Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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AC/DC Hybrid Vacuum Cleaner

To combat the endless deficiencies of the US power grid
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Vacuum cleaners are simple devices, in spite of Mr Dyson's attempts to over-complicate matters. They're basically a tube feeding into a filtration system, with a high-volume vacuum pump behind it. The only REAL innovation in that time was to put the pump BEHIND the filter. Anyhow, you can witter on about cyclones all you want but motor horsepower plays a big part.

Now, because the USA has an electrical grid based upon the ravings of a disturbed gentleman, you can only squeeze about 1600W out of a regular outlet. This gives dirt and dust WAY too much choice in where it ends up.

Now, here in Philadelphia, we have a 240V 2 phase system that's left over from Edwardian times or something, it could feasibly supply enough power... but it's not very widespread.

Now, here's the solution: Leave the vacuum cleaner plugged in. This charges a nifty LiPo battery pack. The battery powers one of those disturbingly powerful electric ducted fans (EDF) so popular with the model aircraft crowd. The EDF is fitted in series with a regular vacuum cleaner motor, its actions are triggered by a button on the handle to supply supplementary power. Because vacuuming is rarely a continuous process, there's often gaps of a few seconds to allow the dog to escape or move a chair. No need for full power all the time.

EDFs are pretty low drag when they're not running so the regular motor should operate just fine through a ~90mm 2000W EDF.

I consider this as a temporary stopgap until proper electricity (415V 3 phase) is fitted for all domestic appliances, including pencil sharpeners and nose hair trimmers.

bs0u0155, Oct 21 2013

I'm not familiar enough with the band to know if that's the original singer... http://thenotorious...01/ac_dc-640-80.jpg
ACDC [normzone, Oct 21 2013]

Neutron cross-section http://en.wikipedia...utron_cross-section
Study carefully, you will be asked questions later. [8th of 7, Oct 22 2013]

[link]






       bah! they'll be even more of a maintenance nightmare than the whole "bagless" debacle. Sure, remove the bag and replace it with a clogable pedal bin with cheap seals and about a million filters.   

       The black hole solution will require all sorts of messing about, you'll have to account for Hawking radiation... how much mass it's gobbled recently, nightmare.   

       They could, however solve the whole carbon- capture problem quite well.
bs0u0155, Oct 21 2013
  

       ^ <cymbal sting>   

       // I consider this as a temporary stopgap until proper electricity (415V 3 phase) is fitted for all domestic appliances, including pencil sharpeners and nose hair trimmers. //   

       If you run for President, we will vote for you. At last, a candidate with a realistic agenda ... forget healthcare, the deficit, jobs, defence - what's genuinely needed in the world is more 3-phase 415V distribution (100A per phase, minimum, and no penalties for running unbalanced).   

       // plenty of suck //   

       More than enough - how do you stop it sucking all the air out of the room ?   

       Besides, small black hones are unstable, and evaporate quite quickly.   

       Good for dealing with cat fur, though.
8th of 7, Oct 21 2013
  

       // small black holes //   

       //They could, however solve the whole carbon- capture problem quite well.//   

       Now that has the makings of an idea.   

       Out of interest, how many orders of magnitude are we away from creating a black hole - for example, by the pressures at the centre of an exploding fusion bomb?
MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 21 2013
  

       //what's genuinely needed in the world is more 3- phase 415V distribution (100A per phase, minimum, and no penalties for running unbalanced)//   

       300 Amps will make electric car charging somewhat simpler. In addition, a bathroom fan capable of dealing with my brother's prodigious output will be closer to reality - also a job for a black hole..... I hold 3 phase and black holes in equal regard actually.
bs0u0155, Oct 21 2013
  

       //how many orders of magnitude are we away from creating a black hole - for example, by the pressures at the centre of an exploding fusion bomb?///   

       I don't think we've even managed to achieve neutron degeneracy yet, so we've got a long way to go. I'll admit I'm not sure what that means in numbers.   

       ETA: Meh, I lie. Apparently we've achieved or approached Quark Degenerate matter in particle accelerators, so we've only got Preon degenerate matter (if it exists) and then singularity. I still suspect it's many orders of magnitude.
MechE, Oct 21 2013
  

       There was a short story by Clarke (or was it Asimov?) with the premise of a portable consumer grade black hole device used for rubbish disposal.
AusCan531, Oct 21 2013
  

       //According to some mad german guy//   

       Not Dr Hans Zarkov, formerly of NASA by any chance?
bs0u0155, Oct 22 2013
  

       Probably not, based on their track record NASA prrefers to recruit Nazis rather than Russians.
8th of 7, Oct 22 2013
  

       Nah, it's difficult to confuse those two, one's known for their work in space, the other one designs mattresses and relies on 60's Russian tech to supply their 0-G washcloth experiments.
bs0u0155, Oct 22 2013
  

       //We start noticing small holes in things and then a hole in the ground and then earthquakes and then it gets really bad. The counter argument to that (a program [8th] also obviously watched, was "nah, small black holes evaporate really quickly".//   

       David Brin examined it rather thoroughly in, I want to say, "Earth", although I may be misremembering the title.   

       The thing to realize is that even if we are wrong about the evaporation rate of microscopic black holes, it really doesn't matter. Any singularity created in the LHC will have a mass of no more than the particles collided, and probably significantly less. It has no more gravitational attraction than any other object that mass, and the thus rate at which it could possibly suck up additional particles is vanishingly slow. If black holes don't evaporate at all, it would still be centuries or millenia before an LHC produced black hole produced visible holes in objects.
MechE, Oct 22 2013
  

       We disagree.   

       Consider, purely for the purposes of discussion, that a black hole of one proton mass and zero charge is created.   

       Let us also attribute non-zero translational momentum and zero rotational momentum (initially) to said black hole.   

       The black hole will therefore move freely through space, subject to Earth's gravity, much like a neutron. However, sooner or later it will come into range of another particle and swallow it.   

       Let us assume that this particle is another proton. The mass of the black hole will immediately double. It will be at the base of an extremely narrow but very deep gravity well.   

       Despite the fact that atoms are mostly empty space, the wandering hole will suck up everything that comes within range, and may gain electrostatic charge, adding to its ability to attract oppositely charged particles.   

       Now, what is the nuclear equivalent cross-section of a proton black hole <link> ? It is therefore necessary to consider both the mean free path of the object, and the probability of directly intersecting another particle.   

       In the near-vacuum of the LHC tube, there's nothing much for it to interact with, so like as not it will go scooting off into the chamber wall, where large heavy nucleii are more plentiful, and it will gobble them up.   

       So, based on a Schwarzschild radius appropriate to one proton mass, nil charge, a vacuum of 10E-9 mBar and a tube diameter of 100mm, calculate how long it will be before it All Goes Horribly Wrong. The extrapolation is relatively trivial and is therefore left as an exercise for the reader.
8th of 7, Oct 22 2013
  

       The Schwarzchild radius of a proton mass black hole is 2.48x10^-54 m.   

       The ratio of nuclear to atomic radius is roughly 1x10-5.   

       The first thing I cannot determine, what is the effect of a direct impact from a black hole on a sub atomic particle, when said hole is many (~39) orders of magnitude smaller than the particle in question. Especially since the various forces involved in holding the nucleus together are much stronger than gravity. Thinking about this logically, it seems that the result would be the absorption of a very limited number of elementary particles.   

       The second thing I cannot determine is what is the probability of said yoctoyocto black hole passing through an atomic nucleus without a direct encounter. It seems to be fairly high, but I can't find the math.   

       ETA- Since this is smaller than the planck length, and the planck length relates to the expansion of a black hole due to it's minimum possible absorption, I am far from certain that such a black hole can actually exist. I therefore bow to any advanced theoretical physicists in the crowd.   

       Further ETA- No, it cannot. The smallest possible mathematical description is apparently approximately the Planck mass (2.17651(13)×10^-8 kg), with sufficient concentration of anything smaller than that being impossible due to the compton wavelength of the material in question.
MechE, Oct 22 2013
  

       //may gain electrostatic charge, adding to its ability to attract oppositely charged particles.//   

       This ignores the fact that it would (typically) self neutralize with the first such absorption, since we are dealing with a scale where the electrostatic force overwhelms the gravitational. This means that it will repel like charges until such time as it has absorbed just enough opposite charges to neutralize itself..
MechE, Oct 22 2013
  

       ugh... now my head hurts.   

       // The first thing I cannot determine, what is the effect of a direct impact from a black hole on a sub atomic particle, when said hole is many (~39) orders of magnitude smaller than the particle in question. Especially since the various forces involved in holding the nucleus together are much stronger than gravity. Thinking about this logically, it seems that the result would be the absorption of a very limited number of elementary particles. //   

       Without translational energy of its own... wouldn't a smaller singularity then orbit the more massive particle until it could absorb enough matter to make the matter then orbit itself? etc. etc.?   

       The black hole won't have zero translational energy, so it would most likely pass through.   

       Let's discuss a slightly larger scale for the moment, because the whole planck length limit means that the hole will be significantly more massive than a proton, so that case doesn't matter.   

       However, a planck mass black hole orbiting an absurdly supermassive nucleus would not pull subatomic particles out unless the tidal energy could overcome the nuclear bonding equivalent of the Roche limit. I don't know how close it would have to orbit in order for that to happen, but it would be extremely close.
MechE, Oct 23 2013
  

       There was an episode of the Simpsons the other night where there was a black hole, used on the end of a stick as a vacuum cleaner... The writers are stealing our ideas!
bs0u0155, Feb 27 2014
  
      
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