Can Vacuum-Filled Blimps Revolutionize Air Travel?

  • Thread starter Thread starter GTOM
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Future
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
3 replies · 2K views
GTOM
Messages
988
Reaction score
68
I wonder could blimps come back if they arent filled with explosive hydrogen, neither with rare helium, but simply with vacuum, the lightest substance? Theoretically its possible to expand their balloons electromagnetically.
According to TV tropes, square cube law don't affect blimps so hard as helicopters, so while they would be slow, but they could be huge and reliable.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
GTOM said:
Theoretically its possible to expand their balloons electromagnetically.
Do you have a source discussing this?

Helium has a very low density compared to air, the difference to a vacuum is tiny. Where is the advantage? The disadvantages are huge.
 
mfb said:
Do you have a source discussing this?

Helium has a very low density compared to air, the difference to a vacuum is tiny. Where is the advantage? The disadvantages are huge.

There are estimations about how long until fossils, uranium depleted. Is there any estimation how much time until helium depleted? As far as i know, it is only a tiny percent of fossil gases. Or shouldn't i worry about its availability even if we needed huge amounts to fill blimps?

I don't have an exact source about expand balloons electromagnetically, but if EM fields can repel each other, is there anything prevent such use?
 
GTOM said:
I don't have an exact source about expand balloons electromagnetically, but if EM fields can repel each other, is there anything prevent such use?
Practical reality? Seriously, what you are saying is just handwaving; it's backwards logic. Things are possible when demonstrated to be possible, not when "is there anything to prevent" it. If you don't have a specific idea of how this might be done, then it can't be realistically claimed to be possible.

Thread locked.