Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 13:12:19

*sigh* I have already given the reason above as to why this would not work Errorist... if you are not going to read my posts, then this isn't much of a discussion, is it? You cannot push a gas up the tube with more gas because gravity will pull down both types of gasses to assume a similar height as the atmosphere. The fraction of a gas does not become pronounced at equilibrium unless you consider a height of several miles, which is not commonly encounterd here every day. The gas, given time, WILL diffuse almost perfectly at short height differences... it just depends how long it takes for the molecules to stop bouncing off eachother and move into the surroundings.

As I have stated time and time again, there is no trick, NO TRICK, is possible using "macroworld" physics to make it work. It is infact against the laws of physics for ANY contiguous column "plumbing trick" to work... I see no point refuting plumbing trick after plumbing trick - You Must aproach the problem from the microscale world of molecules up, not the marcoscale down.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 15:09:05

Ok then how high will a H2 balloon go up the tube if it was equalized with atmospheric air pressure, and both ends were open?

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 15:38:36

Just as high as it would in the open atmosphere, because gravity affects gasses inside and outside the tube the same way!

The core problem, as I have said many times now, is that hydrogen molecules are too slow (3000m/s @300K) to aproach escape velocity (11,500m/s). This is the core problem, and so this is the problem that must be addressed. The plumbing is simply how you direct the motion of the molecule, it has nothing to do with how high or fast it can go.

Edit: If you take a marble or ball bearing, and you throw is straight up, if you don't reach escape velocity it will come crashing back down... molecules of gas, just like physical objects, have mass and are likewise affected by gravity. If you can't reach this speed off ground, then it won't leave Earth's pull.

Bill White · 2004-03-08 16:05:01

Why don't we shut this ridiculous topic down? because it's just getting nowhere. . . .

Because it keeps GCNRevenger off the streets and out of trouble?

Idle minds are the devil's plaything.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 17:14:59

So if you pop the balloon at its highest point will the H2 continue on up futher in the tube? No need for the oxygen for an ion engine.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 17:43:13

Summery:

All gasses are composed of molecules, which bounce around at random at different speeds and different directions. These molecules are affected by gravity just like everything else, so a molecule that does not reach escape velocity will be pulled back down, so the molecule (and the gas) will not escape.

The speed that molecules bounce around is largely determined by their mass and their temperature (or rather, their speed determines the temperature). Although statisticly speaking, there is no upper limit that a number of molecules may reach and random by collision or energy absortion, for intents and purposes all the hydrogen molecules (the lightest and hence fastest molecule) do not top 3000m/s at reasonable temperatures. Since escape velocity is ~11,500m/s, hence essentially no hydrogen can reach orbital.

Pumping problem: Pumps only increase the pressure (the number of molecules per-volume) and do not increase their VELOCITY; so if you try and pump hydrogen up the column with increasing pressure, gravity will still affect the molecules equally and all you will accomplish is raising the pressure, the flow to the top will be slightly higher but remain essentially zero. Raising the pressure more and more will simply liquify the hydrogen... this explains why the atmosphere of Venus is 100 times as high a pressure as ours, but not 100 times as high.

Balloon problem: Gravity still affects the molecules in the balloon, which do not "jump off" from where the balloon is ruptured... they will rise a few hundred feet and then rapidly fall back into the atmosphere, since the molecules themselves are not going any faster.

~Eternal~ · 2004-03-08 17:57:25

Also... correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Carbon a conducter?
And does anyone remember the experiment in 1996 that showed that Conducters that move at high velocities through magnetospheres produce electricity... alot of electricity.
Electricity + Hydrogen = Boom.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 17:57:27

The simple fact that the H2 raised a few hundred feet after poping the balloon in the upward direction proves they are moving faster at least in that direction.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 18:02:36

No, not really. There may be some motion of the faster moving molecules following the loss of pressure that may gain a little height, but most of the molecules would immediatly fall back down reguardless of what you do. The pressure just above the balloon would breifly rise because the gas is diffusing, then drop to nothing immediatly.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 18:04:32

Lower than the height of the balloon at the point at which it was popped?

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 18:11:52

If the balloon is a high altitude one, near the edge of the atmosphere, filled with moderate to low-temperature hydrogen at a slight positive pressure, then yeah most of it would fall back down after it diffuses.

Note, that this does not increase the velocity the molecules either. You must increase the velocity of the molecules to reach orbit. Your next post should discuss a method for increasing the velocity of the molecules, and not be another plumbing trick.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 18:16:32

Plumbing tricks is how physics was discovered.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 18:25:02

How high do high altitude balloons reach?

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 18:35:30

No, not the underlying actual physics. Everything that is not light or electricity is made of some sort of particle, some little tiny blobs of matter called atoms. The air, the water, the land... you, me, everything is made of piles or loose bits of these little things. "Macroworld" physics doesn't really explain what is happening to what "stuff" really is, it cannot deal with what things really are...

And hence, quite a few "physical laws" you are taught in a physics book are only mostly true, and the behavior of gasses is one of these things. The rules will work for most things, but when you are dealing with extreme conditions... like a column of gas 200 miles high... the errors inherint in some macroworld physics, because they ignore the microworld, break the "rules."

What gasses really are is a collection of freely moving molecules, bouncing around, bouncing off eachother, moving in essentially random directions and velocities... what you would consider a gas is mostly empty space, molecules don't occupy much room, but gravity still affects all of them equally so two volumes of gas can fall "through" eachother to assume one volume at double the pressure. Hence, you cannot "push" a volume of gas with another against gravity very much, since the molecules will inevitibly move past eachother and diffuse.

Edit: like trying to eat soup with a fork.

The reason gravity can trap a gas is because most of these molecules aren't moving fast enough in their random motion to escape the pull of gravity - they are bound by esacpe velocity just like rockets are - and are thusly confined for intents and purposes.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 18:40:22

Not high enough. The gas inside the balloon, provided it is at a sane temperature, is not moving any faster then that on the ground, and they don't reach escape velocity either, being they are only moving 2,000-3,000m/s.

No more balloons, no more pipes, no more pumps... molecules

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 19:04:10

I would like to add as well that the average speed of molecules in a gas is constant at constant temperature... if one molecule gains momentum then it had to have gotten this extra momentum from another source, usually collision with another particle or somtimes from a source of electromagnetic energy (heat lamp, microwave, etc).

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 19:45:40

So now that a high altitude balloon has the H2 contained inside the tube can you you use a particle beam from that point to get it further out in space? The balloon can be used as a storage tank for the particle beam so it can be transferred to another storge tank in space.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 19:54:14

Nooope, because as we have acertained previously, a particle accelerator cannot move any useable mass (lucky to see a hundred kilos a year for a giant mega super duper one) and also has extremely high energy requirements and difficulty of capturing the resultant particles.

Removing a few miles off the molecules' trip at greatly reduced pressures by floating it up is even counter-productive.

So you must look elsewhere... trouble is, there is nowhere else, and is why the tube will not work.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 19:59:57

This is why the balloon in the tube will work.Physics says,when radius increases, the gravitational force decreases. This is why the hydrogen balloon rises in the tube along with the atomic weight of the element.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 20:12:44

Ow my brain...

A balloon is "powerd" by the density difference between the gas inside the envelope versus that outside the envelope. Density is be definition mass per volume, so if you use a heavier gas (increased molecular weight), then for a given pressure, the density will increase. This is why balloons are full of hydrogen and not Uranium Hexafluroide... increased molecular weight would make the balloon FALL, not rise.

Now about the accelerator... the energy requirement is still much, much too high. You have to induce an electric charge in the hydrogen before you can move it at all, which is too big of an energy requirement to make it useful for moving gases. Even if you had a "free" way to ionize it, the velocity change you would have to induce would be too great to be worthwhile; you cannot sidestep the need for signifigant energy to move signifigant mass. I would also like to note that there is no good way to ionize the kind of tremendeous quantities of free gas you are talking about even with free electricity.

Edit: And, even though the molecules would be injected into the tube at a large height, it does not reduce escape velocity sufficently to make the hydrogen flow.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 20:31:21

Rotational velocity increases as the radius increases. At the equator if you are standing still you are still moving about 1000 mph. So, at sea level the molecules must also be moving about the same velocity. The higher you move out from the axis of rotation the molecules in the tube should be accelerating. If I placed a ball in a three foot pipe and threw it, it would travel much faster than if I threw it without the pipe.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 20:44:58

Unfortunatly molecules are not a hard "ball" and again you aren't "thinking small." The molecules don't remain in contact with the tube wall continuously, so there is the problem of momentum transfer because the molecules will bounce off the tube walls at the same angle they came in at for instance... I also fear that this would heat the gas at the same time, since you would be adding energy with the drag.

Secondly, the gas molecules still tend to "fall" alot, even with the small acceleration imparted by the tube wall, and won't reach a sufficent height to take much advantage of this effect. You must understand, gravity is extremely powerful here, and you must apply a likewise extreme amount of energy to overcome it, even with the lightest substance in the universe.

ERRORIST · 2004-03-08 20:55:45

Ok, lets try a solid ribbon of Nanotube material this time instead of a hollow one. Even though it is solid, it is still very hollow.For instance,there are billions of tiny tubes within the nanotube, and a molecule of H2 just fits within the diameter of them. Now the wall of the tube has an effect on the molecules now. Also, would capillary action start to work here now?

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 21:00:00

Now you are starting to get to quantum mechanical levels, where the rules get "fuzzy"... its possible the hydrogen would leak right out of the tube wall spontainiously...

Anyway, even with many such tubes, one hydrogen molecule at a time is useless. You must be able to move tons on ton of gas, piddling around with such small volumes is silly.

And no, capilary action only applies to true liquids.

Edit: I'm not sure you could even get the molecules to flow in the same direction in a tube that small, since they vibrate so.

GCNRevenger · 2004-03-08 21:16:13

Further, how are you going to get the molecules into the tubes in the first place? A pinhole of that microscopic size would not admit many randomly bouncing molecules

Its certainly harder than Ski Ball...

Oh yes, and with hydrogen in such close proximity to carbon nanotubes, the "hungry-ness" of the hydrogen molecule may cause the tube to decompose, especially with a little cosmic radiation and solar wind to supply the energy.

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#101 2004-03-08 13:12:19

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#102 2004-03-08 15:09:05

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#103 2004-03-08 15:38:36

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#104 2004-03-08 16:05:01

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#105 2004-03-08 17:14:59

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#106 2004-03-08 17:43:13

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#107 2004-03-08 17:57:25

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#108 2004-03-08 17:57:27

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#109 2004-03-08 18:02:36

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#110 2004-03-08 18:04:32

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#111 2004-03-08 18:11:52

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#112 2004-03-08 18:16:32

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#113 2004-03-08 18:25:02

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#114 2004-03-08 18:35:30

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#115 2004-03-08 18:40:22

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#116 2004-03-08 19:04:10

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#117 2004-03-08 19:45:40

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#118 2004-03-08 19:54:14

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#119 2004-03-08 19:59:57

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#120 2004-03-08 20:12:44

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#121 2004-03-08 20:31:21

Re: Physics transfers fuel inside carbon nano tube - fuel into space

#122 2004-03-08 20:44:58

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#123 2004-03-08 20:55:45

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#124 2004-03-08 21:00:00

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#125 2004-03-08 21:16:13

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