(NOTE: It appears that I really blew it with this one. I’m the bozo in this story. After lots of discussion, a few equations, and a bunch of time scribbling on paper, I’m convinced that I got this one wrong in a big way. No excuses; I should have done the analysis much more carefully before posting this; looking back, what I did do was pathetically shallow and, frankly, stupid. I’m sincerely sorry
for calling the guys doing the experiment bozos. I’ll follow up later this weekend with a detailed post showing my analysis, where I screwed up, and why this thing really works. In the meantime, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments; I pretty much deserve it. I’m leaving the post here, with this note, as a testament to my own stupidity and hubris in screwing this up.)
Technorati Tags: perpetual motion,
faster than wind,
idiots
This has been quite the day for the bad math; I’ve encountered or been sent a bunch of real mind-numbing stupidity. Unfortunately, I’m too busy with work to actually write about all of it, so as I have time, I’ll pick out the best tidbits. Today’s example is a fascinating combination of perpetual motion and wrong metrics.
Via BoingBoing comes a bunch of bozos who believe that they can create a “wind-powered” vehicle that moves faster the wind that powers it.