Recent content by Heathcliff

Got me there. My experience consists in building a capacitive discharge ignition system from a kit forty years ago that had a 12 to 400V dc-dc converter in it. Put out a hell of a spark--actually advanced the timing.

http://www.powerdesigners.com/InfoWeb/design_center/articles/DC-DC/converter.shtm . This help?

Take a 3V battery and connect a 2V battery in series.

Yes, two great scientists. I think Gibbs is the darling of scientists because he had a typical reticent scientific personality--publish in obscure journals and let your work speak for you. Feynman was more of a showman and big ego, thus far more familiar to the general public. I don't know how...

The statistical definition of entropy is a lot easier to understand than the classical definition of entropy, dQ(reversible)/T. If a chemical reaction is spontaneous, that implies that the total entropy of the universe increases during the course of the reaction. The entropy of the reaction...

_______________________________ On supercavitating. I've been hearing for the last few months about the supersonic Russian torpedo. I think they call it a "skiva" or something like that, and its secret is that it has a supercavitating skin that enables it to fly through the water with little...

I've tried to shoot many a fish with 22 calibre bullets and they don't go very far at all (the bullets, that is--dont' think I ever hit a fish). Maybe a couple feet. This would be in accordance with the teachings of Newton--long = penetration. Spear goes far; bullet falls short. _______________...

My intuition tells me cavitation is insignificant as a factor in penetration and shockwaves?--well I'm willing to listen to what someone has to say, but since someone can't answer I remain unrefuted. I went back through this thread, any your first post was quite good, Tyro. I agree with you...

Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on ballistics. If someone can add something meaningful, like cavitation further reduces penetration of a bullet in water by such and such a percent, or pushing air in front of a supersonic bullet reduces its range by such and such a percent it would add...

Of course cavitation is a problem with propellers, but what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

The matter becomes hotter as the gravitational force accelerates it and collisions force molecules and atoms into higher speeds (and greater disorder), so I suspect the decrease in entropy due to increasing localization of matter is more than offset by the increasing disorder of atoms from the...

"Isn't a law of thermodynamics supposed to be about heat?" I like your signature, Zero. Else would I not answer this silly question. Thermodynamics is the study of transformations of energy. It covers much territory other than heat. Work, for example, or electrode potentials, or the...

Newton was not analyzing inelastic collisions, but penetration into a fluid such as water or air, and his analysis is correct as an approximation and works quite well. The shockwave from a supersonic bullet is a pressure wave. If a pressure acts on a large area it will create a force that can...

If you have, for example, a bottle of air, it is "possible" (ahem), that most of the gas molecules would head over to one side of the bottle and temporarily you would have a system that went to a lower state of entropy. If you used a colored gas and waited for all eternity, you could see...

Newton analyzed penetration of a projectile into a medium as a transfer of momentum from the projectile to the medium. Assuming the medium is being thrown aside at about the same velocity as the projectile velocity, the projectile will stop when the mass of the material thrown aside equals the...