IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Mandrake The Magician and the Planck Frequency - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time, we find the following:   

 
for which we read at this URL that:

"Theoretically, this is the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible,^[3] roughly 10⁻⁴³ seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, for times less than one Planck time apart, we can neither measure nor detect any change."

Conversely, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_angular_frequency, we find the following:  

 
Thus, if the Planck time is the smallest possible unit of time that can exist, then the Planck angular frequency must be the maximum possible frequency that can exist.

Captain Easy - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

There was once a comic strip entitled "Captain Easy", created by Roy Crane in 1929. Please see http://www.toonopedia.com/easy.htm for more information about that.

Two of the recurring characters in that comic were a neer-do-well man named Kallimak (his first name now forgotten by yours truly) and his rather dim witted son, Buster who one day came across a flying saucer that had crash landed on the beach.

Being a sort-of helpful, but quite opportunistically inclined pair, father and son met what turned out to be a little green man (an LGM) and asked him what was going on.

Architectural Columns - John Dunn, Consultant Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I once read about this architect who had a project underway where a large open area was to be provided with vertical columns. He decided that the usual circular column cross section was not esthetically pleasing and that he wanted to use something else, but what that something else would be was elusive. Therefore, he sought the assistance of a consultant, in this case, a professor at a nearby university.

The professor came up with something right away.

The equation of a circle is x² + y² = Radius² for which the exponent of each variable is "2". The professor said to instead use the equation x^1.5 + y^1.5 = Radius^1.5 for which the cross section looks like this:   

 

Turbines Control Hurricanes? Maybe Not - Dick LaRosa

My original hypothesis was that the length of the Loop Current (LC) in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) was related to the hydraulic power driving the LC. After several years of examining data related to the hydraulic power driving water through the GoM, Florida Straits, and Florida current, I have found no consistent relationship between these powers and LC length.

The above apparently incorrect hypothesis was accompanied by the notion that the LC length controlled the size of the pool of deep warm water that could energize a hurricane that passed through it. Now it seems to me that the pool of warm water extending from Cuba into the GoM is not controlled by the LC. Time-lapse altimeter pictures and simulations posted on the Internet show that at any given time there is a chain of about four hills of warm water moving across the Caribbean Sea from Puerto Rico to the Yucatan Channel. The surface of the warm water is higher than the surrounding water because the warm water has lower density. A tall column of warm water creates the same bottom pressure as a shorter column of cooler water. As the hills of warm water pass into the GoM they add to the hill of water extending into the Gulf. The LC enters the GoM on the west side of the hill and then runs around the outside of the hill until it can exit into the Straits of Florida. The LC is in geostrophic equilibrium: gravity would shift its path to a lower-altitude contour but the Coriolis force would shift its path to a higher contour. Thus the hill of warm water controls the LC length - just the opposite of what I originally thought.

My two wrong ideas led to the idea that turbines floating in the LC could soak up extra hydraulic power and reduce the size of the warm water pool, thereby reducing the likelihood of energizing a hurricane. This no longer appears to be true. The turbines could produce useful power but their cost effectiveness would have to be evaluated.

Preconceptions - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Preconception 1:  Harmless

The movie "Beauty and the Beast" was released in 1946 in French as "La Belle et la Bête" and was shown on local television some years ago. As I watched, I found myself thinking "How can an animal like that have learned to speak French? How silly."

Now if the Beast had been speaking English, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. After all, so many beasts can do that. Think of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny for example. Clearly, I have long had and apparently still do have the preconception that the English language would have given the Beast no problem at all.

Of course not.

 

Radiated Susceptibility Tests and 80% AM - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I had an unsatisfactory experience some time ago with radiated susceptibility testing that was supposed to be taking place in accordance with MIL-STD-461D, but wasn't.

The requirement was for UUT irradiation using sinusoidally amplitude modulated  RF carriers for which the following applies:  

The Tchotchke - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Maybe this URL will be off-line by the time you read this, but if not, it's worth a look. It shows what is supposed to be the world's most useless machine.

http://gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/12/6624781-the-worlds-most-useless-machine-version-20?gt1=43001

It reminds me of a Candid Camera program of many years ago where Alan Funt showed a useless machine. It was a Bud box with nine NE-2 neon lamps mounted in rubber grommets with each lamp blinking on and off at its own individual rate in what was obviously a collection of relaxation oscillators.

You remember this thing, right? A ninety volt battery, a 0.1 µF capacitor in parallel with the NE-2 and a multi-megohm resistor feeding them.

Solar Energy Killer App ? - Dick LaRosa

Solar thermal and photovoltaics are getting a lot of attention, but I believe that solar-heated evaporator rafts moored in the right coastal locations may become a larger-scale application of solar energy. These might be able to relieve world-wide drought. Advances in desalination are being reported, but these operate near sea level. Many settlements depend on water flowing down from high-altitude sources. Pumping water up to these settlements requires energy and equipment that adds too much to the cost of desalination. Nature does it a different way. Air flowing in from the sea picks up moisture, rises to go over mountains, cools, moisture condenses on cloud condensation nuclei, these particles coalesce, get heavier, and precipitate. There are no pumps or pipelines. Water is transported as a vapor by the wind.

The Checksum - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Leonardo da Vinci's works have been published and re-published and studied and examined and pored over by scholars and historians and scientists and mathematicians and.....  However, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City once had an exhibit, not of da Vinci's great and finished works,

but of his scraps, the leftover detritus of da Vinci's manifold efforts.

The N-1 Law - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

When I was still a young engineer, my boss told me of his absolute belief in "The N-1 Law" which may be stated as follows:

"If for any purpose, a quantity of 'N' items is required, availability shall be limited to a maximum of 'N-1'."

With this tidbit of wisdom once again repeated to me on one particular occasion, he sent me to the company stockroom to obtain exactly six six-lug phenolic terminal strips. Don't come back with five, I was told. Make sure you get six of them. Off I went.