h a l f b a k e r y
This ain't rocket surgery.
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The islands are large discs, perhaps more than 1000m in diameter. The island has lots of huge under-water propellers that can act like on a large ship to increase the rotation of the island to store energy or act like to wind turbines to remove energy.
The island community is powered by renewable
energy. The islands act as huge flywheels that are able to store energy and ensure a constant supply of power.
Not sure what the wind gradients on the island would be like. It might be possible to take-off in a paraglider unassisted using the gradient. It would definitely have interesting weather.
http://www.ctvbc.ct...BritishColumbiaHome
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 22 2008]
Kiritimaticentrifugomobile
Combine it with this. [Wrongfellow, Jun 25 2008]
[link]
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wouldn't people get dizzy ? hmm... well maybe not if there was no other land in sight. |
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This is interesting but problematic. Energy is mass times RPMs squared, so even with a lot of mass, you need some speed. Speed would make the people sick and cause a lot of hydrodynamic drag. |
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I can give you a deal. But only if you buy all twelve. [link] |
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I offered to take them off their hands so I could have a safe place in the center of the lake to experiment where nobody but me will get hurt, but No0O0oooo0O0oo0oo, "Let's sink'em they says", so I says, "Look, you're only six pontoons away from having the worlds first floating golf course or floating water park or...C'MON PEOPLE!, something other than sunken rubble for Petesake!!!" |
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why do they need to live on the island? Why not just use them to generate/store the electricity and supply it to normal people? where's all this "renewable energy" come from? The main problem of course is the huge hydrodynamic drag Mister QED reffered to. |
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//why do they need to live on the island?// They won't be on the island for very long. Unless you shape it like a bowl. Every person flung off the island will destabilise the balance of the flywheel, and rob it of some energy. |
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so... when you got drunk there'd be a 50/50 chance of the spins either stopping or being twice as bad ? |
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The hydrodynamic drag on these things would be enormous. You think it's bad on the metal hull of a ship, just try it when the surface is even less smooth, like concrete. |
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Drag is complicated - hulls of ships are made deliberately rough, because it causes less drag (something to do with breaking up the flow of the water into a turbulent layer right next to the surface - for the same reason golf balls are dimpled rather than smooth). |
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Not sure the hydrodynamic drag would be as bad as for a ship. For one, the water is not being forced out of the way, so its only skin friction, no induced drag from the wake. This may also be reduced by enclosing the islands in a series of concentric rings that spin at slower and slower rates till the final one is virtually stationary this might act like a huge water filled bearing. |
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Secondly the surface area to mass ratio scales by 1/size. So there would be linearly less drag (per unit mass) the larger the island was. How long does it take a supertanker to come to rest if the engine is turned off? |
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