Car

[Freeman]

I have been thinking about a car for some time, and thought "Hey, why not have a car that stayed still and have the world move around it?!?" Well, I was thinking it over, and couldn't figure a lot out! First, the car has to hover without any dependancy on a point, but how would I accomplish this?

[timo]

Admit it: The idea is from the same Futurama episode as the quote in your signature: S2E10: "A clone of my own"

[Freeman]

No, actually I said :"hey, wouldn't it be great if they had a car that..." And my brother said: "Hey, like this cartoon!"

 

They stole the idea from ME!

 

[edit] The quote is a rough translation from Goëthe!

[Freeman]

In theory, isn't it feasable to use energy to repel matter? Or maybe I'm thinking of science fiction...

[timo]

hmmm... seems to be episode 15 not 10. Nevertheless, the joke about "The engines don´t move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it." is ... well .... when I´m sitting in my car/spaceship I don´t move but the road/universe moves around me (<- c´mon disbelievers, jump on me allready with your "would take infinite energy" stuff).

 

Sorry, I´m not very serious but I hope this thread wasn´t, too. You seem to have quite a range of interests which leads me to a quote from Terry Pratchett, "The 5th elephant" (this time translating from german to english):

"The genius of a whole civilisation seemed to concentrate in this single brain which thus experienced a continuous intellectual flight. God knows what fate had awaited humanity if Leonard had been able to concentrate on one thing for more than an hour."

[mossoi]

I have been thinking about a car for some time, and thought "Hey, why not have a car that stayed still and have the world move around it?!?"

My car already does that and much more. The whole universe moves around it.

 

According to Einstein at any rate!

[Freeman]

So, how much energy would it take to get and keep a one ton vehicle up, making it go up 9.8 meters/second??? Now, I am genuinely curious...

[Rasori]

It'd take one ton of thrust (I don't know if you're talking metric or standard, but in standard that's 2000 pounds and metric I think 1000 kg, if you didn't know ), so the energy required to cause something to create that thrust.

 

Vague, no?

[mossoi]

I don't know the figures but the Harrier Jump Jet is an example of a vehicle that does this. It might be worth looking at the specification of it's engines etc. I know it's a lot heavier than a car but it'll give you some idea of the vast amount of fuel it eats just to get airborne.