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Down wind faster than the wind

Fear of having those previous mistakes exposed, and the language used, forced him to make a hasty apologia.


Whaaaaa!!!?? Quite to the contrary, Mark has left his previous mistakes posted along with his apology. Clearly he knows that people make mistakes, and he understands the value in getting out in front of them as quickly as possible. I was seething at his original blog, but couldn't have asked for more in his follow-up.

Does his follow-up contain errors? Yeah. But he's one helluvalot closer to the truth than plenty of other PhD's and even Aero Professors that claim it can't be done.
 
Whaaaaa!!!?? Quite to the contrary, Mark has left his previous mistakes posted along with his apology. Clearly he knows that people make mistakes, and he understands the value in getting out in front of them as quickly as possible. I was seething at his original blog, but couldn't have asked for more in his follow-up.

Does his follow-up contain errors? Yeah. But he's one helluvalot closer to the truth than plenty of other PhD's and even Aero Professors that claim it can't be done.

Well, JB, I was actually saying that if he had not been such a jerk in the first article, then he could have simply said that he made a mistake, rather that the hyperbole of his apology. I did not agree with his first article or the stupid insults. So I agree with you on that score.

A lot of the comments are about the apology, rather than his correction.
He has made a mistake with the gearing, and that is the basis of his conclusion, so he might find himself recanting when he realises what that means. Totally unreliable.
 
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If wind slows, the cart is still driven by the wind, but also by the momentum from the propellor, ...

Uhm, in your example, if the wind slows and has less speed than the car in motion, the cart feels a headwind. That will actually slow down the cart, and not drive it anymore. The cart would use the propellers momentum to work against that drag. Of course that is only if we assume your viewpoint that it cant go faster than the wind at all on its own and has to use the stored momentum.

You really try to put things the way they need to be to make your point.

I do not have the details of this cart, ....

That's a really strange thing to say given the fact that the next quote you cite contains the link to the plans of the cart. If you try to trick people, don't make it that obvious, at least.

Greetings,

Chris
 
So you admit the possibility. What if that transient is longer than you think, and there is a mechanism that you have not considered?

Changing the pitch of the propeller is another option.A variable gearbox is not required.

There is the momentum of the propellor, but like Goodman's cart, there is no literal gearbox. They share the same wheel mechanism, but there is another form of storage. Can you see it?

If I wanted to deceive you, do you think that I would do it in such a way? DOH, no gearboxes!
ETA: I forgot. I must be literal. I am NOT trying to deceive you.

Your idea of momentum smacks of over-unity (still). You cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. If the gearing or the pitch doesn't change, there is no opportunity to store momentum when at a constant speed. One of my more major projects involved mechanical regenerative braking (flywheels and such), so I've been through the exercises. You're barking up the wrong tree. Your "friction balance" isn't any better.

Why not try to understand what all the people are telling you so you can get on with your life? Really. I'm being serious.
 
Uhm, in your example, if the wind slows and has less speed than the car in motion, the cart feels a headwind. That will actually slow down the cart, and not drive it anymore. The cart would use the propellers momentum to work against that drag. Of course that is only if we assume your viewpoint that it cant go faster than the wind at all on its own and has to use the stored momentum.
You really try to put things the way they need to be to make your point.

I should stop doing that, and agree with you. The cart feels less headwind. The drag falls. There is no doubt. A cart that has additional stored energy, can do things a that simple cart cannot.
If you cannot see how that might be, then you just demonstrate at least one reason why.

That's a really strange thing to say given the fact that the next quote you cite contains the link to the plans of the cart. If you try to trick people, don't make it that obvious, at least.
I have to seriously doubt your comprehension. It was Mender's link to the cart. He asked (paraphrasing) 'Where is the gearbox, then?' I answered him.
Think first, post later.
 
Well, JB, (that was spork)


(Re: Mark's apology and recant of his original position)
He has made a mistake with the gearing, and that is the basis of his conclusion, so he might find himself recanting when he realises what that means. Totally unreliable.

No, YOU are the one who is mistaken about the gearing. Of course, you will never be convinced of that because you have already "decided" about that and are only trolling the posts for things to rebut. Have fun with that.

By the way, read what Chris said. He said that "the next QUOTE you cite contains the link". See the difference? Better slow down the trolling so you at least understand what you're trolling about.

Think first, post later.

Your "answer" to my question wasn't.
 
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I have to seriously doubt your comprehension. It was Mender's link to the cart. He asked (paraphrasing) 'Where is the gearbox, then?' I answered him.
Think first, post later.

Ok, let's see. Mender wrote:
mender said:
Well, Humber actually has a point. A vehicle that spins up a mass can use that momentum to momentarily increase the speed of the vehicle. And to do so requires a transmission or gear changing mechanism. The only way to do this smoothly and for more than a quick burst (after which the vehicle again succumbs to drag and slows) is through a CVT.


Humber, please point out where I can find the automated mechanism for changing gears in these plans:

http://www.rtfa.net/2008/12/04/downw...d-dwfttw-plans

Oh wait, just had a close look, not there, no room to hide one. Oops, no way for your momentum idea to work. Thought so, but just wanted to check.

In your post, you made that two quotes that you answered to. First one:
mender said:
ell, Humber actually has a point. A vehicle that spins up a mass can use that momentum to momentarily increase the speed of the vehicle. And to do so requires a transmission or gear changing mechanism. The only way to do this smoothly and for more than a quick burst (after which the vehicle again succumbs to drag and slows) is through a CVT.

...your 1. answer here...

Second quote:
mender said:
Humber, please point out where I can find the automated mechanism for changing gears in these plans:

http://www.rtfa.net/2008/12/04/downw...d-dwfttw-plans

Oh wait, just had a close look, not there, no room to hide one. Oops, no way for your momentum idea to work. Thought so, but just wanted to check.

...your 2. answer here...

Now, in your first answer you said, besides other things, the following:
humber said:
If wind slows, the cart is still driven by the wind, but also by the momentum from the propellor, resulting in a higher velocity than it would otherwise have. It can exceed the velocity of a cart that cannot store energy, when working at a constant velocity against a load.
I do not have the details of this cart, and wind changes will play their part, but the means are there. Small wheels on a rough road? He does not seem to care about efficiency.

So, you think i have problems with comprehension then? When you state "I do not have the details of this cart, .." right before you quote something that contains a link to the very plans of that cart? So yes, you saying " He asked (paraphrasing) 'Where is the gearbox, then?'" is correct, but refers to the second quote. You saying "I do not have the details of this cart..." was above that quote, and thus more related to the first one.

Do you assume that we read post's from bottom to top, or in any other order only known to you, than what would be normally done: top to bottom?

Seems to me that it is you who fails comprehension, and to make things worse, it seems you fail to comprehend your own post's.

Try better next time.

humber said:
I have to seriously doubt your comprehension....
Think first, post later.

Again, you couldn't have said it better. Hope you remember that irony bit i talked about in a different post to you, to understand how i mean that.

Greetings,

Chris
 
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I can arrange for my reference to be a local airstream moving relative to me. By calculation espoused in this thread, I can infer that I am traveling at twice windspeed. I can do the same to create situations where the differential is zero, but the cart is standing still. That weakens the claim that such a differential is an indicator of windspeed. Why should I accept that assumption, and not it is actually in still air, which I say it is. You did ask. If you press a minor point in the interests of pedantry, then you can expect to learn only the most trivial or matters.
I wonder if anyone here mentioned this: all velocities are relative to something. Tell me, Humber, in reality, where is there some "still air", or anything at all that is "standing still". Please. Tell me that, and I'll listen to further argument.

The velocity of the cart on the treadmill is inferred.
Inferred, measured, calculated. Who gives a fig as long as it is a fairly accurate figure obtained by methods any reasonably educated person can accept?

Your remarks on thrust and where the propeller power goes and how it doesn't matter 'n' all.
Do you mean where I tried to explain to you (on the 0.00001% chance you're not trolling) that it was the direction of thrust that matters in how the cart works, and clockwise or counter-clockwise rotations are irrelevant?...

That should lead you to conclude that the treadmill is a force balance.
Ok. Let's follow that in more detail:

1. The important thing about the prop and how it works on the cart is which way it pushes the air (and at what rate). This can be caused by CW rotation or CCW, as long as the gear direction is corrected so as to keep the thrust direction correct.
2. Therefore, the treadmill is a force balance.:rolleyes: BY WHICH I THINK YOU MEAN: The prop is just a fancy bit of stuff to soak up force put in by the belt. You could have a bit of cloth wrapped round the shaft. You could keep the prop but make it go the other way or point it up into the air and the cart would be unaffected. DO YOU STICK BY THOSE ASSERTIONS?

What is a force balance, anyway?

Your own reasoning didn't lead you to that conclusion.
No. My reasoning about the action of the PROPELLER didn't lead me to conclude that the cart is a force balance, whatever that is. Oh no, I suppose it is. It reaches a steady state when the forces pushing it forward equal the forces retarding it, which, if it's built properly, is when it's travelling DDFTTW.

I have not seen, nor would I understand, the proofs.
I can believe that.

I have been convinced upon my own cognizance. Why not you?
I have seen and understood some of the proofs. Incidentally, trying to write like an Edwardian English gentleman doesn't really work.

If you insist on telling me what I have already told you is not the case, then don't bother to respond.
If I don't bother to respond, how will I be able to insist on telling you what you have already told me is not the case?

Don't waste your time with this sort of thing, John.
I think that was spork's advice.

I have already given answers to these remarks. If they are no acceptable, then I do not feel the need to meet your repeated demands.
My repeated demands? I wonder what they were. Thing is, once I've clicked Quote and lost my original text, it's hard to know what yours is about.

The treadmill is a force balance device.
I'd have to google that to know what one is, but the cart isn't it.

It has nothing to do with windspeed travel.
That's right. Any time people want their invention to look clever, they stick a propeller on it. It's the oldest trick in the book.

If you insist that your ideas of equivalence are correct, then so be it.
They're not mine, they're not ideas, they're facts, and I am not someone who uses the word lightly. If there has ever been discovered an exception to them, I don't know of it, because they are facts, like laws of physics if you like. They have been known since at least the 18th Century. Galileo described them. I can see things a long way away using glass lenses. I call it my "ideas of the telescope". I don't suppose you believe me.

John Freestone said:
The cart works because of the back-trenching of a gamut of foibles. If we take the mean of those foibles and back-trench them hard enough with respect to the rotation of the flange-arm (which is going CCCW, don't forget (East-West, UTC)), then the energy-matter-space-time continues measurably faster than the following wind, even up to steady-state electronics.
Now, why don't you Google all of that stuff. When you realise that you made it all up, try and find out why the integral matters. Any number of turns.
:dl:
 
Your idea of momentum smacks of over-unity (still). You cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in. If the gearing or the pitch doesn't change, there is no opportunity to store momentum when at a constant speed. One of my more major projects involved mechanical regenerative braking (flywheels and such), so I've been through the exercises. You're barking up the wrong tree. Your "friction balance" isn't any better.

Why not try to understand what all the people are telling you so you can get on with your life? Really. I'm being serious.

The amount that a regenerative system stores, is some of the energy that would be dissipated in conventional friction brakes. That is not a suitable analogy.

The cart is not measured for its total energy budget, but just its final velocity. The average velocity is not recorded. Now if you do that, you could argue that 'over-energy' be required, but then it would be clear that is not the case. The amount of energy that the system has consumed cannot be inferred by observation of the final velocity over an indeterminate period. What is the efficiency of this cart? You don't know, so you cannot say anything about it being over-energy, or not.

When at a constant speed, it has already stored its energy. That is the difference. Once at a given speed, the power to drive it at that velocity is the same as a normal cart, but it has stored energy.
If the cart does have that energy, what can make it leave?
Slowing of the cart. What increases the storage. Acceleration of the cart.
There you go. It accumulates as it goes. That is the principle. All that is needed, is a selective mechanism to produce a storage bias in favour of the latter, and that is the coupling between the propeller and road.
The friction balance is solid. You cannot demonstrate that it is not, can you? I "understand" quite well, thank you.
 
Ok, let's see. Mender wrote:
<snip>
Do you assume that we read post's from bottom to top, or in any other order only known to you, than what would be normally done: top to bottom?
The original link is to the cart plans. Too bad if that defeats your powers. Perhaps you can imagine a gaerbox. Perhaps there is something that you don't see. No it is not hidden. No it not a trick. The problem is your capacity to observe possibilities.
 
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The original link is to the cart plans. Too bad if that defeats your powers. Perhaps you can imagine a gaerbox. Perhaps there is something that you don't see. No it is not hidden. No it not a trick. The problem is your capacity to observe possibilities.

And that has what to do exactly with my statement that it is hard to believe that you say "I do not have the details of this cart..." while a few lines later, in your post, you include a quote that links to the details of the cart, namely, the plan for it?

Sure, i know that it doesn't fit in your line of reasoning to admit that of course you do know the details of the cart, or at least you could know. Your reasoning is more like to say that you don't know something, and then you yourself copy a link to that knowledge (plan, in this case), denying that you have knowledge of it.

Then, we caught lying or ignoring, you pretend it to be something else that you meant/talked about.

Clearly, it is _you_ who lacks the capacity to observe things. Care to tell why i should observe possibilities that not only have no meaning to the thing, but which just don't apply to the thing? You want us to consider flywheels, gearboxes and stuff while the cart uses none of these things. So, why should i look and think about gearboxes, when there are none in the actual application (besides the needed simpled "gearing" to connect the prop to the wheels)?

And again, would you please explain what is wrong in people's understanding of the cart, what is right in your understanding of it, and why you suppose it doesn't work? So far you failed to explain that in simple terms. It is you who does hand-waiving, evading questions, moves goalposts and tries to cold-read the forum. Obviously, you fail at all of these and thus simply put yourself in the spotlight of ridicule.

Greetings,

Chris
 
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And that has what to do exactly with my statement that it is hard to believe that you say "I do not have the details of this cart..." while a few lines later, in your post, you include a quote that links to the details of the cart, namely, the plan for it?

You are in the wrong place. Try the conspiracy thread.

"I do not have the details of this cart..." - GOODMAN's cart. DOH!

For the last time. I do not comment much on the operation of Spork's cart. Mostly the treadmill. Dan_O raised Goodman's cart, arguing that he already had evidence for windspeed travel. That is what it is about. Do try to keep up.
 
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You have
Top Bottom
V = X 2X
F = Y Y/2
If have:
Top Bottom
V = X 2X
F = 2Y Y

So you have the same. The result is the same as a 1:1 cart, as I have said? So when you say "with half the force" you mean that you are only applying half the force to get half the acceleration?


No, it's not the same as a 1/1 cart.

With a 1/1 cart, you apply a force of y and the cart moves forwards with a force of y.
With a -1/2 cart, you apply a force of y, and the cart moves forwards with a force of y/2.

If a 1/1 cart, you push with a speed of x, and the cart moves forwards with a speed of x.
With a -1/2 cart, you push with a speed of x, and the cart moves forwards with a speed of 2x.
(Given that speed is distance times time, that means in a fixed period of time, the -1/2 cart moves twice the distance of the medium pushing it while the 1/1 cart moves the same distance.)

Since work is force times distance, the amount of work, and the amount of energy required to do the work remains the same, but the final speed of the two carts is different.

Do you agree that this animated cart will move at twice the speed of the medium pushing it, in the same direction that it is being pushed?

That's the question you need to answer.
 
Here’s a photo. Thought I would leave the visegrips on for effect.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=116&pictureid=498


Great picture!

Once you've got it running OK, replace that little wheel near the fan with two widely spaced wheels (to stop it falling over) and take it outside for a spin.

I've had an idea... you can test it against Spork's. We can have a DDWFTTW race day, and Humber can judge the winner. :D (And then we can all riot when he awards first place to the wind instead... :) )


ETA:

You of course want to optimize your design if you plan to enter the downwind speed racer competition.

Damn... Beaten to an idea again. :)
 
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There is huge error, that none of you have noticed, in the "equivalent" model of the treadmill. Do you know what that is?


No, of course we don't.
We've been waiting for well over 1500 posts for you to get around to explaining it to us.

So, please explain exactly how keeping pace on a treadmill is different from travelling at windspeed downwind outside?

In both cases you're motionless relative to the air while the surface you are on is moving backwards relative to you and the air. What's the difference?

But first of all, answer the question as to whether or not you think my wheel-driven cart would travel faster than the overhead belt pushing it.
 
No, of course we don't.
We've been waiting for well over 1500 posts for you to get around to explaining it to us.

So, please explain exactly how keeping pace on a treadmill is different from travelling at windspeed downwind outside?

In both cases you're motionless relative to the air while the surface you are on is moving backwards relative to you and the air. What's the difference?

But first of all, answer the question as to whether or not you think my wheel-driven cart would travel faster than the overhead belt pushing it.

Actually I have, many times. Yes, they are the same when you express them that way. There is no difference from that standpoint, but that is not enough to make them equivalent. The next post after I answer your -1/2 cart post, I will expand upon that.

Yes, the cart will move at twice the speed. I have said that before, and again in the last post on that topic. We are definitely in agreement that the cart will move at twice the speed of the overhead belt.
 
You are in the wrong place. Try the conspiracy thread.

"I do not have the details of this cart..." - GOODMAN's cart. DOH!

For the last time. I do not comment much on the operation of Spork's cart. Mostly the treadmill. Dan_O raised Goodman's cart, arguing that he already had evidence for windspeed travel. That is what it is about. Do try to keep up.

I see. First you claim i can't comprehend, then you claim i'm about a conspiracy.

So, Goodman's cart then. So what? Spork and JB have built a very same version of that cart, only to later use a refined design. In any case, the principle is the same, and none of them contain gearboxes (besides the very simple gear or belt to connect the prop to the wheels) or flywheels. As has been said many times, the carts are identical when it comes to their operation. And as you can see in the Goodman video, it uses a belt as connection between the prop and the wheels. Do you think that we should consider that they've hidden a gearbox in the belt, or a flywheel?

And yes, Goodman's video shows the cart traveling at a higher speed than the wind, and it accelerates to that speed on it's own. That's what the windsock on it's side indicates. So, again, your original comment to what you have quoted from me has to do exactly what with the quoted part?

And also again, care to answer the questions that i raised in the other post's to you?

Greetings,

Chris
 
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I repeat. The last 1500 posts sums to this:

There is no test which could invalidate humbers model, no matter what the result.

JB
 
I repeat. The last 1500 posts sums to this:

There is no test which could invalidate humbers model, no matter what the result.

JB

Hello JB,

indeed. Sad but true. I'll bet a sixpack that on the day he admits that it works and is correct, if he does that at all, he will go along the lines of "but see, that's what i always said/claimed/whatever".

What a big fun this thing is, really. Didn't see such a hefty debate, all over the net at once, for a long time. You guys really know your job when it comes to the "stir things up" side of the net ;)

Greetings,

Chris
 
There is no test which could invalidate humbers model, no matter what the result.

I think there is only one result that would take him down... and that is none of us responding to his trolling (and therefore ruining) of this thread.
 

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