Steemstem Community: Respond to this with your opinions on the subject
This post is to hold intent for a seed for community engagement. What I want is for you to read this post and then make a response to it. The responses can be anything related to the subject. For instance, this one is going to be about the hyperloop and I am going to debunk it but you could make a post supporting the hyperloop, or debunk my debunking, or debunk the hyperloop yourself.... Just make your own post responding to it. Now to be as inclusive as possible these posts will be in the applied science fields such that someone with an interest in biology, chemistry, or physics could write a response (so I will never pick a topic like the CAS9 protein complex, aka CRISPR, because you would need to know a lot about biology). Another thing is that I will always pick topics with a lot of material to reference.
Rules
- You CANNOT use the thunderf00t video as your response or any other sources that debunk as your response. What I mean is make your own post, you can reference them as supporting evidence but do not make it your argument, thats just sad.
- Add reference material, you know it is a steemstem post.
- Encourage others to respond to your post, or the original post.
- Read some of the other responses.
- Have fun!
The main point of this is to have fun and create a discussion where we look at a topic, dissect it, and as a community make a boat load of posts about it... However this is not a competition, so do it at your own volition, as well you have to follow all of the steemstem guidelines. This is about giving an opportunity for the steemstem community to come together and discuss a topic, as I have said. So show us (those at steemstem) that you guys are truly a community, put your money where your mouth is and support each other.
The basic idea behind the hyperloop is to have a pressurized train that drives through a low pressure tube (to avoid air resistance)and as such it will be able to travel at high speeds between 2 points. For more information you can read up any of the plethora of sources to read about the subject.
My argument against the hyperloop is simple, the energy required to first vacuum out the tunnel, move the train/car from location A to location B, then re-pressurize the tube would be more than the energy required for maintaining the velocity of the N700 Series Shinkansen in Japan (fastest train in the world) and as such it would be more efficient to just build a regular mag-lev train. In my next post I will provide the science behind it, the mathematical values for why I state this and the outcome of the simulation (Yes I am running a simulation using a special fluid dynamics physics engine to see what it states for the difference in energy between each run and to find the relative efficiency.... It is really really slow)
Anyways I want to see others arguments as well, I know this was a bad example but I want to see how the community reacts... And if everyone seems to be attacking it/debunking it then I can always make another post showing some good things about it and play devils advocate. So, steemstem community, I choose you!
Wow, this is such a great idea! Although, after Thunderf00t... it would be difficult to add something new.
Looking forward and maybe write something from the amateur point of view.
Well you can make the same argument as him, or new ones, or argue against his (some of his arguments are flawed from an engineering standpoint... like he states that a small hole will have devastation effects and then uses an example where he cracks a hole the size of the diameter of the vacuum tube, simple math actually shows that in order for a hole to be large enough to cause the damage he was predicting then it would need to be between 1.5 and 2 radius, radii? Whatever the plural of of radius is)
Anyways, I have many arguments against Thunderf00t. I mean one of his videos is about the storage of energy (specifically electrochemical) and when explaining how a battery works he tries to explain it like gasoline? He has other problems too like with the waterseer debunk he assumes static deposition of energy and that as soon as so much water has been condensed that you will never be able to get more out (he says never in his sentence)
So I respect some of his views but I also respect that some of his views are flawed and incorrect.
I would love to see you debunking some of his stuff :D
Yeah, that's what I thought too 😂😂
Awesome idea! I like your approach to it as well and I'll be sure to keep reading and make some comments, unfortunately it's so far from my area of expertise (or even competence) that I don't think I could really justify a whole post trying to purport my opinions... I'll keep posted for future topics though.
My first point would simply be...
My immediate counterpoint is...
I don't think its out of anyones area of expertise. I will likely have errors in my final argument and thats kind of the point, it would be one thing if it were a professional institute or something but I feel everyone that can should make a post on it. Hell, what if someone makes a post suggesting something like your first point then you could make a post replying to them with your second point and thats what I want to build. I want to try to push the community out of their comfort zone, make posts that maybe are a little out of what they are used to doing and have interactions so I strongly encourage you to write a post.
As well, from your comment you have made, you are more than competent enough to make a post. As well, if there are 20-30 short posts then that is still okay, its just trying to push the community (and encourage them) to do something and support each other.
Fair enough... I'll have a think and see if I've got anything further of value to add! :)
Looking forward to read some posts about this tomorrow!
I am as well, my true post should be on tomorrow night after classes
This is a great Idea. I hope this will facilitate community engagement.
Kudos @kryzsec!
That is the plan!
I'd personally like to see this project succeed as I think it would be a great benefit to society... However, I do not see this project happening in the near future.
I honestly do not know enough on the topic to support or go against the project, however, I am excited to see what your simulation comes up with and how you incorporated the electromagnetic sleds into your fluid dynamics simulation program.
So I am actually using a commercial simulation program that one of my friends in a different engineering program has used in their class (it isn't open source and is being compiled at the school thanks to their help)
Specifically I have no idea what is going on under the hood but I was promised a favor from my friend... they probably regret that
I think this is more of an optimization problem. It is not really possible to maintain (a perfect) vaccuum. So you just want to reduce the pressure such that the energy bill is not too high and such that the friction is sufficiently low.
There are different patents on how low they have the vacuum (and depending on the level to which a vacuum is made will change on what design will prevail). I am ultimately just making my arguments in reference to the efficiency of the two, specifically when scaled to see if there is ever a specific distance where the hyperloop will be more efficient than the maglev (thanks to the fathers of calculus for giving me the derivative, this task has become a lot easier)
I would have to actually sit down and crunch the numbers to reject or agree with what you say here, but I am pretty sure that they did build a fairly small hyperloop that did work properly.
source.
Now, the question does become, whether or not the energy required to power the production model is absurdly high like you said. Personally, I would take a normal non-maglev bullet train over what we currently have in the US.
I look forward to seeing your mathematics. I believe I will be able to see whether or not my assertion holds any water or not based on your analysis.
It was only around 1-2 kilometers in length instead of the projected 560 kilometers so things would be wildly different in the two.
I was just attacking the energy efficiency as an example but ultimately I want others to be as creative as they can.
I understand your argument, but even with size, the energy efficiency should be scale upwards towards the larger rail size. Hence, why I was fairly unsure of the math.
I really haven't done enough of my own due diligence with regards to this topic from a practical standpoint; so again, I am looking forward to your analysis for reference.
Oh I completely understand, my math is likely wildly inaccurate as all I am looking at for the maglev train is to see how much effect air drag will slow it down as then it would be easy to calculate how much energy would be required to have it maintain its velocity, and then with the tunnel I found a model produced by someone else for calculating some items required to vacuum out a specific sized thing and it would be easy to change to find the energy.
After this, since both are energy, I would create a function names f(d) where d is the distance traveled and the f(d) is an energy relationship between the two things (I originally had 2 lines but I mean when you look for an intersection you create a single equation and then solve for roots so I instead just made a single equation to begin with)
This is where I am at (I haven't completed it yet but if it has a power greater than or equal to 2 then I will take the derivative and find info and yeah)
The simulation is being set up by a friend in a different engineering class and is commercial so I won't know the output of it until later.
Hmm, I see. That is rudimentary but its still a decent reference point.
I wonder if they have a technique or a bit of technology that can maintain the vacuum over a longer period of time without there having to be an extra energy expenditure. In theory, if this technology were to exist then because the vacuum effectively eliminates the drag for the hyperloop then over a longer period of time, the hyperloop becomes more efficient on energy then a normal maglev train would. I assume that since Musk is trying to actively build this thing then he probably has some of these problems sorted out; otherwise it would end up just being a giant novelty rather then a practical mode of transportation.
Energy expenditure aside, the problem I always saw with the hyperloop was that the tunnel needs to be built to withstand a huge amount of pressure over a extremely large surface area.
That and most models of the hyperloop require complete depressurization before people can get in or out of the capsul/car that they transport you in. I also have problems with some specific designs like one design was to have the pressure inside the tube down to near 0 atm but its mode of propulsion was to use a giant fan basically to use the remaining air pressure... Like it just wouldn't work, the fan would provide no force with nothing (to almost nothing) to push off of.
My first thought was, this can't be viable on commercial scale. 50 miles tunnel (err, I mean tube) of vacuum? And that would cost less than say electricity running electric train the same length?!? You gotta be kidding me. Elon Musk being in that video doesn't change anything IMHO ;-) I don't even need the math, gut feeling will do ;-)
Well what if instead of making a single tube/tunnel (well it would still be a single one) they instead had it broken up int sections with airsealing doors? Yes complexity just skyrocketed but its a potential solution to the vacuum problem which is that instead of removing the extra gas from 1 large tunnel you have a bnch of smaller tunnels/tubes where you remove a smaller amount of gas from. This also has the benefit which is if there is a leak in one section and it can't be controlled then leading up to it they could slowly increase the air pressure and then past that section they can work to decrease it.
I want people to be creative.
This is a really great idea! I hope many will participate :D
I hope so too, I will be monitoring to see
Done! :)