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Merged whirlpower /another whirlpool thread

h.g.Whiz said:
explain why the shadow emerges underneath the whirlpool then vanishes when the whirlpool ceases. whats up with that
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It's called caustics.

If you look closely, you'll notice that for whatever dark portion there is, there is an equivalent lighter portion. The total amount of light is constant (excepting small differences in light absorption and reflection).

- Dr. Trintignant
 
h.g.Whiz said:
I say, for flight, look to the bird

For power, look to the hurricane.
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Of course! That's why all aircraft and rockets use flapping wings!

I say, for laffs, look to the posts by h.g.Whiz.
 
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h.g.Whiz said:
Get a flashlight go to your bathroom fill up your tub turn out the light create a whirlpool and shine a light on it?
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No thanks, but if you videotape yourself doing it and put it on YouTube, I will invite company over to watch it.
 
Dr. Trintignant said:
It's called caustics.

If you look closely, you'll notice that for whatever dark portion there is, there is an equivalent lighter portion. The total amount of light is constant (excepting small differences in light absorption and reflection).

- Dr. Trintignant
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Shame on you for bringing physics into this discussion.
 
There have been experiments with artificial tornadoes, as a power source. They are a form of solar energy, yet not better than others. I smell Rudolph Steiner here.
 
quarky said:
There have been experiments with artificial tornadoes, as a power source. They are a form of solar energy, yet not better than others. I smell Rudolph Steiner here.
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And there have been experiments with naturally grown tomatoes. If you stick two dissimilar metal wires in one, you can generate a slight voltage. You can try this in your bathtub with the lights off.

Attempts to scale this effect up to produce commercial amounts of power (and/or force) have had unfortunate effects. See the documentary, The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. :eye-poppi
 
My late grandfather spent literally the last 15 years of his life obsessed with the idea that the current understanding of particle physics is just wrong and that electrons were shells around nuclei rather than particles that can be represented by a probability density.

He wrote huge manifestos on the subject, spent entire days on campuses in southern California passing them out to anyone who walked by, and tried to squander his wife's savings on forming a trust fund to keep the idea alive after his death.

He also asked me to figure out the mathematics of his theory for him, because I had gotten A's in college maths courses. I told him I didn't have the time or the knowledge, and after that he never really spoke to me again.

His knowledge of the subject, like yours, was limited to "intuition" derived from everyday observances of his rather than any analysis of experimental results. I distinctly remember him mentioning that when he worked on housing construction he noticed that nails would get hot when you pounded them through wood -- clear evidence that his theory was correct!

Don't waste your life as a crazy person like my grandfather. Read some books, go to school, get a job, and do something that is really important.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
And there have been experiments with naturally grown tomatoes. If you stick two dissimilar metal wires in one, you can generate a slight voltage. You can try this in your bathtub with the lights off.

Attempts to scale this effect up to produce commercial amounts of power (and/or force) have had unfortunate effects. See the documentary, The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. :eye-poppi
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An image of ellron begins to form in my mind's eye...


M.
 
h.g.Whiz said:
Ok when shining the flashlight upon the whirlpool I found a shadow beneath it and it reminded me of a black hole . Like the ones that hold galaxies together. That could possibly make whirlpools and galaxies related . If they are than I figured the whirlpool power idea could be possible. But popular physics will reject such a theory. Which is why I brought my idea to the JREF forum. Physists reject skeptism but you guys embrace it. In other words I am skeptical about todays popular physics. Help me out. The only way man can progress is to suspect popular belief to be false.
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Why, other than analogy, should we consider a shadow to resemble a black hole? Just saying it is not enough.

Have you considered reflection and refraction to explain why the light of your flashlight is not transmitted evenly through turbid water?
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
And there have been experiments with naturally grown tomatoes. If you stick two dissimilar metal wires in one, you can generate a slight voltage. You can try this in your bathtub with the lights off.
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Okay, I have to get a plane ticket, fly to wherever in the world you currently reside, and give you a high five.

I el-oh-elled.

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite threads for laughs.

Gravy, hats off to you as well.

Cheers!
 
Hey dudes and Ms. dudes, I perused the site hosting the machine that will one day enslave us and use us as food... well, they offer many other services on top of hosting plans for impossible devices...

Individual or Group Transformational Intensive
A 1 to 5 day retreat using above mentioned services, expressive art projects, active meditation and stream of consciousness writing, along with other processes that assist in releasing emotional blocks. These processes enable people to clear old belief systems, clarify their present situation and their life purpose, access their unique Self and allow for an accelerated growth and manifestation of their unique Self.
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I was just saying to myself, "Writing for television is such empty and meaningless work. I think I am suffering from old belief systems and a lack of unique self."

But, according to the site, this is a group "interactive therapy."

So... who wants to join me? Who amongst you will dare to shed your shoddy old belief systems and explore your true purpose in life. I bet two hours into the session we all open a juice shop in Sedona, Arizona.
 
There was a story on NPR a couple of weeks ago. One of the commentators was talking about a fairly good friend of his who was normal in most ways. The guy somehow thought that even though he had no mathematics, that he had found a huge error in modern physics and that he thought he could prove that Einstein was wrong about E=mc^2 and that the speed of light was not a limit to how fast things could move. He showed his paper to a university physics professor who pointed out a great number of elementary misunderstandings. (Again, the guy fully admitted that he didn't know anything about the mathematics behind physics.)

I think it's an interesting sort of psychology.

h.g.Whiz, what makes you think that very learned astrophysicists might have missed something very very simple for so long? Why would you think that's more likely than the case that you might just have some fundamental (and simplistic) misunderstandings about these matters?
 
I have to agree, it is a very unique psychology.

On a serious note (I promise not for too long) I think it might be reduced to a simple argument from ignorance.

A lot of it is being unable to understand that because something is not visible through our five senses that it must not exist. Yes, I would grant them that it is counter-intuitive to say something like gravity exists... but they forget that man have discovered that there is more to observe in the world beyond our extremely limited five senses.

Math is so powerful it makes my brain want to explode. It is the only universal language. I may not understand the more advanced aspects... but I trust it because the only time it fails rests on the shoulders of a man that forgot to carry the proverbial two.

And now back to making fun of someone that might just need a hug and a beer.
 
Refraction, refraction, and, as mentioned, caustics.



The shadows under your whirlpool are there for the same reason you see differences in light distribution under water in pools, ponds, lakes and oceans.

Further, as mentioned, whirlpools are a use of energy. They transform gravitational potential energy into rotational kinetic energy.


It is up to you to prove the accepted physics wrong about this, not us.
I wish you luck, because the physics involved in whirlpools are the same made us of for aeronautical engineering. You know, airplanes, boats, fans, etc.
It is up to you to explain and demonstrate why the accepted physics, which works very well in all these applications (and is routinely tested), is wrong.


Your claim, your burden of proof. Hop to it.
 
A two word phrase sticks with me from my training as a meteorologist that I have always wanted to use in a post. This thread comes closest to it being applicable in all my years on the Intertubes -- "barotropic vorticity".

Thank you all. :)
 
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