I've been watching a lot of Thunderf00t lately. I really enjoy his assessments on crazy product claims by just using thermodynamics to bust them. But it got me wondering, what would Thunderf00t do if there were no internal combustion engines, then someone invented one and made a kickstarter/indiegogo pitch.
As an aside, we need to avoid a variation on the Hypothesis Contrary to Fact fallacy. It goes like this:
"What if there was no red."
Well red exists, so it requires a lot more groundwork to properly describe the scenario than just asserting, "What if there was no red." Are we saying there was no red, ever? No red in all of history? Or are we saying that humans could never see red, but the wavelength exists? Or are we saying that one day, suddenly red stopped being perceived?
That last one is interesting. If the color red suddenly stopped, but we still had everything else, like "red" stop-lights and "red" M&Ms, that affects the scenario quite a bit.
Thus, in my scenario about a world where no internal combustion engines exist, does that mean we developed alternative forms of propulsion, and as such, the world is otherwise very similar to the one where we had internal combustion engines? Or how about, we placed Thunderf00t into a timeframe before the 1800s discovery of internal combustion technology?
If we moved Thunderf00t through time, he would have a very different understanding of thermodynamics than the people back then. Or do we pick a person with as much understanding as Thunderf00t, but with the appropriate knowledge of that era.
Anyway, my point is, what would Thunderf00t do with the claims made by a kickstarter-like pitch about a gasoline powered engine, where such an invention did not exist? Would he attack the project as being unrealistic because it breaks the laws of thermodynamics, as understood in that context?
I have a feeling he wouldn't attack such a project, as such. It might get his stamp of approval, with the caveat that gasoline is probably too dangerous to strap to a vehicle and drive around with. He might say that it works in principle, but it just seems too volatile a compound. Then he'd go off and prove it by showing how much of an explosion it could produce if there was an accident.
Anyway, it's fun to think about. Here's a video where he goes over some of the thermodynamics of the Waterseer project:
Assume late Victorian era, some crackpot is saying he can make a carriage powered by an engine on it, that can travel over any normal road
Now, steam engines work, so he would probably start with assuming it's a steam engine mounted with tyres of some sort; he'd calculate the rolling friction of a tyre, the mass of the locomotive, and conclude it could barely move along at a couple miles an hour, completely impractical. Which, by the by, is exactly what steam rollers were and about how fast they could go.
So, he gets rebutted, they explain it is a gasoline powered internal combustion engine. He would go into how complicated the timing was for the valving, how dangerous it would be to carry around tens of gallons of gasoline, perhaps throw in a nice picture of a kerosene fire and talk about how difficult they are to put out. Then he'd grant them graciously their wild claim about power to weight ratio, and calculate the speed a 20 horsepower engine could propel a carriage at, and say if you started going 40 miles an hour on normal roads there would be accidents, especially when it was rainy or snowy.
In other words, I imagine he would come up with perfectly valid criticisms of the idea which we hardly think about as we hop in our car and drive 80 down carefully engineered purpose built super highways.
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Yeah, I'm with ya. But I'd still find the analysis useful. Who knows, maybe we needed that kind of critique back then so we could skip the technology earlier and go right to flying cars.
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I've watched a few of his videos, he can get like a dog with a bone sometimes. A little bit obsessed.
Does he ever figure out he was mistaken and issue a Mia culpa? Or would something like that get edited from the thunderf00t universe?
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He addresses his mistakes quite well, in my opinion.
One of the big ones just amounted to a 10x calculation mistake that didn't in any way undermine his main point. But he highlights the mistake every so often to show how people grasp at straw(men)s.
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That's good to know. To err is human.
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@inertia i need your help
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there were a looooot of other very useful inventions and just didn't make it to hit the markets. I think that corporations do not see them as a profit in long term and do not care about making some positive changes to the society
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Another great YouTube channel down these lines is AvE. He focuses on powertools and their assorted claims, but there's a lot of heavy engineering / manufacturing and science knowledge in his videos.
Thanks for sharing this!
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Nice channel! P.S. I would like more the assumption: what if there was one more color that doesn't exist in reality :-) This leads us to qualia philosophy which is veeery interesting ;-)
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I will be happy if this project work low cost as it's the one of most needed technology.
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I like post you dear friend @inertia..
Help me https://steemit.com/photography/@dianclasher/photography-37-bunga-liar-di-tepi-jalan-201797t12430277z
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FYI although not the angle you were getting at here PopSci did an article on this Kickstarter in April and covered a bunch of the criticisms including a link to Thunderf00t's video. They have plenty of caveats on when it might work.
https://www.popsci.com/this-device-may-pull-water-out-thin-air-but-not-as-well-as-we-hoped
I believe some of his argument about the heating effect of condensation is negated by the thermal conductivity of soil. Depending on how fast the energy is released it can be effectively conducted away just like a heat sink does on a CPU. There's effectively an infinite heat sink attached to that hole in the ground, but it can only conduct so fast. I haven't watched all his videos on this device (if there were any more) but it sounds like he didn't quite factor in all the thermodynamics.
I do find his tone is not always fitting of what he is attacking. In this case it feels like he is most pissed about the institution of UCB. It would however have been a great teaching moment to talk to the kids. The marketing flimflam was probably put together by someone not at all familiar with three actual physics. Remember most people don't learn by being attacked. Defense is a natural instinct. A Socratic approach would make his point much better in this particular case. In others he is undeniably up against a deliberate scam which warrants a different approach. Even then he could often make his point better in a Myth Busters style by reproducing some device and proving it doesn't work.
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nice post
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