Some interesting questions

[Sidoh]

These are a few situations my boss presented me with.  I thought they were really neat questions, so I thought I'd post them here.  Note that they're hypothetical situations, so physical implications and restraints should be ignored.

You are given two rubber disks about 3' in diameter.  They behave exactly like ordinary rubber disks, except when laid flat, they behave like teleporters.  If you place an object that fits over a disk onto its surface, it will immediately appear on the other disk.  With these disks, what can you do to make the most money?  The best good for society?

You are given a "bottomless bag."  The bag has an opening of about 3' in diameter.  Anything placed into the bag will not increase the apparent weight, but can be extracted in a similar fashion.  What can you do with this bag to make the most money?  The best good for society?

[CrAz3D]

For the teleporters...I might stick one of the pads on the other one...just to see where it would go, if anywhere.

Bottomless bag, hmm, maybe poor clean water out of it forever?

[rabbit]

You'd have to put in all that water first.

I'd patent the transporter pads and send them off to Area 51 for reverse engineering.

Same for that bag.

[Newby]

I'd pack Africa into the bag and blow it up.

[igimo1]

1. I'd begin building a perpetual motion machine

2. Turn it into a trashbag for my room.

[Sidoh]

You'd have to put in all that water first.

I'd patent the transporter pads and send them off to Area 51 for reverse engineering.

Same for that bag.

Hehe, my friend's answer was similar to that.  He said he'd sell it to the military.

Filling the bag with water would be pretty easy.  All you have to do is take it to the bottom of a lake.

1. I'd begin building a perpetual motion machine

2. Turn it into a trashbag for my room.

Good answers.  Do you have a proposed general engineering idea for the first?

[iago]

If I had a Bag of Holding (like #2), I'd leave it at the bottom of the ocean. When the world eventually ran out of water, I'd go retrieve and and start selling water to people/countries at an extremely high price. 

For #1, stand by, I need to find a quote then edit it in here. 

<edit>

Ok, for #1 I'd build a bathroom over it.  Then I'd stash the other one somewhere safe. 

Both that idea, and the thing about a perpetual motion machine, relate back to, of course, Pratchett:

'One opened up in one of the cellars once, all by itself,' said the Dean. 'Just a round black hole. Anything you put in it just disappeared. So old Archchancellor Weatherwax had a privy built over it.'
'Very sensible idea,' said Ridcully, still looking thoughtful.
'We thought so too, until we found the other one that had opened in the attic. Turned out to be the other side of the same hole. I'm sure I don't need to draw you a picture.'
'I've never heard of these!' said Ponder Stibbons. The possibilities are amazing!'
'Everyone says that when they first hear about them,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'But when you've been a wizard as long as I have, my boy, you'll learn that as soon as you find anything that offers amazing possibilities for the improvement of the human condition it's best to put the lid back on and pretend it never happened.'
'But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it'd come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again . . . It'd reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be---'
'That's pretty much what happened between the attic and the cellar,' said the Dean, taking a cold chicken leg. 'Thank goodness for air friction, that's all I'll say.'

Anyway, I'd put the bottom one over the top, separated by a coil of wires, sealed tight.  Inside, I'd suck out the air (to get rid of air friction).  Then I'd drop a magnet in the middle, so that when it came out the top it would fall through the coil and go back to the bottom.  Bam, infinite power source until the magnet wears out.

[Sidoh]

If I had a Bag of Holding (like #2), I'd leave it at the bottom of the ocean. When the world eventually ran out of water, I'd go retrieve and and start selling water to people/countries at an extremely high price. 

Haha, that's a good idea.  However, wouldn't that have extremely harsh effects on the environment and climate?

For #1, stand by, I need to find a quote then edit it in here. 

/salute

[iago]

If I had a Bag of Holding (like #2), I'd leave it at the bottom of the ocean. When the world eventually ran out of water, I'd go retrieve and and start selling water to people/countries at an extremely high price. 

Haha, that's a good idea.  However, wouldn't that have extremely harsh effects on the environment and climate?

Yeah, but I'd be rich so who cares?

For #1, stand by, I need to find a quote then edit it in here. 

/salute

Read time!

[Sidoh]

Yeah, but I'd be rich so who cares?

Yeah, true.  You could buy an environmental bubble!

Read time!

 

[Super_X]

'But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it'd come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again . . . It'd reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be---'

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

[iago]

'But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it'd come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again . . . It'd reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be---'

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

I didn't know that stuff fell at framed per second. 

It's true, it would reach terminal velocity.  But meteors also reach terminal velocity, so meteoritic speed would be ok.  Although in the electrical generator that I proposed afterwards, I specifically said that it would be a vacuum inside, which means there's no air to create friction. 

Does it actually say "meteoritic" speed?  I copied/pasted from an e-version of The Last Continent, it'd be funny if it actually had that misspelling in it. 

[Super_X]

'But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it'd come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again . . . It'd reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be---'

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

I didn't know that stuff fell at framed per second. 

It's true, it would reach terminal velocity.  But meteors also reach terminal velocity, so meteoritic speed would be ok.  Although in the electrical generator that I proposed afterwards, I specifically said that it would be a vacuum inside, which means there's no air to create friction. 

Does it actually say "meteoritic" speed?  I copied/pasted from an e-version of The Last Continent, it'd be funny if it actually had that misspelling in it. 

Oh, I see. I guess that I was thinking a metior's terminal velocity would be a lot faster than a dimes, or something 'cause of it being sort of propelled by gravitational pulls and it being in space. Sorry.

[Sidoh]

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

Acceleration due to gravity is approximately 32 ft/s^2.  It's undergoing a constant force due to gravity.  That means every second an object is in freefall, it is going 32 feet per second faster than it was the second before (kind of.  air friction will lessen that, but if it is ignored, this is about true).

This acceleration is true only close to the Earth's surface.  True [classical] gravitational potential energy is calculated by Newton's famous (-(GMm)/r).

Terminal velocity is relative to the apparent horizontal surface are of the referenced object.  A dime has a different terminal velocity than a meteor, but they both undergo the same acceleration.

[Super_X]

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

Acceleration due to gravity is approximately 32 ft/s^2.  It's undergoing a constant force due to gravity.  That means every second an object is in freefall, it is going 32 feet per second faster than it was the second before (kind of.  air friction will lessen that, but if it is ignored, this is about true).

This acceleration is true only close to the Earth's surface.  True [classical] gravitational potential energy is calculated by Newton's famous (-(GMm)/r).

Terminal velocity is relative to the apparent horizontal surface are of the referenced object.  A dime has a different terminal velocity than a meteor, but they both undergo the same acceleration.

Oh I see.
 <33 Thank you, Sidoh. :")

[MyndFyre]

Wouldn't it only fall at 64 fps 'cause it's still be within earth's gravitational pull and the exit hole doesn't like, boost it, or something? Am I just wrong?

Acceleration due to gravity is approximately 32 ft/s^2.  It's undergoing a constant force due to gravity.  That means every second an object is in freefall, it is going 32 feet per second faster than it was the second before (kind of.  air friction will lessen that, but if it is ignored, this is about true).

This acceleration is true only close to the Earth's surface.  True [classical] gravitational potential energy is calculated by Newton's famous (-(GMm)/r).

Terminal velocity is relative to the apparent horizontal surface are of the referenced object.  A dime has a different terminal velocity than a meteor, but they both undergo the same acceleration.

But isn't terminal velocity only relevant when there is a normal force of air?  There isn't a terminal velocity for an object in a vacuum, except maybe C.

[Sidoh]

But isn't terminal velocity only relevant when there is a normal force of air?  There isn't a terminal velocity for an object in a vacuum, except maybe C.

I thought that was implied, but I suppose I could have specified.

Also, it's not restricted to air.  Terminal velocity is applicable to any momentous object present in a frame of reference with objects of different momenta (for example: water).  It's less practical and far less predictable when in an area without an equally distributed substance, but it's still there.

C != c .  I'm not sure what C is, but the universal symbol for the speed of light is c (case does make a difference--E = energy, e = lim[n->infinity](1+1/n)^n).  Terminal velocity is the maximum velocity an object can reach when under a constant acceleration due to frictional forces.  Light does not undergo friction.  Light slows down in particular mediums for other reasons.  When a photon "collides" with an atom, an electron absorbs its energy and jumps to a higher energy shell.  It very shortly moves to its original shell and re-radiates the energy.  This reaction does not occur instantaneously, so as one might intuitively conclude, the more atoms that light "bumps" into on its path, the longer it takes.

The properties of refraction of light are also pretty interesting:

sin(angle1)/c1 = sin(angle2)/c2

With that relationship, you can measure the speed of light in various mediums.

Edit: Remembered.  C is Coulombs, the SI measurement of charge.

[rabbit]

Hmm..I thought of a good one.  I'd take one pad and send it into orbit, then drop Joe in the other.

As for the bag, maybe sell it to the mafia

As per the dropping magnet, Earth's gravity would gradually push the magnet sideways and shatter the barrier.

[Sidoh]

Hmm..I thought of a good one.  I'd take one pad and send it into orbit, then drop Joe in the other.

As for the bag, maybe sell it to the mafia

As per the dropping magnet, Earth's gravity would gradually push the magnet sideways and shatter the barrier.

Haha, that's pretty good.

If you could somehow invest some of the energy gained in downward acceleration into a rotational velocity, you could significantly lessen that time.

[MyndFyre]

If I had a Bag of Holding (like #2), I'd leave it at the bottom of the ocean. When the world eventually ran out of water, I'd go retrieve and and start selling water to people/countries at an extremely high price. 

Dude Ron, you really are an American capitalist pig at heart!  <tear> I'm so proud of you!

[dark_drake]

I'd throw one teleporter into the deepest part of the ocean.  Then, I'd sell deep-ocean "voyages" to dumb people. I'll make a ton of money and get rid of a bunch of stupid people.

For the bottomless bag, I'd go into the storage business.  People would pay me to hold on to their stuff, and society could use the extra building space for more useful things.

[iago]

I'd throw one teleporter into the deepest part of the ocean.  Then, I'd sell deep-ocean "voyages" to dumb people. I'll make a ton of money and get rid of a bunch of stupid people.

One problem with that idea:the water would probably start flowing through it, although if you used that water to power a turbine you get lots of free power.

[dark_drake]

I'd throw one teleporter into the deepest part of the ocean.  Then, I'd sell deep-ocean "voyages" to dumb people. I'll make a ton of money and get rid of a bunch of stupid people.

One problem with that idea:the water would probably start flowing through it, although if you used that water to power a turbine you get lots of free power.

Exactly.

[Super_X]

I thought one side was the entry and the other was the exit.

[Sidoh]

I thought one side was the entry and the other was the exit.

No, it's cyclic.  Each one transports whatever touches it to the other.

[Super_X]

I thought one side was the entry and the other was the exit.

No, it's cyclic.  Each one transports whatever touches it to the other.

Oh, then like.. putting something on one would do nothing, and like, everything? it would just like infinantally move back and forth, right?

[iago]

I thought one side was the entry and the other was the exit.

No, it's cyclic.  Each one transports whatever touches it to the other.

Oh, then like.. putting something on one would do nothing, and like, everything? it would just like infinantally move back and forth, right?

Well, I assume it falls out the other or something.  Like a teleporter. 

[Sidoh]

Oh, then like.. putting something on one would do nothing, and like, everything? it would just like infinantally move back and forth, right?

It depends on how you position them.

[iago]

Well, you specifically said that they have to be laid flat.  But I figured that was an oversight

[Sidoh]

Well, you specifically said that they have to be laid flat.  But I figured that was an oversight

Meaning that it's not folded over itself, so it forms a reasonably flat plane.  Sorry.