ramsey@inmet.UUCP (06/02/83)
#R:sri-arpa:-156400:inmet:7600001:177600:584 inmet!ramsey Jun 1 13:44:00 1983 There are no aerodynamic factors which prevent helicopters from looping, only mechanical ones. Most helicopters are not designed to tolerate excessive negative g-forces (which could result from a sloppily executed loop). A mistake could result in the main rotor striking some other portion of the helicopter (like the tail boom or rotor) with clearly disasterous results. Some helicopters use what are referred to as 'rigid' rotor blades (the blades themselves are flexible, the hub is what is rigid). Some of these machines are quite capable of looping and rolling. Marc Ramsey
rgt@hpfclj.UUCP (11/27/83)
#R:rabbit:-202100:hpfclj:14500002:000:224
hpfclj!rgt Oct 31 08:12:00 1983
No woman that I have ever known would be willing to tolerate the
infinite gestation of someone just to be born at light speed. Maybe
that is why this experiment has never been done.
Ron Tolley {hplabs!hpda!hpfcla!rgt}dwp@inmet.UUCP (03/24/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1712200:inmet:7600006:177600:955 inmet!dwp Mar 22 10:57:00 1984 This is an educated guess, based on the electric blanket control I pulled apart many years ago. The lumps in the blanket itself are thermostats, but they are only safety devices to prevent hot spots. The actual control of the blanket is independent of the actual temperature of the blanket. It is done, apparently, by a bimetallic strip in the control itself. The blanket current flows through the strip, heating it. When it heats sufficiently, it pulls away from an electrical contact, and the strip, and the blanket, cools. Turning the heat control rotates a screw adjusting the gap between the bimetallic strip and the contact, varying the amount of heating necessary before the contact breaks. All the feedback is in the control itself, there is no detection of the temperature of the blanket. So adding blankets over an electric blanket will make it "too warm", until you adjust the control. David Pachura decvax!cca!ima!inmet!dwp
jlg@lanl.UUCP (jlg) (03/30/85)
> Knee-jerk skeptics who dismiss ideas that don't happen to correspond to > their own beliefs would probably have laughed at Copernicus for suggesting > that the earth was not the center of the universe, or Columbus for suggesting > that the earth wasn't flat. All educated people in the days of Columbus knew that the Earth was spherical. So did most sailors. The accepted cosmology of the time was Ptolemy's. The claim that Columbus made was that the circumference of the earth was 15,000 mi. rather than the generally accepted 25,000 mi.. Unfortunately for Columbus, he was wrong. Fortunately for Columbus, there was a whole contenent in the way that he didn't know of. The reason that Columbus's crew was on the verge of mutiny was that they had passed the point of no return (not enough provisions to return to Europe) before they had sighted land and their compass was no longer pointing precisely north. J. Giles
jlg@lanl.UUCP (jlg) (03/30/85)
> The whole idea of a foil is that it is not supposed to > really hurt your opponent, which it is why it bends so easily. > But, if the foil is perfectly streight, it is still possible > to actually run someone through with it ( as happened in the > Moscow Summer Olympics). If the thrust is directly along the > line of a streight blade, there is no lateral component to > bend the blade and take the force away from the tip. Bending > the blade gaurentees that any strike with the tip will force > the center of the blade to increase its curve, and prevent > bloodshed! The original idea of a foil was to kill your opponent! Foils didn't always have that little nub on the end to prevent injury. A foil was invented as a thrusting weapon so only its point was sharp. The bending properties of the foil were designed so that the foil would bend within the opponent's body and do damage to more organs than if it just went straight through the opponent. By the way, the reason that you step on a foil to remove bends is because it's quick and it works. No other explanation is required. J. Giles
art@hpfcla.UUCP (art) (07/25/85)
Re: Bang! or whot?
Here's a data point for you:
"The second group of physicists holds that all attributes are at first
blended together in the universe and then become distinguished from one
another. This is the view of Anaximander, and also of those like
Empedocles and Anaxagoras who assume the existance of a single undifferentiated
material mass as well as of many discrete objects. For Empedocles and
Anaxagoras also hold that things emerge from a universal mixture but they
differ in that one says the emergence occurs in cycles while the other says
it happened only once." Aristotle 'Physica' 187a20
Given the length of time the controversy has been raging, it seems unlikely
that it will be resolved in this millennium. Course, you might check over in
net.religion. They are probably more up to date on creation myths.
art dumont