Troll Science with Winnar!

[D.R-]

this picture please

 

[BBQ°]

if luigi ladder works, then that works too.

 

[Dark Sonic]

lol trolling

 

[o-Serin-o]

this picture please

You wouldn't be able to lift your second leg without gravity bringing you back down <_<

 

[Winnar]

this picture please

Gravity is a force that always pushes you down.

The floor has what is called a normal force, which pushes you up and keeps you from falling.

You and your friend are only creating horizontal forces, which will not push you up.

The scenario depicted above is called a static equilibrium. This just means that although there are forces in the picture, but they cancel each other out so there is no movement. The downward force of gravity is cancelled by the upward force of the floor; the force you use to pull/push your friend is cancelled by the force your friend uses to pull/push you.

Since you need a force to create movement and all the forces cancel each other out, neither you nor your friend will move.

 

[BunBun]

I'd like to comment on "friction doesn't vary with speed"

Directly, this is correct. However, in practice, increase in speed causes more energy loss in heat form from friction, causing material deformation, increasing defects and internal friction, affecting and deforming the outer surface to change the kinetic friction coefficient, changing the friction.

Or, why you have to replace your brakepads.

 

[Winnar]

I'd like to comment on "friction doesn't vary with speed"

Directly, this is correct. However, in practice, increase in speed causes more energy loss in heat form from friction, causing material deformation, increasing defects and internal friction, affecting and deforming the outer surface to change the kinetic friction coefficient, changing the friction.

Or, why you have to replace your brakepads.

Yes I believe the blog addressed this:

(Edit: Technically, there are some factors that would make the friction change with speed. The classic idealized model called "coulomb friction" doesn't really apply to bearings. As the bearings spun faster and faster, they would generate heat, which would increase the friction slightly on the wheels. However, it would never be enough force to prevent take-off. The only time this would prevent take-off is if the wheels locked up or broke off, and then we'd have a much bigger problem and catastrophic failure.)

 

[hungrybox]

can someone explain the river and spinwheel trollscience? it seems so plausible...

 

[Scidadle]

I want my ****ing floating pool.

 

[j00t]

HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

A floating pool would be awesome.

 

[BunBun]

can someone explain the river and spinwheel trollscience? it seems so plausible...

It's not trollscience in the sense that it wouldn't work. We've been doing this for years. However, it's not 'unlimited energy' like the pictures would imply. That energy still comes from somewhere (force of river, from gravity originally).

 

[Pi]

It's not trollscience in the sense that it wouldn't work. We've been doing this for years. However, it's not 'unlimited energy' like the pictures would imply. That energy still comes from somewhere (force of river, from gravity originally).

yea
not unlimited
what with that shortage of gravity and such

 

[Scidadle]

Its the new global warming!

 

[Fenrir VII]

can someone explain the river and spinwheel trollscience? it seems so plausible...

It's not trollscience in the sense that it wouldn't work. We've been doing this for years. However, it's not 'unlimited energy' like the pictures would imply. That energy still comes from somewhere (force of river, from gravity originally).

Well, technically, it is free energy in the sense that a river is a very renewable source of energy. Not unlimited, per se, but in the present sense, it is a very long-running form of energy for not much effort.

Heck, this is seen in pretty much any older mill or other working plant on a river.

The problem is... outside of a simple mill or plant, the energy we harvest from natural sources isn't nearly enough to power all that much. There's a huge push for similar wind energy, but again, acres upon acres of wind turbines can produce only a fraction of what one gas turbine can... "free" energy just isn't THAT potent, yet..

 

[BunBun]

yea
not unlimited
what with that shortage of gravity and such

Psh, obviously. The world's supply of gravity is predicted to run out in 2014.




Also, I'd like to note that America is ****ing stupid for not using more nuclear power plants and not improving the current ones.

 

[tw1n]

Psh, obviously. The world's supply of gravity is predicted to run out in 2014.

Lol the funny thing is... this sounds like it could be real. MadMagazine came out with a huge list of things that sound real but aren't. Always makes me laugh.
"The letter W was added to the english language in 1842"
"The is a man in Utah who is illergic to smooth jazz"

Also, I'd like to note that America is ****ing stupid for not using more nuclear power plants and not improving the current ones.

Agreed! They are extremely efficient if they dispose of the waste properly.

 

[BunBun]

Yup. If we would reprocess and use fast breeders with our normal plants, we could cut 95% of our waste

 

[Winnar]

Yeah, the waterwheel-river troll science pic isn't really all that troll sciencey. It's more or less exactly how we get hydroelectric power. Stick a water turbine in a river, do some cool electrical engineering tricks, get unlimited electricity. Eventually.

Like BunBun and Fenrir said, it's not that the picture is wrong, just that it's misleading. Especially with the setup depicted in that picture, you aren't going to be able to get much energy very quickly.

But yes, basically it does work.

Maybe the troll is that it's not actually troll science?

---

Yeah nuclear power is pretty cool, but I'm still holding out for artificial photosynthesis to become commercialized. Dan Nocera talks a lot about the energy problem and eventually explains what he's doing to solve it (artificial photosynthesis). It's a pretty funny and enlightening video imo

http://www.wimp.com/personalizedenergy/

 

[Twin_A]

I saw a troll science about putting marshmallows in a microwave, then when it expands to put it in a bigger microwave to enjoy infinite food. If anyone can find it and post the pic I'd appreciate it (lazy).

Thoughts on that one haha? I can assume that it's because you cannot create or destroy matter. It's just expanding and would make the giant marshmallow hollow.

 

[BunBun]

Yeah lol. You make a larger but less dense marshmallow from expanded air pockets inside. Eventually, it'd burst, as the amount of mallow material doesn't change and would get thinner and thinner.


One thing that I've never understood is how they've created metal lenses to capture and view evanescent light. This just blows my mind, and I have no idea how it works.

 

[Winnar]

Yeah lol. You make a larger but less dense marshmallow from expanded air pockets inside. Eventually, it'd burst, as the amount of mallow material doesn't change and would get thinner and thinner.

This.

One thing that I've never understood is how they've created metal lenses to capture and view evanescent light. This just blows my mind, and I have no idea how it works.

Actually I'm not sure either. That might be something worth looking into soon

P.S. Someone linked me to this:

http://www.urlesque.com/2010/10/25/i-showed-troll-physics-comics-to-a-physics-professor/

cool

P.P.S. http://trollphysics.tumblr.com/

 

[Comrade]

In response to the "room of mirrors and light" problem: I asked a physics professor practically the same question a year or so ago, and while I don't remember exactly what he said, I do understand the basic gist of it.

Basically, without throwing out words that I may be using incorrectly (like tachyons), the heat generated would literally destroy the light and cause it to fade to darkness. (Much like a glow-in-the-dark poster)

 

[Zatchiel]

 

[BunBun]

Lol single body problems

 

[Winnar]

That would only work if someone else were holding the magnet instead of the car basically holding the magnet.

Think of the forces that this creates. The first one is obvious, the magnet pulling the car to the left. By the same token, though, there has to be a force pulling the magnet right (Newton's Third Law of Motion). Since the two are attached to each other, their net force is zero.

(forces)
[magnet]<--->[car]

If the magnet were attached to a pole or something adequately heavy, the car would only feel the force pulling it left and you'd have this diagram instead:

|pole|<---[magnet] ---> <---[car]

 

[ZeroUnderOne]

Think of the forces that this creates. The first one is obvious, the magnet pulling the car to the left. By the same token, though, there has to be a force pulling the magnet right (Newton's Third Law of Motion). Since the two are attached to each other, their net force is zero.

(forces)
[magnet]<--->[car]

You just name the same force twice... and said it cancels itself. There is the attraction between the magnet and the car, then there is the equal/opposite force from the pole holding the two apart. That is where the net is zero.

Or am I missing something?

 

[Winnar]

You just name the same force twice... and said it cancels itself. There is the attraction between the magnet and the car, then there is the equal/opposite force from the pole holding the two apart. That is where the net is zero.

Or am I missing something?

I'm probably messing something up

another reason why I should get more sleep

Edit - Yeah sorry I guess I meant to imply that the first diagram is actually this:

[pole]<---[magnet]<--->[car]--->[pole]

where the above two poles are the same pole connecting the car so if you rearranged it so the forces carry through...

Spoiler

dd

---------------->

Spoiler

dddd

<----------------

Spoiler

dd

|

Spoiler

dddddddddddddddddddddddd

|
[pole]<---[magnet]<--->[car]--->[pole]

I color coded the forces that cancel each other out for your convenience (just don't highlight it lol)

 

[Fenrir VII]

Technically, there will be a mostly constant compressive force on that pole, which will eventually weaken the pole (if the magnet is strong enough to "pull a car", that is) and cause it to eventually fail... so the magnet will be attached to the car, and then everything will stay put.


Too complicated?

 

[ZeroUnderOne]

I like that drawing!

ddddddd =)

 

[BBQ°]

more like

bbbbbbbb

 

[Winnar]

Technically, there will be a mostly constant compressive force on that pole, which will eventually weaken the pole (if the magnet is strong enough to "pull a car", that is) and cause it to eventually fail... so the magnet will be attached to the car, and then everything will stay put.


Too complicated?

Yeah there's some math you can do to see if the pole will fail. If that happens then the car and the magnet will fly together and meetup somewhere in the middle, assuming the car and magnet are of similar masses.

I just assumed we were using carbon nanotubes for the pole though hehe

 

[exarch]

*snip*
Too complicated?

read ---> Problem?
lol troll engineers

 

[Zatchiel]

Couldn't you just test it or something?

Materials: Toy Car, Small Magnet, Toothpicks, Tape, other obvious testing variables, like open ground. Also try to find a factor that would make this possible, please.

 

[BunBun]

You don't need to test it. The magnet is rigidly attached to the car, so it is a single object (magnet + car), therefore, unless there is some outside force applied, the location of the center of mass of the object (magnet + car) will never change.

Newton's laws, dawg.

 

[Fenrir VII]

Since the other troll car one was so popular...

 

[BunBun]

With the generator, it simply fails with summation of forces.

Taking out the generator, summation of forces is sketchy, but still shows that it would return to rest from friction. The other way to prove the flaw is there is nothing keeping the cars separated around the circle, and would all attract into a smaller, solitary ring. Thus, single-body problem.

 

[Winnar]

First off, the cars will all stick together pretty much instantly. At that point it's just a long metallic rope. The moving cars lose a ton of energy with friction, sooner or later the amount of energy will be zero (it is converted into heat energy instead via friction) and the cars will stop moving.

Let's say it is a steel cable, though. Also let's say there's no friction and it's in space. If you spin it at that point, it will theoretically spin forever. The problem now is that you've got to deal with the turbine. Turbines work by taking some of that mechanical energy (movement) from the moving system and turn it into electricity (and heat). The turbine will basically suck all this energy out of the spinning cable until there's no more kinetic energy in the cable.

If you have ever heard that heat is the lowest form of energy, it's because of this. Every form of energy I can think of off hand can easily be converted into heat energy, but it's difficult or impossible to convert heat into other forms of energy. In addition to this, in most or all energy conversions there is loss of energy by heat. There's no such thing as 100% energy conversion (I think this is right, but I could be forgetting one or two very specific case). It's more or less useless, and in many applications it actually is very annoying because of how many problems too much heat can cause.

[Disclaimer: Pretty much extremely tired when writing this, so it's probably not up to my usual standards. Sorry about that]

 

[tw1n]

Lol Winnar time and time again I am impressed by your solid knowledge of physics and engineering. Keep up the good work :D

 

[Fenrir VII]

Lol I had hoped that it would get a couple laughs before being completely buried.. but good job, guys.

*snip*

for the most part, yeah, this is spot on.

1. I don't see too much of a reason that the cars would instantly stick together... there is enough space between them such that they can't instantly.. they might be pulled into a smaller circle eventually..

2. Yeah, as with most troll science, this one doesn't take into account the energy losses from heat.. and the momentum of actually moving the generator would steal a lot of the motion until the system is at rest. (almost instantly)

3. Actually ALL energy converts 100% to other energies... but I see what you are saying. you can't convert electrical to mechanical (for example) without having some sort of heat loss.

4. (Why has nobody mentioned this?) I know there are a number of other issues with the system, but is there seriously a magnet that requires no power that can pull a car? I'm actually not sure about this one... certainly no expert on magnets, but that would be impressive...

 

[BunBun]

4. (Why has nobody mentioned this?) I know there are a number of other issues with the system, but is there seriously a magnet that requires no power that can pull a car? I'm actually not sure about this one... certainly no expert on magnets, but that would be impressive...

Get a big enough rare earth magnet and sure.