Harehunter

I just lost a few more hairs on the top of my nearly bald pate. Yes, according to fluid dynamics, there is an equal pressure applied at every point of the surface of the container. The problem with the cube buckling under pressure has less to do with fluid dynamics, and more to do with Structural Engineering.

 

The ability of practically any material to resist compressive forces better than they can resist shearing or bending forces is at the crux of this problem. The mathematics is nothing less than applied differential calculus, but to make a long story short, an arch is a structural shape that translates all forces applied against it into a compression axis. When you apply the concept of the arch to 2 dimensions you get a dome, and in 3 dimensions you get a sphere.

 

In the case of a cube you are creating a structure that presents six planes at right angles to the force applied to it, leaving it up to the tensile strength of the material to resist the force applied to it. The differential calculus of continuum mechanics can be used to calculate the effect of mechanical stresses on materials, but it is so complicated that most engineers just use data from empirical measurements more than the math.

 

Note, I said continuum mechanics, not fluid dynamics, nor even fluid mechanics. That similarity of terms tripped me up too. They have their place in this problem, but by themselves they don't answer the problem at hand.

 

You can still build a cube that will have the same uniform load-bearing capacity across of its surfaces by simply thickening the material gradually as you approach the center of the plane, sort of a lensatic increase rather than angular.

 

You guys are fun to discourse with. You challenge me intellectually. And Lilith, you gave me an intellectual thrill to think of hydrogen embrittlement. That tweaks my memories to when I was a chemistry major in college.

Ergo, my tagline.

When you turn the sphere into a cube, you bring in another factor, hydrodynamics. It gets pretty complicated, but essentially it boils down to this: A sphere is an object that presents the most uniform force distribution against all points of its surface than any other object. With a cube, you get the greatest force factor in the corners, a little less along the edges, and progressively less force as you move towards the center of the face. To prevent an implosion with this type of structure, you would need to add reinforcing struts to apply force against the faces, meaning more mass of materials, increasing your weight, without an increase of volume.

 

Filling the space with helium is more feasible because you decrease the density of material in the contained volume, but you can equalize the pressure, allowing you to use thinner walls, less mass, and therefore achieve buoyancy.

 

As for finding an infinitely strong material, I suppose that is possible...

 

at the heart of a neutron star...

 

where the gravity is even greater, therefore requiring an infinitely large displacement to establish a positive buoyancy...

 

I've think I've such gone over the event-horizon..........

I thought of that, but as the size of the container increases, it presents a less and less curved surface to that 1 atmosphere of pressure, making it more likely to be crushed, and thereby lose it's displacement. In order to prevent that, more steel would have to be added to the thickness of the wall to resist that crushing force. I do know from my engineering courses that with piping, if you have a 3" pipe with 1/2" walls with a material strength of 1000psi and a safety factor of 1.5, it can operate at 300psi safely with a bursting pressure of 500 psi. Increase the diameter of the pipe to 6", leaving all other variables constant, and you can only operate safely at 100psi with a bursting pressure of only 200psi.

Engineers calcs.

 

In order to bring the 6" pipe to the same spec as the 3" pipe you would have to *double* the wall thickness of the 6" pipe to 1".

RAM, Recursive Actuarial Matrix.

Wasn't he a friend of TRON?

I don't believe that it is possible. The requirement of strength in the container walls to resist the implosive force of 1 atmosphere of pressure means that the mass (or weight) of the container would always exceed the mass of the air displaced, thus having a negative buoyancy. The larger you made the container, in an effort to increase the displacement, the more steel you would have to have to A) contain the added volume, and to strengthen the already too heavy walls.

 

Nice thought, though. Anti-gravity anyone?

Heavens to Murgatroyd! What hath I uncovered! I try to tread lightly, but I tend to trip frequently on my tongue.

 

From a kernel of dried wit, we get dictionary wars, to government conspiracies, to culinary critiques.

 

That is what makes this forum so irresistibly interesting.

Signed binary numbers are weird that way.

I knew a guy in my reserve unit who was like that; had to do a weight/displacement test to pass his physical every year.

 

On a lighter note, a lead zeppelin will fly; but it's not very durable or practical. You have to press the lead so thin, it would be little more than foil.

I don't know about you, but my dad would have loved this one.

 

What song did the student chef begin singing when he passed his final exam in sauces?

 

 

Resurrect the Nixie-tubes.

Far is a place where pilgrams grow peas and live in hominy.

Just to see if I could get it to work. It does take a little bit of holding your mouth just right to install Win3.1 in DOSBox, but the trick is digging up those old drivers for sound and mouse. I would be very interested to find out if it actually worked on a 64-bit machine.

I don't know how it works on 64-bit, but I did get a very successful load of Windows 3.1 on DOSBox on a couple of 32-bit winxp's, and all three Exiles copied into into it and they run just fine. Actually, after installing it on one box, I copied the whole shebang onto a flash drive, plugged into another box, and ran directly off the flash.

 

The cursor has a bit of an annoying habit of disappearing when you move it, but settles in nicely when you stop. That is the only annoyance I have noticed.

 

I have yet to work up the time and ambition for a Win98 load. It might work better, but on the other hand, it might work worse.

In my youth, we just painted on rocks.

 

I do agree, though, there is a place where the older technologies still work the best. Imagine if you will

Welcome to the forum.

A1) The Mad Monk Squad:

Fighter/priest1; battle rage=blesses self, heals self when needed

Fighter/priest2; battle rage=blesses self, ditto

Priest/mage1; haste (party), major healing if needed

Mage1/priest1; attacks, refresh haste

 

In A2, battle rages blesses -and- hastes self.

In A3, war blessing replaces battle rage = bless and shield self, haste only works on one PC, so the mages haste themselves first, then the fighters on the second round.

 

Every time I mention this tactic, I get thoroughly castigated for 'wasting' precious skill points in such multi-classing. "You can't achieve max stats in their primary skill."

Click if you dare.

On another thread... This sounds like a problem for the Wizard of the ID. While reading this thread, Dr. Freud slipped into my mind and derailed my train of thought.

What you have is essentially a server-class machine. Now, I am truly jealous (not really, I have a half dozen of machines I administrate at work ). If you really want to go the route of a virtual machine, that 16Gb of memory can get eaten quite rapidly;

1. the core zone, the VM OS itself

2. a windows zone, for all those apps that you cannot find an equivalent for

3. a linux zone, for your database to run in

4. another linux zone, for your http server and application layer; yes, you want this separate from your DB, trust me.

5? can you put MAC OS in a VM?

 

Enjoy!

You can be quite punny when you choose to. I liked how you embedded a very neatly coined word "logicule" with "bio", but I got distracted by Alorael's reference to Plath. I, too, Googled the name, hit Wikipedia, saw the reference to her depression and suicide, hit another link to "neuroticpoets" and found that quotation embedded in the background image. Since depression is a sickness of the mind, a biological miracle, capable of logic (or in my case, ill-logic), that was my tie back to the first bit. Add to that your word "Plathway" (def. a path of investigation about a poet named Plath); hence my proselet.

As for the company we find ourselves in, I think we have a pretty good crowd here. I especially like the depth and range of topics that are discussed here. In the course of our discourses, I have also probed at the boundaries, not for the purpose of making people feel uncomfortable, but to provoke thought about why certain boundaries are there, specifically the boundaries we place around ourselves to divide us into sects, castes, or (dare I say it) ethnic groups. Historical events are often used as justification for segregating ourselves into groups of people who share that history. It is good to remember history, lest we find ourselves going down a path that is harmful to our society; but to let it continue to divide us, generation after generation, benefits no one. This applies to the history of other lands, not just the U.S. I totally support diversity in our society, but it saddens me when these divisions are created and used (exploited) for the personal gain of certain individuals.

Political Correctness does have its beneficial effects in trying to ease those barriers down, but like so many other things have had a need to correct a wrong, it gets abused all to often, and for reasons that, for the life of me, I fail to comprehend. Let us be civil to each other, and respectful. It is good to have differences of opinion and to share them. That is how we learn and develop our society.

Thus endeth my time upon the soap box.
I wish you well, and send a grateful Thank You to the Veterans who have fought, and died, to protect the freedom we now share. That includes our friends across the pond, and our friends down under.

Shame on me for not qualifying my remark adequately. One of the lurking threads of thought that had crossed my mind related to the story of Dolly, and other such experiments. But on reflection, that does not even enter the realm of study in which you are engaged. Try as I may, I also fall into the trap of relating two things that seem on the surface to be similar, but are in fact quite unrelated.

I've done that! It is an interesting experience keeping multiple threads running parallel, and not getting them crossed.

Did I forget to mention, I enjoy the challenge. And when it comes to getting back into my old application, I absolutely love it. I have actual customers, people outside my department, that I can solve problems for. when I can turn someones frown of frustration to a smile of relief with a few clicks on a keyboard, that is instant gratification. When I became a DBA I lost that.

I did *not* say there was a legitimate reason for the politics that try to impede genetic research, just remarking that it is there, in all its absurdity.

 

I appreciate your perspective, re my analogy. I've never had the opportunity to get direct feedback from someone in the field. My analogy goes down in flames before you. But I will carry your description of the work in it's place.

 

Slarty, is this the hidden meaning behind your cryptic post?

 

"I wandered down the Plathway of life, searching for the logicule that would enlighten the bio-logical processor that resides in my skull."