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Author: Mitchell JonesMitchell Jones Date: Jun 18, 2008 17:44
> It is well known and accepted that simple steam engines -- mostly used
> for toys to amuse the wealthy -- existed under the Roman Empire from
> the early centuries of the Christian era.
>
> http://en...
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Author: RichDRichD Date: Jun 18, 2008 17:55
On Jun 16, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:> It is well known and accepted that simple steam engines -- mostly used
> for toys to amuse the wealthy -- existed under the Roman Empire from
> the early centuries of the Christian era.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
>
> Nevertheless, fifteen hundred years were to pass before the steam
> engine became the force that propelled England and the rest of Europe
> into the Industrial Revolution. Why the enormous lapse of time before
> the full potential of steam power was exploited?
A dark age, the result of socialism,
which is inherently an ethic of stagnation.
It required a dynamic capitalism,
a/k/a The Enlightenment, for further progress.
--
Rich
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Author: David JohnstonDavid Johnston Date: Jun 18, 2008 21:11
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:55:04 -0700 (PDT), RichD
yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Jun 16, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:>> It is well known and accepted that simple steam engines -- mostly used
>> for toys to amuse the wealthy -- existed under the Roman Empire from
>> the early centuries of the Christian era.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
>>
>> Nevertheless, fifteen hundred years were to pass before the steam
>> engine became the force that propelled England and the rest of Europe
>> into the Industrial Revolution. Why the enormous lapse of time before
>> the full potential of steam power was exploited? >
>A dark age, the result of socialism,
>which is inherently an ethic of stagnation.
The absence of socialism in those eras makes your explanation dubious.
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Author: Bob CainBob Cain Date: Jun 19, 2008 02:49
Robert J. Kolker wrote:
> Jerry Kraus wrote:
>>
>> Sure, it's difficult. Temperatures of tens of millions of degrees C.
>> are required. Which is why treating it as a Nanotechnology Problem --
>> only applying this temperature to a cubic micrometer, or a cubic
>> nanometer -- is the only practical solution.
>
> Controlled nuclear fusion has been 30 years in the future for the last
> sixty years. I am sure it will be thirty years in the future one hundred
> years from now.
The general rule is that controlled fusion is the energy source of the future
and always will be.
Bob
--
"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler."
A. Einstein
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Author: TeejayTeejay Date: Jun 19, 2008 04:57
Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>
> Controlled nuclear fusion has been 30 years in the future for the last
> sixty years. I am sure it will be thirty years in the future one hundred
> years from now.
>
> Write us when it happens, would you?
>
> Bob Kolker
Only a decade or so after the Fission bomb was developed, the first
commercial nuclear fission power plants were built. We have had fusion
or hydrogen bombs for 56 years now, but still no fusion power plants.
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Author: Strange CreatureStrange Creature Date: Jun 19, 2008 07:24
On Jun 17, 4:23 pm, Democracy Highlander
yahoo.com> wrote:> Matt Giwer wrote:
>> That has been discussed many times in s.h.w-i. Basically the rest of the
>> technologies were not available such as precision metal working on down to
>> metal gears
A slide rule that you turn with a crank does
not need to be made with as much precision
as a spring or a pendulum driven mechanical
clock, or an engine made to do useful work.
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Author: Robert J. KolkerRobert J. Kolker Date: Jun 19, 2008 07:44
Teejay wrote:
>
> Only a decade or so after the Fission bomb was developed, the first
> commercial nuclear fission power plants were built. We have had fusion
> or hydrogen bombs for 56 years now, but still no fusion power plants.
Pay attention. Light atoms don't want to fuse because of the coloumb
forces between the nuclei. Heavy atoms are dying to break apart. There
is the difference.
In order to get any fusion we need the equivalent of a fission A-bomb to
make it happen.
Nature's Way of fusion is lots of matter making a strong gravitational
field. We have not been able to recruit strong electromagnetic fields
to this purpose. If two orders of magnitude could be added to the ration
of electromagentic field strength to gravitational field strength we
would have controlled nuclear fusion. But that is not the way the world is.
Bob Kolker
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Author: Tom PotterTom Potter Date: Jun 19, 2008 04:12
On Jun 18, 12:39 pm, "Robert J. Kolker" comcast.net> wrote:>> Jerry Kraus wrote:
>>
>>> Note the parallel I've drawn between gunpowder -- military
>>> applications of chemical energy -- and fusion bombs -- military
>>> applications of atomic/nuclear energy. A thousand years passed before
>>> chemical energy was applied as a general energy source in internal
>>> combustion engines. A thousand years between gunpowder and the
>>> internal combustion engine. Must a thousand years pass before nuclear
>>> energy can be employed as a general energy source. Why should that
>>> be?
>>
>>
>> Bob Kolker
>
>> Because it is very difficult to overcome the coloumb repulsion of
>> hydrogen nucleii. Fission is a different story entirely. The heavy
>> unstable elements just are dying to fly apart.
>
>Sure, it's difficult. Temperatures of tens of millions of degrees C. ...
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Author: Jerry KrausJerry Kraus Date: Jun 19, 2008 08:05
On Jun 18, 7:30 pm, "Robert J. Kolker" comcast.net> wrote:> Jerry Kraus wrote:
>
> Bob Kolker
>> Sure, it's difficult. Temperatures of tens of millions of degrees C.
>> are required. Which is why treating it as a Nanotechnology Problem --
>> only applying this temperature to a cubic micrometer, or a cubic
>> nanometer -- is the only practical solution.
>
> Controlled nuclear fusion has been 30 years in the future for the last
> sixty years. I am sure it will be thirty years in the future one hundred
> years from now.
>
> Write us when it happens, would you?
>
Yes Bob, but is the problem that it can't be done, that it's hard to
do, or that people simply don't want to do it?
The approach to controlled nuclear fusion I'm suggesting is simple,
plausible, and not being pursued. Why is that, exactly?
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Author: Jerry KrausJerry Kraus Date: Jun 19, 2008 08:07
On Jun 18, 7:44 pm, Mitchell Jones 21cenlogic.com> wrote:> Bottom line: property rights provide incentives that are the engine of
> human progress, but there are no such incentives, in societies where the
> courts are not neutral in their deliberations.
We may have similar problems now, with the development of controlled
nuclear fusion.
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