTC has an important place in the organisation of the world and is working for all of us somewhere in the background! Would I like to live somewhere where the sun rose at( say) 16.00 hours and set at 09.00 hours the following day? I don't think so! That, I suppose, is why one of the clocks mentioned earlier gave local time!

I'm not really into maths and anyway you will need to vary the heat required according to weather and load conditions. However this link makes clear you will need at the very least 2MW (possibly as much as 12MW). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_balloon

You could join the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and become a Pastafarian. This would entitle you wear a colander on your head which, if made of thicker metal, might better protect you from "Them" stealing your ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523

Just a couple of practical points.You do not make clear the units of measurement. Is the balloon 81.4 ft radius or 81.4 something else to be raised X feet into the air? You also need to know the total weight of all you need to lift. This includes the balloon envelope, air heating mechanism, pilot and whatever is going to provide the source of power that you mention once your machine is in the air. Hot air balloons are pretty big structures which generally carry quite light loads. If you are going to force it through the air you will need a powerful motor which will surely be heavy.

If you like a drink, don't like suits and ties and like to visit Soho in London you may be interested in a drinking club that will ban you if you do wear a suit and tie! http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23973409-doesnt-suit-us-sir-club-bans-pr-boss-for-wearing-a-tie.do

Many automatic cars use a torque converter in place of the clutch. Computer controlled friction clutches have become more popular over recent times. Here is a link to torque converters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter Here is a link to electrohydraulic manual transmission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrohydraulic_manual_transmission My own car has a six speed Tiptronic transmission which I can run as a manual or automatic with computer controlled gear shifts. I'm not sure whether it uses a torque converter or a clutch...... (Later) I have just Googled "Tiptronic" and it seems I have a torque converter instead of a clutch! These days all I do is drive the thing!

I just went up to one of the guards and asked him if the other guard would say that he believed any of the alternative solutions would work and he said "Yes, all of them". lol

I just went up to one of the guards and asked him if the other guard believed any of the alternative solutions would work and he said "Yes, all of them". lol

There is probably a lot of truth in this. It is well known that if a lecturer wants to get over an important piece of information he/she will have to reinforce the process by finding ways of presenting it a number of times. The means to do this include verbal questions during the lecture, homework which makes the student think over the points made and practical experiments. To just quote the facts once will not be very productive. It therefore seems reasonable that wanting a quick answer to an immediate problem that,being solved, then goes away may not add much to your knowledge.

Strictly speaking you are not looking to invent a language - you are inventing a code. However:- 48 6F 77 / 61 62 6F 75 74 / 74 68 69 73 ?

Do you think this could lead to an understanding of why the cube root of A^3 + B^3 is probably irrational and why the sine wave (where every point, by definition, is a square root) is so important in mathematics, science and engineering? I am no mathematician but am interested in Fermat's last Theorem and have a feeling these thoughts are relevant.

I know it's a rule that is, perhaps with good reason, often broken. My only excuse is that I went to a grammar school!

Its a sort of joke. There is a rule in English that you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. Both "to" and "with" are prepositions.

On behalf of the Red Headed Clown Society I would like to know what is wrong with some of our members holding positions of responsibility?

Never use a preposition to end a sentence with!

There are two basic types of Over the Horizon radar. One called HF Sky Wave uses reflection from the ionosphere. It is important to realise that the beam from a search radar is not pencil shaped like the beam from a torch, but is fan shaped being being very thin in plan horizontally and very wide in plan vertically. Most of the time the height of the ionosphere is really quite small compared with the distance to a target that is over the horizon and so the actual height of the ionosphere will make little difference. Some of the fan shaped beam will bounce off the ionosphere and radiate the target, and some of the reflected energy will be returned as a signal. However, there is another type called HF Ground Wave. This doesn't use the ionosphere to look over the horizon. It works on the principle of diffraction using the reducing density of the atmosphere with height. You actually see this at work when you look at the setting sun. When you see the sun just above the horizon it is actually just below the horizon!

Just a friendly observation - the people waiting for a bus would form a disorganised group around the open door and surge forward as soon as they could. A bit of shoulder to shoulder shoving was quite in order. Once you realised that was the way to do it you just joined in without causing offence. Mind you, this was over 50 years ago and so what actually was the situation then has possibly become something of a joke over the years! However, I repeat that I enjoyed my time in Germany and enjoyed my contact with German people. I have a particularly lovely memory of being a guest on Christmas Eve and joining a family in singing carols as Christmas Day arrived.

I 1956 ( only 11 years afterthe end of WW II) I was posted to an airfield near Schleswig in North Germany. I mixed freely with other people of my age including young German servicemen. I used to go dancing and soon had a German girlfriend who introduced me to her family. Everybody I came into contact with were friendly and I never felt threatened in any way. On many occasions I would walk through the town and out into the countryside to get back to my base in the early hours without a qualm. The ordinary German people I came into contact with were certainly as friendly and as civilised as English people. There was one exception - they did not seem to understand waiting in a queue for anything, such as getting on a bus!

Reminds me of when I was in Singapore. My wife saw me coming up the road at the same time as she bought some ice cream. She stood under the ceiling fan to keep the ice cream cool! She is musically gifted - enough said? Later Edit:- I have just realised that since the project concerns a guitar case my comment could be taken the wrong way. No slight intended. My wife is a beautiful woman gifted in many ways - but technical she ain't!

The 160V battery drives all of the current. Going clockwise from the battery, all the current passes through the 2 ohm resistor. It then splits into three paths as it passes through the 8 ohm and the two 16 ohm resistors. It then recombines to pass through the 4 ohm resistor. That is why I wondered if it was a homework question! It is the sort of (silly?) theoretical question that a lecturer might put to his students to test their understanding of DC circuit theory. It might not make much practical sense - but I have to plead guilty to doing this myself in the past - lol.

Firstly the circuit symbol for a voltmeter is a circle with a V inside and for an ammeter is a circle with an A inside so the circuit contains a couple of meters. Secondly there is nothing wrong with Hal's answer. These problems are a bit like the Windows operating system in that there is usually more than one way of getting what you want. I feel my approach (#7) is, if anything, the more simple approach and pleased that both Hal and I agree on the answer. In answer to a point asked earlier, in circuit diagrams the lines in a circuit connecting components are assumed to have no resistance.

Note the 8, 16 and 16 ohm resistors are in parallel and so have the same voltage across them (V). This voltage can be calculated from knowing 4A flows through one of the 16 ohm resistors and is 64V (V=IR). The 8,16 and 16 ohm network has an effective resistance of 4 ohms (1/Rt= 1/R1 +1/R2 + 1/R3). An equivalent circuit can therefore be considered consisting of 2, 4 and 4 ohms in series with 64V across one of the 4 ohm resistors. Since all resistors in a series circuit carry the same current, the voltage across them is proportional to resistance. Therefore total voltage around the circuit is 32+64+64= 160V. (IMO). The battery voltage is therefore 160V You are correct in thinking the current supplied by the battery is not 4A. The battery supplies 4A through both both 16 ohm resistors and 8A through the 8 ohm resistor. Since these resistors are in parallel the battery supplies 16A. If you use 16A I believe you will get the correct answer.

Homework? If it is then show us what you have tried. Actually I think Ohm's Law and "Resistors in series and parallel" is all you need.

To be honest I didn't think it could have - but since I found it amusing I thought others might too. I particularly liked the "Press 1 for I do and 2 for escape". I don't remember anything like that in my own marriage service. However, the institution of marriage has lost much of its seriousness and solemnity over the years so who knows? Perhaps one day.................

I've never made one or applied AC to one so my answer is an opinion. All that seems necessary for the turns of the helix to be attracted to each other is that current flows around the turns so that adjacent turns carry current in the same direction. This will happen regardless of the direction of current passing through the coil. It seems to me that applying AC will shorten the distance between the turns in a pulsating fashion and this should make the device work. I neglect the effect of the coils inductance because the frequency is relatively low and there is no iron core to consider. I suppose if the individual tugs of attraction are small and the ball is heavy you might only see the coil vibrating. I repeat this is something I have never tried but my answer seems to agree with theory.