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DDWFTTW - Tests.

ynot said:
I suspect (but don’t know) that Spork & Co may have known about the Brennan Torpedo all along and were only here for the thrill of the “pissing match” and the limelight.
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I suspect that you're a little man with a little life that simply wants to continue to attack JB and I as you have from the start. You should definitely stop lying, and your conjectures about what we knew and what are motivations are, aren't much better.

If Spork & Co build a “real wind” cart and travel DDWFTTW in to the limelight then it merely proves that they were after the limelight all along. Proof of the principle already exists in the Brennan Torpedo.
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Ah yes, at first you were all pissy that we wouldn't do the tests you TRIED to describe because they didn't make a lick of sense. There are plenty of people that still don't accept DDWFTTW for any number of reasons. As ludicrous as it is, MANY don't accept the treadmill as a valid demonstration. And now you attack us because we do plan to provide the further proof that people are looking for.

Still pathetic.
 
As usual, you're right on the money Michael. Everyone thinks they've hit the one true and final explanation the moment they finally see the light. I've learned the hard way there IS no one right explanation, just as there is no such thing as convincing proof for many people.

More frustrating, is that MANY people, once they come to believe in DDWFTTW, go on to explain how it "really" works and how all the explanations up to that time have been poor. Without exception I've found all of their "really good" explanations to be fatally flawed. Along those lines, I hope that ynot will use the example of the Brennan torpedo to convince other sceptics. But I hope he doesn't try to go into much detail on how this works. He will be doing science a disservice.

Michael C said:
I don't know if they'd already seen the Brennan torpedo...
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The first I ever heard of the Brennan torpedo was from the link ynot posted. Frankly I'm astonished that this example has never come up.

As to the "limelight" question, that's just silly. Consider this - I've never even posted my name in association with this thing! I love brain-teasers. I collect them. I've got a word document that has pages of them. I've posted many of them on the R/C heli and kitesurfing forums. This one just happens to be a sort of explosive one. It's that simple.
 
spork said:
The first I ever heard of the Brennan torpedo was from the link ynot posted. Frankly I'm astonished that this example has never come up.
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I have heard about it before. Jason Roders talked about it on the ozreport forum.

I haven't read about it yet but it sound like it is really a "treadmill" experiment. The torpedo go forward in the water when you pull a string in the other direction. The "real" experiment should be done in a river with fixed lines. (Jason Rogers wrote this)

Those are of course equivalent but it still show the problems for those people that don't believe the treadmill is a valid evidence.
 
fredriks said:
I cant see how Michael C misquoted you in any way. You wrote a post with a clear meaning and he responded to that. You are now trying to back pedal. I don't believe that is the first time you do that...
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In French that sort of back pedalling is called "mauvaise foi". I can't find a neat English phrase that translates the exact meaning: "bad faith" doesn't really work. It's a particularly annoying form of dishonesty that goes like this:

A person first says something stupid, insulting or just simply wrong. When the blunder/insult/mistake is pointed out, the person pretends that it wasn't meant that way: it should be perfectly clear to anybody with half a brain that they meant something completely different, or that they were just joking. They'll pick on little details of phrases that (they claim) make their real intent clear, or imply that others are lacking a sense of humour because they missed the obvious joke.

Once somebody has back pedalled like this, it becomes doubly hard to admit the original mistake or apologise for the original insult.
 
Michael C said:
In French that sort of back pedalling is called "mauvaise foi". I can't find a neat English phrase that translates the exact meaning: "bad faith" doesn't really work. It's a particularly annoying form of dishonesty that goes like this...
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Interesting that the French would have a word for that! :D

O.K. just kidding; but we really should have a word for that in English. It is a classic ploy that's used all too often (not unlike the "I was conducting a spot the flaw test"). Perhaps we can call it a "ynot" going forward. I think it has an ironic accuracy to it.
 
Did a few minutes of googling this term and learned some interesting things. It seems "bad faith" is actually the right translation, and has a deeper and more subtle meaning than we typically ascribe to it. The wikipedia article indicates that "bad faith" actually comes from this French term.

This was another interesting quote:

mauvaise foi: "Sartre's French term for "bad faith," the culpable self-deception involved in declining to accept responsibility for one's choices. "

I find the "self deception" aspect to be very interesting, and probably quite apt.
 
I’ve designed a “Brennan Boat” that uses the same principal as his torpedo except it uses the flow of water as the power source instead of pulling the cables. Or to put it more correctly, the water pulls against the cables. The cables (red) are simply anchored to a fixed point and as the boat moves away from that point the cables unwind from the spools and spin the prop. One cable feeds from the top of it’s spool, the other from the bottom of it‘s spool so they both turn in the same direction. The spools can be either directly attached to the prop shaft or via gearing if required. Hopefully the images make it clear how it works. The same setup could be used for wind tests.

picture.php
 
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I present that the primary value of that video is in demonstrating how difficult it is to present a video that demonstrates something of value.

Ynot will defensively take that as in insult and none intended -- people just don't realize how hard it is to present testing videos that don't raise more questions than they answer.

A good example of the above in our library is our video showing the cart self starting in the wind. For this test we didn't care about DDWFTTW -- we only wanted to show the cart taking off from a standstill in a tailwind. All over the internet we now see comments regarding that video saying "it wasn't faster than the wind -- there were leaves passing it" etc. Of course there were leaves passing it ... it was taking off from a standstill and we couldn't run along side and film it on a busy street with cars coming. It proved one point, but just provided opportunity for more doubt in another.

We should have never released that one as it just adds to the DDWFTTW confusion while only proving a point that isn't central to our claim.
 
ynot said:
If anyone DOESN’T accept that the Brennan Torpedo is an actual, practical working example of DDWFTTW (no treadmills or turntables required), that is essentially the same as the carts in the videos, ...
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LOL -- yeah, "no treadmill or turntables required" -- just two motors hooked to two wire reels pulling on two cables turning two propellers underwater. That's gonna win a lot of converts. :rolleyes:

People don't even accept a DDWFTTW cart running faster than the wind in it's own environment as a working example of DDWFTTW. The Brennen Torpedo is the magic bullet of explanation :rolleyes::rolleyes:

A sailboat tacking upwind is also "an actual, practical working example of DDWFTW, but we don't seem to find a lot of folks buying into it.

I would appreciate an explanation why it isn‘t.
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How about this explanation ... The Brennen Torpedo doesn't go downwind faster than the wind. Do you need more?

I suspect (but don’t know) that Spork & Co may have known about the Brennan Torpedo all along and were only here for the thrill of the “pissing match” and the limelight.
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Yeah, we held out on the Sterling Silver of DDWFTTW proof -- the ever popular, widely known and absolute analogous Brennan Torpedo. We knew of course that once the word of this silver bullet proof surfaced, the limelight would be gone. I'm just so angry that you spoiled this party of ours and released this information and have used it to convince, what ... one person that it's the perfect example of DDWFTTW?

What will we do now?

JB
 
ynot said:
If Spork & Co build a “real wind” cart and travel DDWFTTW in to the limelight then it merely proves that they were after the limelight all along. Proof of the principle already exists in the Brennan Torpedo.
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The above quote just keeps getting funnier and funnier:

1. Originally, Ynot doesn't believe the treadmill and wants test in 'real wind'.

2. Then he presents his infinite treadmill tests and the 'best proof ever 'for DDWFTTW

3. Then he says the the existence of the Brennen Torpedo means that if we continue with plans to execute #1, it means it *proves* that we were only after the limelight all along.

4. NOW, comes this tidbit from Ynot on another forum:

... the cart has been dismantled to use some of the bits for a small outside wind test cart I’m building ...
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Ynot can't seem to figure out what sort of proof constitutes "proof" and what sort of proof proves limelight seeking. Seems in Ynot world it's fine for HIM to build an outdoor version, but if we do it's nefarious.

ROFLAO!!!

At least he's consistent in his inconsistency.

JB
 
In post #251, the following:
A sailboat tacking upwind is also "an actual, practical working example of DDWFTW, but we don't seem to find a lot of folks buying into it.
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Should read:
A sailboat tacking upwind is also "an actual, practical working example of DWFTW, but we don't seem to find a lot of folks buying into it.
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JB
 
ThinAirDesigns said:
In post #251, the following:

A sailboat tacking upwind is also "an actual, practical working example of DDWFTW, but we don't seem to find a lot of folks buying into it.

Should read:

A sailboat tacking upwind is also "an actual, practical working example of DWFTW, but we don't seem to find a lot of folks buying into it.
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I think you mean down-current, faster than the current. But it's clearly the same principle. And if you connected two sailboats with a telescoping pole as they tacked upwind, they would then demonstrate directly up-current faster than the current.
 
Using a variation of the Brennan Torpedo principle I have designed this as a possible directly down river faster than the river device.

It's a one-piece construction with no moving parts other than the cable. As the floating paddlewheel is taken downstream with the flow of the river it rotates off the stationary cable and “paddles” against the flow of the river, thereby travelling directly down river faster than the river. Anyone think it would it work or not?

roller.bmp
 
It may either travel down river faster than the river or travel up the cable (faster than the cable that isn't moving) or it will sit in the middle moving slowly one way or the other but mostly splashing water because you are too close to a 1:1 gearing.

ETA: up cable is my guess given the dimensions in your drawing.



BTW: Brennan mentions that he got the idea for the torpedo by playing with cotton spools and found that when he pulled slowly on the thread, the spool moved away from him.

However, our demonstration with the yo-yo shows it clearly moving up the string towards the puller. How is this apparent contradiction reconciled?
 
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Dan O. said:
It may either travel down river faster than the river or travel up the cable (faster than the cable that isn't moving) or it will sit in the middle moving slowly one way or the other but mostly splashing water because you are too close to a 1:1 gearing.

ETA: up cable is my guess given the dimensions in your drawing.
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I agree that it all depends on the ratio of the cable spool and paddlewheel diameter as to what would happen. Are you saying that you think there is a ratio where the paddlewheel would travel directly down river faster than the river?
 
Dan O. said:
BTW: Brennan mentions that he got the idea for the torpedo by playing with cotton spools and found that when he pulled slowly on the thread, the spool moved away from him.

However, our demonstration with the yo-yo shows it clearly moving up the string towards the puller. How is this apparent contradiction reconciled?
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Perhaps Brennan tested what the yoyo would do on ice ;)

ETA - Or perhaps he was pulling the string high enough above the horizontal to make the cotton reel move away.
 
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Gosh, that's a brainteaser, ynot. Almost have to run out and find me a bridge over a river, after making one I mean. It's really hard to say, but my guess is that it would only go up cable with a much smaller cable-wind radius, and as drawn would go downstream slower than the stream. It seems to me that to do the faster thing, the vanes need to be paddling slower than the vehicle would go if it just unwound itself from the cable at waterspeed. That suggests to me that the winding radius needs to be larger than the vanes.

To avoid the thing just swinging round, you could double up the wires and have them wound round the ends, with the paddles in the middle. It still might swing from side to side, especially as it gets further from you, but your version (I guess you're just showing the principle) would be inherently unstable - any difference in force on one side will start it to turn, and it can't self-correct.
 
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