TonyMcC

Absolutely agree - just giving one problem even if the sails were as large as ,say, an earth sized planet.

When I was a pubescent youth, many moons ago, we used to say that there were two groups of such people. There were those who admitted to masturbation and those who lied about it. I don't expect the situation has changed over the years. I can't see it doing any more harm than having regular sexual relations with a partner when that time comes (no pun intended)!

There seems to be an idea that solar sails might provide enough energy to rotate the windmill. A big problem, it seems to me, is that somehow the main body of the windmill needs to be firmly fixed to something. Firstly, you need to stop the solar wind from pushing the windmill along. Secondly, if the solar wind could cause the armature to rotate it would drag the body of the windmill around with it because taking energy from the windmill would cause magnetic coupling between the rotor and the main structure. If the whole thing rotates together then no energy will be generated.

If the machine has an efficiency of 96% then its output power will be 96% of its input power. If the machine produces 4 times its input power then it has an efficiency of 400%. The two statements cannot describe the same machine.

You would put energy into getting the turbine up to speed. As you take energy out of the turbine it would slow down and quite soon come to a stop. Even if it was 100 percent efficient you would only get as much energy out of it as you put into it. Being less than 100 percent efficient, you will get less energy out of it than you put into it before it comes to a stop.

I don't expect this is the smallest - its probably a developing requirement - but this is certainly small. I "snipped" it from a web page . http://www.d-mec.co.jp/eng/products/acculas/acculas_zoukei.html

I won't mock you. I'll just say that by the standards of many, perhaps most, of the contributors to this forum I am not very qualified as I don't have a degree. Sometimes I can make a useful contribution if a question is asked concerning basic principles in what has been my field of work but most of what is discussed is above my head. I have also floated an idea or two which have not been too well received - one of which has been described as the height of hubris. However I like this forum very much, people seem to listen to me and I welcome comments whether I personally like them or not. I have learnt quite a lot since I joined, although much of that comes from googling when some high flyer discusses something that I don't understand at the the time. People who live and work in ivory towers can sometimes appear be condescending but don't let that put you off learning from them and developing an interest in things scientific.

The two cells in parallel only give you the same voltage as one cell on its own. (1.5V) You can say that the total voltage would therefore be the same as three 1.5V cells connected in series. i.e. 4.5V. This assumes the cells are all connected "the same way round".

I hate Facebook. Various members of my family seem to spend hours on very banal chit chat that often leads to bad feeling and the taking of offence.

Makes you wonder why hypnotism is believed to recover memories that you believe were not consciously recorded in your brain at the time. Such matters as ,perhaps, a car registration number or a description of a person.

To be honest, there seems to be a lot that you need to pull together in such a short time. I certainly don't know off the top of my head the facts and figures you need. I would Google the different types mentioned and pick out what seems relevant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Services_Digital_Network#ISDN_elements'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Services_Digital_Network#ISDN_elements http://www.howstuffworks.com/vdsl.htm http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-3g-and-4g/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Services_Digital_Network Sorry if you have been here also.

Imagine the following scenario - An unfortunate young man, married and aged about 20, dies from sudden catastrophic brain damage. At the same time I, in my 70's, am near death and give permission for my brain to be transplanted into his 20 year old body. What would the young wife think of a 20 year old husband who would rather sleep with a woman in her 70,s? What would my wife think of her new "Toy boy"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_error_rate

Binary data inside a computer is formed by dc pulses - 1 pulse for each binary digit (bit). Ideally each pulse should be a square wave with vertical edges. However dc pulses cannot travel efficiently through space. Therefore each bit of information is transmitted through space as a burst of ac, usually at radio frequencies. The number of cycles refers to the number of cycles that makes one burst of transmitted frequency. At the receiver the burst of ac has to be changed into a dc pulse. The higher the transmitted ac the shorter in time can be the obtained dc pulse whilst still maintaining a near perfect shape. The actual shape of the received dc pulse is what I referred to as its pulse envelope.

You can have 10000uF with a working voltage of 35V (parallel connection) OR 100uF with a working voltage of 350V (series connection). You can't have it both ways!

I expect you have read this link about printing electronic circuits :- http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11632-modified-ink-printer-churns-out-electronic-circuits.html

Unfortunately I have a couple of wizards among the younger members of my family. I say "unfortunately" because no one will employ them.

You could make a more simple version of your idea by using one coil connected to a capacitor which would set up resonance and if you could make the components "perfect and without loss" you could feed in some energy and the circuit would resonate for ever. In this state you would have an everlasting a.c. current at the circuits resonant frequency. The energy in the circuit would continually be transferred from the coil to the capacitor and back again. However, if you used any device to extract energy from the circuit then the energy held in the circuit would reduce by the same amount. This is known as "damping". The energy held in the circuit would bleed away to nothing. In practice, of course, there are losses and a resonant tuned circuit will be damped by those losses even if you are not deliberately using the stored energy. Therefore you will always get less energy from such a system than you put into it to get it started.

You would need materials that can be superconductors at room temperature - otherwise the necessary drop in temperature will require an input energy. Iron subject to a changing magnetic field gets currents (eddy currents) induced within it which will sap energy by producing heat. If you want to use the movement of a lump of iron it would be in some sort of guide or restraint which will introduce losses such as friction and air resistance .

I sometimes wonder about how much of what we do is instinctive and how much is taught. Examples:- Some animal species live in groups and some live solitary lives only coming together during mating times. Are we instinctively gregarious (except for the odd loner or hermit)? Some animal species generally mate for life and for some species sex is some kind of free for all when the opportunity arises. Do we instinctively generally prefer to mate for life (except for a minority who prefer variety)? Some animal species build a home which they inhabit all the time or return to regularly at breeding time whereas some animal species have no fixed abode. Do we instinctively want to make a fixed home for ourselves and our offspring? The male of some animal species care for and will protect their offspring against any threat. Some species impregnate the female and then leave her to bring up her offspring alone. Do human males instinctively feel they must care for and protect their offspring ? At the very least, I think it must be said that without answers to such questions the line between a human and an animal must be very hard to determine - even if you feel that it does exist.

If you are sending information in pulses (perhaps to use binary) you will need a certain number of cycles inside the pulse envelope for each bit of the information. If you are using a transmitting frequency higher than radio waves then it seems to me that a stream of bits will occupy less time for the same number of "cycles per bit".

The longer the bar, the greater the time difference. The pulses refer to the short burst of sound that results from the hammer blow. The question could better start with the words "A hammer taps ONCE on the end.........". It seems to me that you should have been given (or should know) the speed of sound through air.

Unfortunately pulses of rf fed into the waveguide usually emerge at the other end having travelled at the group velocity which is less than the speed of light. Although there is a pattern in the waveguide which can to be shown to travel above the speed of light it has no substance and cannot be used.

"Things" moving at the speed of light are quite common. However these "things" are not really things at all. The ones I am familiar with are moving patterns that carry no energy. The main one I am familiar with is known as the phase velocity in a wave guide. I am wondering if these tachyons have zero mass and cannot convey information or energy from one place to another - in other words they are nothing more than patterns. I am well out of my comfort zone so this is just a thought that passed through my mind. The attachment is copied from the link:- http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/waveguidemath.cfm

From an earlier post:- To put it at its simplest, the more power you take from an alternator the harder it is to turn. The power you put into turning it will always be greater than the power got from it.