Always trying to keep up with the world in terms of technology, recycling,etc., I have just watched a prog about the way in which it is possible to return 95% (claimed) of a lorry back to the road by careful scrapping & recycling, etc.
Perhaps the most startling fact that the gushing narrative issued forth was that the re-vulcanisation process of the tyres subjected them to a "high-pressure vacuum". So there!
Any more?

How about the new technology siphon they are trying to use in the Gulf Oil Spill?
e.g.
.... BP had successfully managed a first cut of the longer leaking pipe, called the marine riser, over which it planned to place a small cap that would collect and siphon most of the oil to the surface about 1.6 km above. When I learned physics a siphon required the outlet to be below the inlet so that gravity acting on the different lengths of fluid in each arm caused the fluid to flow. Looks like the laws of physics have changed a lot since then.

Siphon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphon)
A device that is commonly in the form of a tube in an inverted U shape, which is used to cause a liquid to flow uphill, over an obstacle, without pumps, powered by the fall of the liquid as it flows down the tube and is discharged at a level lower than the surface of the reservoir it came from.

The worst "keeping up with technology" would have to be
with computers. I discovered blue ray discs (http://www.blu-ray.com/info/) only just last
week! :bored:

Presumably the other 5% is the driver.:uhoh:

Some may recall the Dragons Den investment in a haulage company - JPM Eco Logistics. They claimed to be using recycled lorries & only running on Bio Diesel. They didn't last long.

Quantum jumps. Do they know how big they'd be?

Just about the smallest possible. I always have a giggle when someone uses that phrase

Clive Sinclair introduced a computer called Quantum Leap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL) (QL).

It failed at the first jump . . .

Quantum jumps. Do they know how big they'd be?


Well, yes ectually, at least for some of them. One can see them in action every day.

It all starts in the atom's harem of those cute but consistently negative energy localities that we call electrons.

If one examines an electron orbiting an atom nucleus, one may assume that the nucleus is similar to a sphere, and the orbit of Ms. Electron is a neat circle about the center of the sphere. (not really exactly so, but short-cuts will help us get through this more quickly). If something excites the nucleus of the atom, (like the evening news, or like some radiation wave that affects it) then the atom is motivated to vibrate more actively than before -- but the Nuc is a big chunky thing and not so suited to vibrating much, so one or many of the atom's electrons, a light-weight aerobat by contrast to the chunky nucleus, take up the energy by shifting gears, i.e, by moving to a somewhat wider orbit in a way that absorbs exactly the amount of energy that was annoying the nucleus.

Probably we may most easily think of quantum levels as resembling gear shifts in an automobile - or better yet in a BIG tractor with dozens of possible gear combinations. Even when the number is many, the number of choices is quite finite, and very specific. There are gears 3 and 4, but no gear 3.5. Same goes for quantum levels. Each atom variety, and each isotope of each atom, carries a signature set of possible quantum levels in its repertoire. This item of knowledge is key to understanding truth and logic in most of modern science.

Most atoms have a cloud of captive resident electrons - ranging from a few E to many dozens, so an excitation event (a ray of light, for example) to the atom that is not consistent with the allowable quantum levels of one single electron may be ignored altogether or may be divvied up in the process by exciting each of some number of electrons by x or y or q amount. The X's, etc., correspond to some ones of the possible quantum levels available to each electron. Each quantum level corresponds to an exact and perfect increment of energy that may be imparted to a given electron in orbit around the given mass composition (of protons and neutrons) in the nucleus. Higher energy orbits are said, metaphorically, to extend further in radius from the center of the imaginary sphere of the nucleus - which may or may not be so , but the main point is that they have higher energy after a quantum jump up.

If electrons in certain atoms acquire energy as "spin", rather than orbital radius, one gets MAGNETISM! (but that's another ramble, however, for another time.... right now we're talking Quantums.)

The matter is complicated somewhat further by the existence of stable and unstable quantum orbits. Electrons in stable orbits tend to want to stay there, until dislodged by some external force..perhaps one that bumps them to a higher orbital that is unstable. From the Un-stable orbits, electrons will more readily drop back to a lower stable quantum than will ones that are already in a (different) stable quantum level. When unstable-orbit electrons drop back, the process is called "relaxation". In clear contrast to the specific energetic events that cause electrons to move to higher quantum levels at a common moment, local noise or some other atom-level artifact can cause unstable orbits to decay to stable ones in a random manner over a period of time.

Net of this is that a single impulse of energy may promote a bunch of orbits to higher energy states in an instant, and then they may gradually relapse to their earlier states in a gradual, statistical kind of way, over a span of time.

These basic quantum principles (quantum excite, quantum relax) explain how all flourescent light-bulbs work: Electrical energy in a closed tube containing certain gasses causes a high-energy plasma which emits a lot of (mostly invisible) ultraviolet light. This light then travels a short distance to the phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp tube. The phosphor is comprised of a mix of chemical compounds that have convenient qualities - each compound is excited by the ultraviolet to higher quantum states - the atoms of phosphor then relax to lower energy levels in quantum steps that correspond to various wavelengths of visible light, combined to make a mix of colors that are pleasing to the human eye.

A wider generalisation of this principle pertains to the uses of optical spectra:

Each substance in nature has one or many characteristic spectra that show as a range of color bands. Collectively those bands correspond, in turn, to the exact, absolute and totally repeatable quantum band gaps, or jumps, of all the electrons in all the occupied orbit levels of that specific substance. We can see those band gaps in action, as emissions of light of a certain color or radio waves at a certain measurable and precise frequency.

Extrapolations of the observable quantum principles, many of them BASED ON simple eyeball spectral data that can be derived from a prism and / or a pair of razor blades and similar basic stuff, give structure and validation to most of our contemporary theories of matter, time, space, and distance. Atomic clocks, for example, are our most precise measure of time - the parameter on or against which all other physical things are understood and calibrated. Our very best standards for measuring the universe use the energy wavelengths emitted by the quantum relaxation bands of specific elements - a certain quantum drop of caesium or rubidium, for example, is the current best measure of everything we know or can possibly know.


Physicists and others who may think better... please feel welcome to criticize and correct the foregoing with greater or lesser savagery.

Many thanks Arc, now can you explain irony?:)

It all starts in the atom's harem...... I thought it was going to get interesting after this, but was sadly disappointed. :bored:

Many thanks Arc, now can you explain irony?

Had a go at that, some six or seven year ago. Canna quite recall which, but.... either the post or the whole thread was removed from view shortly after.

The tag line was:

"Aye, Ronnie, but she's ma niece."

I thought it was going to get interesting after this, but was sadly disappointed.

Well... I speed-read arcniz's story... and got these information bites....... harem... cute... energy... vibrating... excitation... relaxation... energetic... excited-higher-states... pleasing to the human eye... physical..... and now I think I need to lie down..... :\
I also need to lie back and figure out exactly what I read. I'm sure there's some pages missing from the story..... :suspect: