Winnar
Smash Lord
Science/Physics Time with Winnar!
It's called surface tension. The small amount of water's weight is supported by the tension created by the surface area inside the straw.
The one with the straw and the liquids being held at the end of the straw
If you make the radius of the straw two times bigger (2r), straw's surface area doubles as well (2 * pi * 2r), but the volume inside the straw becomes 4x bigger (pi * [2r]^2). At some point the volume of the water increases more than the surface area of the straw. Basically, the downward force of gravity becomes more than the upward force caused by surface tension and the water will fall out of the straw.
There is also a small adhesion force of water to the straw which holds the water in place.
Speaking of, there's a neat thing called capillary action. This is where water actually rises in a small tube (if the tube is small enough). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action
This one only kind of works. The majority of the light's just going to go into the stream of water and then go right out the other side
That one also works.
---(light)---> |(water stream)| ---(light)--->
What you're thinking of is fiber optics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber
Fiber optics is really, really exciting, because it allows you to do stuff like this (among many many many other things). I haven't been keeping up with fiber optics, but one application is for internet stuff. If I'm remembering this right, fiber optic cables are faster, lighter, cheaper, and takes up less space than ethernet cables. Yes, please.
One other thing I forgot to mention, a friend of mine and I were talking about this picture.
He reminded me that water CAN experience total internal reflection, thus letting light travel through a stream of water, but there are a few conditions that need to be met.
1) The angle of the light ray(s) have to be just right upon entering the stream
2) The stream of water can't have a steep arc, or the light will escape the stream
3) The stream of water can't have a single break in it (where it becomes water droplets falling in an arc), or the light will escape the water
I'm not sure if this is true for all light, or just lasers.
The problem though is that this implies that you can gather a bowl of light water or something, rather than it being concentrated into the end of the stream and then escaping out of the bowl.
The problem with this is that portal technology doesn't exist, even theoretically. If it did exist, then you could technically abuse the never ending gravity. You still have the problem though that you won't be producing much power. It might be never ending energy that you produce, but it's not going to be very much never ending energy. Also, portals will probably take some amount of energy to create and sustain, right? The energy the infinite waterfall would produce would almost definitely not make up for the energy you lose by making and keeping the portals up.
aight now this has me curious...I realize the portal would be a strech
but what if you replaced the portal with Niagra falls which never stops (as far as waterfall's concern and you add the wheel/electricity combo)
how would that not work?
Also yes, this is essentially how you turn running water into electricity. The Hoover Dam is a power plant. That is why they built it. You don't have to build a dam, but if you have a basic understanding of electrical engineering then you can build your own using a magnet, some wire, a water wheel, and one other thing I can't quite remember.
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_hydro.html
Anyway, the problem with water power is that it isn't terribly efficient and your power output is relatively low. Nuclear power produces something like 1000x more energy
Here's a website that breaks down some of the basics of solar vs hydro vs wind power: http://www.solaralaska.com/primer/solvs.htm
This is probably the hardest one to answer. I have a few theories, but I'll talk to some people about this and get back to you with a more solid answer. For now here's what I'm thinking about with it.
also...I mean this might be dumb...lol but I Kinda wanna know why this wouldnt work? or atleast keep a room illuminated for a little longer when you turn the light off
room made of mirrow walls/floor/ceiling
First of all, no mirror is 100% reflective. It's going to absorb some light. There's one practical limitation on this theoretical problem. Technically the light would take longer to fade out, but we're talking a very small amount of extra time.
The "escape through a crack" theory could work. I mean if there is a hole or crack in the room then light will escape and your room will almost instantly become dark when you turn off the light. Light is so fast that even if it takes 100,000 reflections before it escapes through the crack, it will still probably take about a millisecond for all of the light to leave.
If you assume, though, that there are no cracks (for example, if it's a spherical mirror room), then the problem is a little bit trickier. Certain wavelengths of light are absorbed whenever light bounces off an object (so if you or the light bulb/light socket are in the room, then most or all visible wavelengths of light will be absorbed). This is more or less how colors are formed/seen.
Another thing that may or may not actually come into play here is that light dissipates (thins out) as it travels away from the light source. That might be negated, though, by the 100% reflective mirrors assumption. Bleh.
Okay so the main thing is that I don't think this will work because if it DID work then you could leave the light on and get an infinite amount of light density into the room, which wouldn't make sense.
Bleh.
P.S. I'll update with more of the troll science pictures later. Gotta get to class now, ciao!