$10,000 bet for downwind faster than the wind - video

$10,000 bet for downwind faster than the wind. 18:12 video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCsgoLc_fzI


Previously:

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...942#post171643
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...1408#post74350
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...le-photo-73584
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...444#post122429
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...988#post144957
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...450#post181825
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...492#post154910
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...249#post176893

I have seen a number of videos about this and it is amazing that an academic 'professor' of physics could not understand the logic. Did he not watch the past couple of America Cup series? Boats have been sailing downwind faster than the wind for a while now,(a bit different I know but still a thing).
This is a real world example of a U.E.I. encountering the real world. Good on him for paying up.

I watched it until 1:07 when the brought in that wacko Bill Nye guy.

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Originally Posted by jimfols

I watched it until 1:07 when the brought in that wacko Bill Nye guy.

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Wacky but Brilliant!!

I dunno. I'm still having a hard time convincing myself that it works. Sailboats going faster than the wind (at an angle to the wind) makes perfect sense. This contraption, particularly when moving in the same direction as the wind? That's a whole other meatball.

I got ya. Bill Nye wants everyone to think he is a scientist. He is not. He has a degree in mechanical engineering. That doesn't qualify him to scold us about cataclysmic climate change. It was really painful to see him but I soldiered through it because I was interested in the experiment and the wager. I also thought about a sail as an airfoil which propels the boat faster than the wind speed. The treadmill sort of looks convincing but it seems like something for nothing. In other words if you give it a head start with a push in a calm, on a smooth surface, according to the treadmill experiment it should accelerate on is own. It kind of looks like a perpetual motion machine. I know I'm opening myself up for some criticism. I really am not a math genius and I didn't really understand the problem from that angle. For sure it is solvable with math if the problem is set up right. Was it? I don't know.

If you have a starting gear of 30 teeth spinning at 10 rps and another gear downstream of 30 teeth, it doesn't matter what the gears are like in between. The last 30 tooth gear will spin at the same rate as the first. So with a 1 to 2 ratio the last (gray) gear spins at 5 rps.

The Tread mill experiment does not constitute perpetual motion since an electric motor powers the tread mill.
There is another example of a small force generating a large lifting force with propeller and it's called the Autogyro. A smaller propeller pushes the aircraft through the air. The air drives the much larger top propeller with enough speed to keep the aircraft airborne. I know this is not the same problem since the autogyro has an engine, but still the main lifting force is not engine driven. I often underestimate the power of properly designed airfoil.

As for a mechanical engineer not being a scientists, that a new one to me. Weather and climate is all about thermodynamics and fluid dynamics period. And among all disciplines, mechanical engineers study both with heavy emphasis on thermodynamics. Heck, that was half of my graduate courses! Thermodynamics is often considered as a weed-out course, as many can't handle it and change majors or dropout of engineering after the first course.

It works, period. "-Because science!" :)
The wind speed difference from the surface speed powers it - no magic "free energy" involved.

Over 45 years ago, when I was still "young and promising" I read a Scientific American article* on this concept,
but instead it being a wind powered boat going straight into the wind.
It could actually only go into the wind by its very design:

It was supposed to have a pulling propeller in the water, powered by a slanting axle up to an air driven propeller:

Attachment 40065

I initially thought it just wouldn't work - neither did my buddies, calling it a Perpetual Motion device...

But, I did a proof-of-concept A-framed trimaran, from a few styro blocks, balsa wood and propellers from a hobby shop
(remember those? I. e. the Hobby Shops - not the propellers!)
and ran it half-successfully powered by a decent room fan in the 25 ft long foot washing basin at a gym.
At the start it just drifted downwind, but as its propeller picked up speed it started chugging itself into and upwards into the headwind.

Looked kinda silly, but it sorta worked to the amazement and laughter of my critical friends.

-"It verks!":

Attachment 40067

Still remember the "The Push-me-pull-you boat" title of the article,
which apparently came from Scientific American [Martin, Sci. Am. 233 (No. 12), 125( 1975)..]
(which I back then occasionally read at the city library),
and I could even found an online analysis of of it this morning (the article, stupid - NOT the library!):
Attachment 40064

Attachment 40063

Ah- yes: Some ice boating friends have no problems going 55 mph tacking in a 10 mph wind either.

And Rick even drove into the wind too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7PNSyAfCjk

* SciAm article on pg 6 & 7 of this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2494996...o_tab_contents

PS: Anybody thinking a wind-driven craft could reach over Mach 1 (in ANY direction) is only "not even wrong".

BONUS: Any other intrepid, "free-thinking" HMT:er who also wants to try and prove these simple water tricks:

Attachment 40066

I realize the treadmill is a powered device but just think about it. If you place the vehicle on a smooth surface with no wind and push the vehicle as fast as the treadmill belt is traveling, the relative motion between the surface and the vehicle are the same. I bet $10,000 dollars the vehicle would not continue to travel much less accelerate.
Also, a mechanical engineer does not constitute a climate scientist or scientist of any kind in spite of learning some thermodynamics.

The irony here is that this demonstration had already been done, over 50 years ago, by an aerodynamics engineer whom nobody has heard of, named Andrew Bauer. The demonstration even included a bet, but for $1, not $10,000. Original paper: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...-Interface.pdf

Here he is with the craft he built:
https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...aster_cart.jpg

0:38 video of it in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPomTq_PRU

There's nothing wrong with what Veritasium is doing. It's just interesting how this old demonstration got recycled into the public eye with a famous YouTuber, a Miss America contestant, a "science guy", and a "science communicator".

[QUOTE=Floradawg;184192]I realize the treadmill is a powered device but just think about it. If you place the vehicle on a smooth surface with no wind and push the vehicle as fast as the treadmill belt is traveling, the relative motion between the surface and the vehicle are the same. I bet $10,000 dollars the vehicle would not continue to travel much less accelerate.
Also, a mechanical engineer does not constitute a climate scientist or scientist of any kind in spite of learning some thermodynamics.[/QUOTE

I suppose we just should the arguments to the real climate scientists then: politician, talk show talking heads and armchair climatologists.

The America's Cup boats could probably use a prop if it was wind powered.
This thread may awaken some aerodynamics engineer's history lesson. :)

Once something gets politicized it is a fruitless endeavor to try to have a rational discussion about it. This goes for climate change, covid, border control, you name it. There is some anthropomorphic warming occurring but not nearly at the rate most politically corrupted individuals would have you believe. If they had ever been right it would have already constituted a huge catastrophe. This is MY two cents worth and the truth is climate is so chaotic and the causes of the climate function depend on an incredible number of factors. I don't think anybody can reliably tell you what is going to happen with it over however many years. I've read several books on this subject and I'm convinced there is a whole lot of hokum being dished out.

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Originally Posted by Floradawg

There is some anthropomorphic warming occurring but not nearly at the rate most politically corrupted individuals would have you believe.

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You, me and a hundred other people are in an auditorium. There is also a tiger loose in the auditorium mauling people. What you just said amounts to "Well the tiger is natural and I didn't let the tiger out of the cage." Who cares? Shoot the damn tiger.

We've been reshaping the Earth to better suit us for centuries. I don't see why people are drawing a line in the sand on this particular issue.

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Originally Posted by jimfols

The America's Cup boats could probably use a prop if it was wind powered.
This thread may awaken some aerodynamics engineer's history lesson. :)

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I could not remember the vertical rotary sail are called (Flettner Rotor Sail), but I ran across this site while looking. Apparently, there is patent on the the design that is now used on "Land Yachts" as seen in the Veratasium video.

ROTARY SAILS WIND TURBINE POWERED BOATS CARS AND SAILING SHIPS

An article regarding Flettner Rotor sails: ROTARY SAILS WIND TURBINE POWERED BOATS CARS AND SAILING SHIPS

@ Floradawg: One of those book authors wouldn't happen to be expert Robert Kehoe?

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Originally Posted by FEM2008

I could not remember the vertical rotary sail are called (Flettner Rotor Sail), but I ran across this site while looking.

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After almost a century, these Flettner rotors are getting a 2nd chance right now on M/S Viking Grace for the Stockholm-Helsinki cruise line:
https://www.vikingline.com/the-group...ce/rotor-sail/

I seem to remember that this was even mentioned here before: https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...ship-gif-75739

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FEM2008

I could not remember the vertical rotary sail are called (Flettner Rotor Sail), but I ran across this site while looking. Apparently, there is patent on the the design that is now used on "Land Yachts" as seen in the Veratasium video.

ROTARY SAILS WIND TURBINE POWERED BOATS CARS AND SAILING SHIPS

An article regarding Flettner Rotor sails: ROTARY SAILS WIND TURBINE POWERED BOATS CARS AND SAILING SHIPS

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Thank you for the link.

Because certain people like me don't believe that there is a problem. Some of the zealots have stated that islands have already disappeared. Really? How much do you think sea levels have risen in the last 20 or 30 years? Do your own research. don't believe it just because that's what everyone is saying. Al Gore famously stated that in Miami fish are swimming in the streets. Of course he linked this to climate change. There's only one problem. After he said that some Miami residents said that when it rains a lot in certain areas that has often happened even in the past. As sea levels rise, which they can, we deal with it. People relocate. What do you think people in the past have done when any kind of condition has made it impractical to hang around a certain area. Once again this my opinion. You are entitled to yours as well. Unfortunately in the political arena it seems only one side is allowed to be heard.

No. I searched Amazon for that book and it didn't return any results.

One of the better books I read was "Climate Confusion: ..." by Roy W. Spencer. Most of the books on climate change I read several years ago and their title escapes my memory. If this is the one I think I is, it is particularly good. If I remember any more titles I will let you know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Floradawg

No. I searched Amazon for that book and it didn't return any results.

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Umm - IMHO i think FEM2008 is pulling your leg a bit (but I might be wrong):

Kehoe was a leading (ahem) toxicologist in occupational hazards during the twenties,
and ran a toxicology research lab, UC Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology from 1930.

The lab was funded by GM, DuPont and Ethyl Corporation (Uh-Oh...) and set itself to find out any eventual causes for
the reported health issues in workers engaged in production of anti-knocking additive TetraEthylLead (TEL).

Already being a fervent denier of lead toxicity, his work coincidentally funded by the producers and users of the TEL stuff,
he not merely concluded there were no risks whatsoever involved (but rather that lead metabolizes in our bodies...),
but also dumping the job of proving any and all ill effects on his opponents (The Kehoe Rule).

Though not a book - his Wiki might be worth a read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe#The_Surgeon_General's_review_of_gasoline_lead_and_the_Kehoe _Rule

2 cents
Johan (taking MY liberty of being fully subjective, too...)

-Having a hard time buying any statements from climate change (or any other) scientists?
No big deal - then just claim that the Wrath of God will send abt 2 billion sea coast refugees inland within a century.
Feel better now?

Also: Here's a denial from the very people a US House Member claimed have caused the California Forest fires a few years ago:
https://forward.com/opinion/463295/t...tart-the-fire/

Is 2 billion going to be a problem? How about the who knows how many billion on the earth at that time.