How fast does an electron move?

It isn't a riddle.  It is a question that I am looking up on the web.  Here is an answer, although I don't know if it is correct or not.  This answer looks like it is about .8 of 1 percent of the speed of light.  That may not be useful to know for anything, and it may not be correct.  At the moment, it is just being used as a working number to calculate something else, as you will see.

What is the mass of an electron?  It turns out to be 1/2000th the mass of a proton.  From that, perhaps you can calculate an interesting number, which I am working out now.  Don't know if it actually means anything, as I once explained, I didn't study physics.

Now, the p B11 reaction described here is said to have a cross section ( don't know what that means) of 8.7 MeV.   Let's see.  The equation for kinetic energy is .5*m* velocity squared.

8.7 MeV= .5* mass * velocity squared

mulitply by 2:    2* 8.7 MeV = mass * velocity squared

want to know what the velocity of the particle is, but I don't know the delta of the rest mass of the particle.

If you know that, you can calculate the velocity of the particle by dividing both sides by delta mass, then taking the square root of both sides.  This would yield the velocity of the particle ( I think).

The reason I'm curious is that I wonder what the velocity of the particles coming from this reaction.  The DPF device appears to release the particles in a particle beam along the z axis.  I am wondering if this kinetic energy can be harnessed directly into thrust for a propulsion device.

Update:

Calculate delta m from the famous Einstein equation: 

kinetic E = Δmc², where Δm is the change in rest mass of particle

 then it becomes:  8.7 MeV=Δmc²   divide by c²     

giving 8.7 MeV/(88,565,760,000 km/sec), the result approximates to .01 with units????

revisting this:

8.7 MeV= .5* mass * velocity squared

then

8.7 MeV= .5* .01 * velocity squared, simplifying

8.7 MeV/.005= velocity squared

1740000000= velocity squared
=41,713 units of whatever

that would make a big difference wouldn't it????


I used kilometers above, if this is kilometer per second?!

This is probably wrong.

Growing by leaps and bounds?

A borrowed term from Limbaugh.  Can it be said of this blog?  Here's Blogger's stats of this blog for the last several months since I began blogging regularly.

Battlestar Galactica concept

At the risk of appearing even more foolish than I already appear to be, I am going to propose something here that is probably fanciful.

It is a Battlestar Galactica ship constructed from a series of launches from a Sea Dragon type rocket which could be developed. The Sea Dragon would deliver several hundred ton modules which would be put together in space a piece at a time.

Let's say we have 50 launches. If we were to construct a square made up of equal sized sides that were connected together with each other first, then with the sides making up the square as the final piece of construction. Each side would be made of 12 modules of 50 feet of length, which gives each side a length of 600 feet.

Each module would have robust protection from cosmic rays, and therefore would be heavy. In order to produce artificial gravity, the Battlestar would be rotated at about 2 rpm, giving a Martian artificial gravitation along the periphery.

Also, the modules could be prefabricated on the ground in order to minimize the amount of wet engineering that needs to be done in space.  You can put them together like you would with Lego toys.


The Battlestar will need propulsion. And power. This could be designed into the system, which, hopefully can be kept as simple as possible in accordance with the KISS principle.

In order to ensure minimal costs, there could be a number of Battlestars constructed over time. Then you could set up an assembly line to produce the components and the rockets and what have you that could service the station. Ultimately, the Battlestar should become as self sufficient as possible.

Its function would be as a trading outposts from locations in space. They could bring things that would be needed on Earth and receive their payment in turn as with any economic system.


Update:

There would be a number of objections to this system that I will try to anticipate.  First, why so much mass?  Ans: You need as much mass as possible in order to provide protection from cosmic rays.  Also, you need mass in order to store consumables, such as fuel, water, food, etc.  Thirdly, you need your ship to be large so that it can be spun up to provide artificial gravity.  In general, the bigger it is, the better.

Wouldn't this much mass be a hazard for Earth should the station fall out of orbit?  Ans: Yes, it would.  But it can be delivered to a higher orbit and there are ways that should be practiced in order to do station keeping at a minimal cost.  One of those ways is going to be attempted with the ISS.  The Vasimr propulsion system will be tested on the ISS soon.  If successful, a similar system could be emplaced with each module as it went up.

Wouldn't that be expensive?  Ans: Probably, but Vasimr can be scaled up, from what I understand.  Perhaps you won't need so many.  Besides, there are other ways to keep the station up there. Electrodynamic tethers, for example.   It is true that the technology isn't perfected yet, but why not try it with this?

What good would such a station be?  Ans: A permanent station in space can be configured to do a number of useful missions for those of us on the ground.  If one could be situation in geosynchronous orbit, it could start deploying and maintaining space solar modules which could supply the Earth with energy.  This is but one example of what such a system could do.  Another would be the clean up of the Van Allen Belts and Space Junk.  Still another would be as a station for sending and receiving missions from deep space.  These could be manned or unmanned missions that could be launched and recovered in space, with the results shared with the those of us on the ground.

Urgency, subdivided

There is my own sense of urgency as it applies to this blog and my own situation. The blog doesn't generate income. It would be great if it did. It would solve a lot of problems if it did. But that is not happening and the time is growing shorter every day.

I can attempt to solve that problem in a number of ways, which I have discussed here. One is to increase the audience and to get some sales going. Another is to buy time in order to build more audience and keep on working at getting a revenue stream going. Selling my truck addresses the latter. Getting a bigger audience is the former. There's the time element as mentioned. Also, the lack of expertise which has to learned on the fly. Lastly, the inertia factor has to be overcome. People just don't seem to be interested.

That gets to the larger picture, which is the world out there. In this country, there is a budget battle ongoing that's getting down to the end game for this cycle. Once the debt ceiling is raised, there is little incentive to do anything else until the aftermath of the next election. That means something needs to be done soon, or the opportunity will be lost. The key thing to remember is that there may not be more opportunities in the future. That's what brings a sense of urgency to the situation, assuming of course, that those who were brought into power during this last election cycle actually want to achieve anything during their stay in power. It could well be that any scenario imaginable may result in a brief stay in power. They may as well do the right thing while they are there.

Comic relief

You need when dealing with serious matters. Contrast this with the real scene from Braveheart. What situation would you prefer? A real battle with real people dying? Or to put your heads together and come up with a solution that everyone can live with? Yet, the movie Braveheart should be a cautionary tale for anyone who has designs to act like a tyrant or a traitor.  This in no way detracts from the urgency of the situation today.  Keep a sense of humor about it.  It may be the only thing that saves your ass.




More comic relief from the movie itself.



Update:

I wrote that the scene was "real" only in the sense that it was a real movie. The movie itself loosely follows historical events. The movie employs artistic license in order to move a plot along, in such a way that it will be a box office success. It is not reality, but a dramatized version of it.

I feel that this should be in anticipation of anyone who may be thinking that I don't know the difference between a movie and reality. My use of the movie is for illustrative purposes. Hopefully, there won't be any confusion about that.

Daily Plan (or Agenda), A discussion of urgency.

As I was taking my morning walk, the idea for today's agenda came to me. Do you remember the Fierce Urgency of Change? Well, the urgency is still there, but, evidently, the change is not. This is consistent with my opinion of politicians in general, they will say anything to get elected. But once elected, they will do what they damn well please.

But what the politicians seem to forget about is that people take what they say seriously.  So, where's this change that everybody thought they were voting for?  When things look pretty much the same as before, the insincerity of the campaign slogan becomes evident.  But the necessity remains.  That's where the pressure must come in to make sure that the politicians remember who put them there and why.

We have urgent problems that need to be addressed and are not being addressed.  That's a fact.  But where the rubber meets the road, as the saying goes, the fiction of rhetoric does nothing to solve the problems that are being faced in the real world.   I think D.C. is in a bubble.  It seems to be all about themselves.  But they need to remember that DC is not the center of the universe.  They do not pay attention, but they had better start, and start soon. Time is getting short.  That is what gives the current situation its urgency.

What to do? This blog is an attempt to bring some attention to this situation and what could be done about it.  I think we need a growth program.  But that does not mean growth in the size and scope of the government.  Somehow, the government must play a role, but must also not be an end in itself.   It must serve the needs of the people, but not insist upon being served themselves.  As for the people, it is not possible to just sit around and expect things to be taken care of.   People need to pay attention too.  Otherwise, things will continue on the present path, which can only lead to bad outcomes.

I advocate a robust space program.  The current program is sick, outdated, and utterly ineffective.  It needs to be reinvigorated with a real purpose that serves real needs.  It must do this within a reasonable budget and in a reasonable time frame.  In the end, it must be a revenue producer, as opposed to a revenue consumer.  No such thing as a free lunch.  This is always been true, but it is more true now than ever.

The Morning Summary, April 24, 2011

The statistics:

Time approx 4:30 am

Sitemeter; Sun. am. 4599; v. Sat. am 4581; 18 up 3 from Sat

Blogger: Sat. 59, down 5 from Fri. (64); overnight is 21 so far, compared with 23 this time yesterday.

Nothing to report on bids, nor sales, still zero on revenues, no clicks on Amazon.

Not too concerned anymore about the dropoff in visitors and pageviews overnight. More concerned about no revenues. I may need to intensify efforts on that issue.

With respect to that, some important decisions are going to be made within the next couple months regarding the truck, which I have on sale. You can't serve two masters. Either the truck goes, or posting here on a regular basis goes. Can't do both. If I get a decent price on the truck, I will sell it and continue here. I've sold on Ebay before, I could do that again. If I do, it will have to come relatively soon within the next few weeks.


YouTube page: 847 v 845 channel views previously, 492 v. 488 upload views previously. Channel views improve by 2, upload views improve by 4. That's an average of two upload views per channel view. An improvement yes, but not much of one.