Motor Made From Liquid Film 241
KentuckyFC writes "Last year, a group of Iranian physicists made a puzzling discovery. They placed a thin film of water in a small cell and bathed it in two perpendicular electric fields. To their surprise this caused the water to rotate. They called their device a liquid film motor and posted on the web a cool set of movies showing the phenomenon. The puzzle is this: the electric fields are static, so what's driving the motor? Now another group of physicists has the answer: a complex interaction between the electric field, the cell container and the liquid causes water to move along the cell wall. Crucially, it moves in opposite directions on opposite sides of the cell and so sets up a circular flow. The phenomenon works only when friction and surface tension are significant forces so the effect is entirely scale dependent. That's probably why we haven't seen it before and also why it could have important implications for microfluidic devices such as lab-on-a-chip."
at least something (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.
As for the actual story: this can be used to build the world's smallest washing machine.
Re:at least something (Score:5, Insightful)
It is nice to see something that isn't negative about Iran getting into western news. Iran has a population around that of the United Kingdom so I have no doubt that numerous beneficial scientific discoveries are made there.
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Iran has a population around that of the United Kingdom so I have no doubt that numerous beneficial scientific discoveries are made there.
How is scientific discovery and population related?
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-famous-Hungarians#Math_and_Sciences [nationmaster.com]
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Not having to have been born in, or lived in, hungary, kind of removed the relation to population.
True, but consider the fact that living there wasn't exactly a smooth ride in the last 100 years. Read up on Trianon [wikipedia.org], Rákosi [wikipedia.org], and 1956 [wikipedia.org], and you'll get the idea.
Basically, bright people always had some really good reasons to leave the country.
Re:What a weasel sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm left wondering if you would make the same claim if we were talking about a (say..) South American country rather than Iran.
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This invariably means the person has no evidence for the following statement, isn't looking for evidence and doesn't want to hear any evidence and is sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALALA" against anyone trying to argue his point.
Not always. It could also mean that the person does have 'no doubt' but doesn't feel the need to provide immediate evidence for every single statement in a post on a very informal internet forum.
How about this, Iran is a country which is actively seeking to estab
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Or it means they aren't an ignorant dipshit who thinks scientific achievements only occur in places their society approves of, so despite not having any direct proof they can make a reasonable guess because it'd be much more unlikely and require a lot more proof to show them to be wrong.
Iran is a big country, they obviously aren't all religious zealots, they do in fact have research universities, so "I have no doubt" in this context means "I have a fucking clue and two brain cells to rub together".
Re:What a weasel sentence (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as another example of Iranian research: ridiculously strong concrete [wired.com]. High strength concrete generally has a compressive strength of 3,000 PSI or so. The person who wrote in about the situation had created concrete for the competition that was 16,000 PSI. 10,000 PSI is considered hard rock, and granite is 30,000 PSI. The Iranian concrete was *50,000-60,000* PSI. When it shattered, it damaged the testing equipment. They pulled it off using what appeared to be a quartz aggregate (160,000 PSI) and steel fibers. And this was at 28 days; concrete gets stronger over time.
Naturally, Wired spins it into the context of bunkers and nuclear weapons, like we do with everything that comes out of Iran. How long until this thin-film motor gets portrayed as something nefarious?
"Next on Fox: An Iranian art student paints a prize-winning portrait of a sunflower. Is it really a secret code for transferring nuclear secrets? Find out after the break."
Iran is trying their damndest not to be seen as an intellectual backwater. And while they're not up to western standards, nor are western stereotypes of Iranian academic achievement generally justified. There are now six times as many university students in Iran today as there were in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown -- largely because tuition, room, and board are paid for by the government, which is trying to improve their education standards. Here's a fair summary of the situation today [wikipedia.org]. They're no shining star when it comes to education, but they're not backwoods yokels either.
Another way to put it: Iran has two of the top 500 universities in the world, as ranked by QS. That puts them tied for 42nd in terms of top-500 universities, with . 140 countries don't have any top-ranking universities at all. There's not a single country in the Carribean with a top-500 university, only two countries in all of Africa (Egypt=1, South Africa=4), and so on. The lion's share are in the US -- 123, followed by the UK (50), Germany (42), France (38), and Japan (36). Iran ranks better than Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Egypt, Slovenia, Colombia, Peru, UAE, Romania, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh (1 each), but below Mexico (3) and Poland, Portugal, Pakistan, Denmark, Israel, Norway, South Africa, Chile, Phillipines, Czech Republic, and Argentina (4 each).
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Naturally? I think sensibly. Scientific research in a slightly insane and violent theocracy should probably always be looked at with a bit of cynicism. There's not a lot of scientific research that is independent of the government going on in Iran; therefore, the Iranian government's motives come into pl
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There's cynicism, and then there's outright paranoia. It's safe to say that this type of concrete invariably WILL be used in bunkers, but there are also a multitude of other uses for it. Unless the Iranian government specifically created this project in order to create hardened bunkers (which they didn't) there's no reason to immediately get paranoid about it. Let the boys in the pentagon worry about possible military implications - the rest of us should be thinking about ways in which it could be used t
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Where WMD = "Washing Machine Device"
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Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.
Nonsense. This is clearly a prototype terrorist water tentacle.
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The worlds smallest washing machine should be able to wash worlds smallest g-string.
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Jesus Christ
I see what you did there....
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You are a fucking retard with no understanding of what you are reading.
Nowadays != Never
Suck a duck.
Re:at least something (Score:4, Funny)
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just another retarded idiot who can't read. Nowadays = today or close to today, not 'ever'.
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what are those other things that are coming out of Iran nowadays (you do realize, TODAY?) What, that satellite? Isn't that related to nukes somehow and WMDs? Iran USED to be an oasis of ideas and science about a thousand years ago, today it's all about oil, stoning women who were raped, nukes, killing jews and whatnot. So go into your corner and cry me a river. These are the best news from Iran yet.
Not Often... (Score:2, Insightful)
Aside from the actual scientific content of the article, I found this lead quote to be interesting with many subtle and not so subtle implications. Discuss.
Re:Not Often... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, without the scientific content of the article, I thought it was really a dastardly plot to DDOS Iran with the Slashdot Effect, especially with the inclusion of video.
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I found this lead quote to be interesting with many subtle and not so subtle implications
Westerners assume that the Middle East is a 14th Century backwater and cannot contribute to the world in meaningful ways.
Ditto for religious fundamentalists and non-capitalists.
Where would they ever get such ideas?
/News at 11
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I don't care what religious fundamentalists have to offer. I don't want it.
Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.
Perspective Shift (Score:2)
Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.
Regardless of who is actually "right", they feel the same way about us.
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Regardless of who is actually "right", they feel the same way about us.
Scripture makes it very clear how you are supposed to feel about infidels and heretics. But just because you base your beliefs on scripture that doesn't mean everyone who disagree with you is being equally irrational and nonobjective.
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Scripture makes it very clear how you are supposed to feel about infidels and heretics
Depends on which scripture. I've always 'enjoyed' a good philosophical debate when the person opposing my religion has no clue what my religion even is.
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I don't care what religious fundamentalists have to offer. I don't want it. Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.
I'd offer to lend you a hand so we could build a wall between the two, but you wouldn't take it, and I wouldn't accept it. In the end, I think we can be unhappy in shouting at each other from across the yard.
That'll show em.
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Iran is in S. Asia, not the Middle East. And if they didn't want to get labeled as a bunch of religious loonies, they could repeal their stoning laws, stop fomenting anti-semitic hatred, start respecting the rights of women, etc.
"What goes around, come around" is true for the Western Nations as well as the Eastern. Iran will rue the day they decided they needed to attempt a take over of the direction of Islam. The Sunnis will never forgive them for it.
Gerry
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It depends on the definition one uses and it certainly isn't clearly defined. The Middle East is generally thought to extend well into South Asia and also into Africa. That comes from the origin of the phrase (British labels: near east, middle east, far east). BUT The US State Dept defines Iran as South Asia and modern western usage usually excludes Iran.
Iran baffles me. Their population doesn't seem to be "in step" with their leadership. Everything I see coming from inside Iran contrasts the typical world-
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And if they didn't want to get labeled as a bunch of religious loonies, they could repeal their stoning laws, stop fomenting anti-semitic hatred, start respecting the rights of women, etc.
Good idea, but all the people who suggested this in Iran got stoned (and I don't mean the hashish kind). Now the sane Iranians just sit quietly and wait for things to get better.
They could use a few George Washington types, but the popular support isn't really there.
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To be fair, we assume the same thing about West Virginia.
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At least Iran has more than 15 last names unlike west Virginia.
Middle East at 14th Century backwater (Score:2)
People in the Middle East often assume that Hollywood gives a good representation of US culture, and that the US is a completely irreligious country.
The fact is that parts the Middle East are socially 14th century, with a thin overlay of technology purchased from other places. But as with most 3rd world countries, there are westernized islands that can be every bit as high tech as anything we have.
Where does the energy come from ? (Score:2)
There is friction, so this requires energy - where does it come from ? My guess is that the electric field is actually lowered, so they are converting E field energy to rotational energy, but that the losses are small enough to make this quasi-static.
Now off to RTFA.
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It's also one of the causes of all the power behind UNIX.
Re:Where does the energy come from ? (Score:5, Informative)
OK, having read the "real" article [arxiv.org], the best response is that this may explain the observed effects. The major differences
- the depth of the film is an important parameter, but that isn't known for the original experiments, so they can't compare results to theory in a detailed fashion.
- the theoretical work leads to at most one steady vortex in a container, but the experimental results show both one and two. The two vortex results may, of course, be transient.
- the theoretical results have flow speeds largest at the outer boundary. The experimental results have it increasing towards the center. This may be explainable by other effects, such as surface tension, but it is a discrepancy.
And the article says nothing directly about where the energy is coming from, but, reading it, it must be the electric field.
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That device sounds like a parietal accelerator [mhdprospects.com] wound into a loop. French scientist Jean-Pierre Petit suggested it would make an ideal submarine propulsion method.
My guess is that the depth of the film has to be small for the flow to remain stable and entrain all the water.
Re:Where does the energy come from ? (Score:5, Funny)
From the will of Allah, you insensitive infidel.
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And that's maxwell's demon ... (Score:2)
... which violates the second law of thermodynamics, last time I heard.
By the way: What the HELL is "two perpendicular electric fields"? Electric fields applied by two sets of electrodes combine to form their vector sum.
I'd like to see a MUCH better description of the design. Including especially any VARIATION in the fields.
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A field, by itself, does not provide energy.
Hmmm ... I've seen a number of comments like that, and I was curious. I'm sitting in a rather strong (gravitational) field that seems to be totally static. Yet I can feel its push, by the pressure my bottom surfaces feel from the chair I'm sitting in, even when I'm not moving. If I hold an object out to the side and release it, it falls to the floor every time. The energy required to produce that motion has to come from somewhere, and the gravitational field s
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F=ma.
Force = (mass) * (acceleration).
If the mass isn't accelerating, there is no force.
If you are sitting in your chair feeling a "push" from gravity, that isn't a force unless you are falling.
A force acting on an object gives it energy (or takes it away, if you are slowing the object down).
In your case of lifting the book, you are giving the book potential energy when you move it away from the earth. Gravity turns that potential energy to kinetic energy when you drop it. The same for your magnets, but rela
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Well, I don't see it in the pictures, but the original article [arxiv.org] does make this clear - one of the two electric fields is done by putting copper electrodes in the water, so a current is flowing and you are correct.
good for iran (Score:5, Interesting)
the ayatollah has made science a high priority:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei [wikipedia.org]
he recongizes the truth: iran will be a second rate power unless it leads in the field of science, through which it retains its independence and preeminence. this is why attacking iran's nuclear pursuits is hopeless, since iran attaches so much pride in iranian science and technology exploits. they just launched a satellite too. but all of these advances came from science and technology stolen or borrowed from other countries
but the history of persian science is a rich one, and there is no reason its future shouldn't be bright as well, if only the ayatollah would also realize that the preeminence of the west in science came only after the enlightenment
what else happened in the west during the enlightenment? religion was questioned. this is not a mistake or a coincidence: the questioning of religion is inseperable from being a strong scientific thinker. the probing mind of a scientist must be able to question everything, no taboos, in order to do the best science one can. you train young minds to question everything, and in this way, you make great scientists
so dear ayatollah: i celebrate your desire to reassert persia at the forefront of science and technology. so why don't you further this great goal along by relaxing the stifling theocratic censorship of your society, ensuring bright young minds are trained to their utmost? in order to ensure that persian civilization flowers again, let little discoveries like this thin film motor not by isolated gems, but instead be the beginning of a rich tapestry of persian thought
do that, by relaxing your fundamentalist stranglehold on the mind of the young iranian
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He also said that attaching a high status to scholars and scientists in society would help talents to flourish and science and technology to become domesticated, thus ensuring the country's progress and development.[28]
Now if only we in the west would catch up and do the same.
I now earn more than my friend doing vital scientific research into the human brain and the effects of ageing. He has a PhD and has just published his first paper. I flunked out of uni while studying a Physics BSc. Go figure.
The fact is that in our society the main status symbol is how much you earn, yet we pay people like teachers or university lecturers a pittance compared to the people who cause global financial disasters with an excess of greed.
Re:absolutely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
you SHOULD earn a pittance as a university researcher [...] however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire
No. That will lead to people only working in fields where they can 'make it big' and leave all the rest which, as history has taught us again and again, is where the discoveries of tomorrow are to be made. Basically it would push technology and drop fundamental research. You think like a bean counter.
Disclaimer, I work in research. And not everybody who does 'discovers' things. I design instrumentation; as such I'll never 'discover' anything and I'm rarely associated in publications. So for you it means I should earn a pittance with no hope of anything better.
Well, if that's any consolation for you, I do earn a pittance already.
2 things: (Score:2)
1. was there ever a time in history, in any culture, in which scientists made the money you think they deserve? i'm not counting the rich gentleman scientists from the 1800s and 1700s. their income was not derived from their research anyways, and their science was more hobby than vocation
2. if you are paid a pittance, and you are not in raw research, you ARE being underpaid, and my words above about being a prospector don't apply to you. your job description sounds more like engineering, and you deserve a h
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however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire
who defines what has value and who is going to pay the millions?
please don't say the free market. You'll make yourself look like a religious nut.
this is the nature of science
wait... that sounds remarkably like the following phrase "God wills it!"
uh, what? (Score:2)
"please don't say the free market. You'll make yourself look like a religious nut"
what, exactly, in your mind is the "free market"?
the free market is nothing other than a group of people placing whatever value they want on a number of concepts. for example, such a group might place a higher value on say, the invention of television, than say, the flowbee vacuum powered hair cutter. but i could be wrong. because i don't know the real value is of either, amd more importantly, no one else does either. only the
well yeah (Score:2)
just study edison and tesla, or farnsworth and rca, if you want a good contrast of what can happen to an innovator whose ideas are coopted
but you can't fight and lose your right to your rightful share of the bounty if you haven't even made a discovery in the first place. in other words, demanding that scientists make millions before they even discover something is absurd. you let them struggle in poverty, and when they make that amazing discovery, they have to start a new struggle: getting their fair share
b
Re:good for iran (Score:4, Interesting)
well said (Score:5, Insightful)
pride has an upside and a downside, and one downside of pride is you would rather retain your identity even though it also means being in a weaker position
the muslim world sees elements of the west that alternately repel and attract. unfortunately, some of those elements of the west aren't things unique to the west, but are actually more accurately described as elements of simple humanity. such that a lot of the fighting of westernization that goes on in the name of pride in the middle east are actually wars against humanization
for example: women's rights. when you fight that, because it's "western", you are actually retarding the development of your own societies on a human level. if the west never existed, one can imagine the fight for women's rights continuing in the middle east, because such a fight does not depend upon the west as some sort of example, but is a fight valid within itself in islamic societies. that is, the fight for women's rights is not some sort of decadent western influence betraying traditional identity, but is instead a humanist, organic struggle native to the middle east. but humanist struggles always entail a bit of the strange and unknown, to breakway from traditional ways, and so it is easy to confuse two sources of conflict: westernization and humanization. and so, in the name of fighting the west, muslim societies subjugate their own women, and wind up hobbling the development of half their societies. for doing that, the middle east can never hope to be as powerful and as influential as the west, with half their population treated like cattle
there's plenty of things the islamic world says it hates about the west that are shared by the west and, for example, the far east. such that to describe these concepts they say threatens the middle east as some sort of western thing is false: they are human concepts. the islamic world, in the name of retaining an identity distinct from the west, are embracing agendas that are not really anti-western, but are actually anti-human
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huh? broken thinking (Score:2)
i see your point a: the value of the tradional female homemaker
and i see your point b,c,d: inflation, real estate, the upper middle class sucks
how those are all related completely escapes me, and i think it completely escapes you too
make a coherent argument, or say nothing at all
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Actually, there are many things that happened during the Enlightenment period, but honestly, Western science was much farther along well before that.
Questioning religion is just that, questioning religion. You don't need to rid yourself of religion to make progress in science. In this day and age, there are billions of people who follow some sort of religion and science has done quite well. The reason for that is simple. Religions themselves do not inhibit science or thought, rather the habits of author
terminology issues (Score:2)
yes religion the more nebulous concept doesn't stand against science. but religion, ie organized religion, which i should have said explicitly, but was referring to in shorthand, does stand in the way of science
simply because organized religion is, by definition, dogmatic. and whereever organized religion dominates society, its dogmatic approach bleeds into legal and social attitudes and automatically squelches and reduces the free thinking that is required for science to flourish
and yes, any dogmatic syste
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it's ok to be anti-american (Score:3, Insightful)
what is not ok is to be so blinded by your hatred of america that you give other countries, some a lot worse, a free pass. iran is a fundamentalist theocracy which is building nuclear bombs and censors its press, jails and tortures political dissidents, and enforces an ultrastrict fundamentalist religious pov, especially on its women. they have actual police brigades in tehran that fine women for wearing clothing that are too risque. you want to defend this as somehow not as bad as what the usa does? please
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that's fine, but i wasn't talking to you (Score:2)
you're not filled with blind prejudiced hate. notice the ignorant hatred in the comment i was replying to
you can't snap your fingers and enlighten the mind of a hater. to turn the mind of a hater, you have to lay a road out for them, and push them on the first step down that road
the first step is to make the object of their hate more dissolute. notice i told them to go right on hating america... but why don't you hate iran too?
if they see the logic that hating the usa for crimes iran does as well is hypocri
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The government is democratically elected. It is not a free democracy however because all candidates have to be approved by the ulama. ...
Hmmm ... If you substitute "the two major political parties" for "the ulama", it sound very much like the US. Some other democracies have three major parties, but people are often pointing out that the number doesn't really matter. What matters is that a small unelected oligarchy controls who can run for office.
So maybe this is an inherent part of human societies. What
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wiran is a fundamentalist theocracy which is building nuclear bombs and censors its press, jails and tortures political dissidents,
So far this sounds a lot like USA 2000 - present.
right (Score:2)
and you will also notice i said its ok to be antiamerican
all i said was you have to hate iran too if you hate america, in order not to be a hypocrite
in other words, i am not defending america. i am attacking the stupidity and hypocrisy of being anti-american and pro-iranian. feel me yet?
please, dude, go on with your bad self, call america evil. please, be my guest: death to america, rah rah rah
just make sure you say the same to iran, if you don't want to be called a hypocrite
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A fundamentalist theocracy that has as much popular support as most secular governments. An important distinction, I think. (And to be fully technically correct, they're an elected fundamentalist theocracy)
You mean, just like every country crying foul about them building nuclear bombs is also building nuclear bombs?
Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, the citizens of Iran general
you have an outdated point of view (Score:2)
"But we've got some serious beams in our own eyes to deal with, and that's more important. They're not perfect, and neither are we, but we have no right to complain about the things WE are also guilty of."
there is no such thing as regional morality anymore. there is no such thing as what americans are guilty of, or what iranians are guilty of. there are only things humanity is guity of. you can't coherently criticize what america does, and remain mute on iran, or visa versa
you can't focus on just the west,
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why is it ok for us to have nukes, but not person X ?
From person X's perspective, this might seem unfair.
I also might point out, that the various treaties we are signatory to, a treaty under the constitution being recognized as governing law in the US, at least suggest that we should elimminat our nukes.
there is something, at least from person X's perspective, hypocritical when the us says, clause x of this treaty requires you to not have nukes, but we are ignoring clause y, which requries us to elimminate
easy answer (Score:2)
the ideal is, no one has nukes, right?
based on that ideal, you criticize any expansion of the nuclear club
of course, the rpely comes back that you are playing favorites. so at the same time, you work for the reduction of nukes in the countries that already have them
but if you agree with me no one should have nukes, then you decry iran going nuclear. and that doesn't make you pro-western, it just makes you pro-human
everyone having nukes leads to an accident somewhere down the line, a mistaken missile firing
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you fail, hard (Score:2)
#1: that "unknown reason" was the fight against communism. the usa did plenty of vile things in the cold war. all of which was to prevent the spread of communism, which was a monumentally good fight, that you benefitted from. not to mention all of the vile things the enemies of the usa did during the same period, which everyone conveniently forgets when digging up old cold war american crimes. such as, the vile things the shah of iran did. but no, the usa dealt with the shah, so they are guilty of EVERYTHIN
ben franklin did the same thing (Score:3, Funny)
in fact, he even tricked god. he said "god, i doubt you exist" while flying a kite
god naturally threw a thunderbolt at him for the insubordinance, giving franklin the electricity he was investigating
thus, did a scientist outwit god
if you are using a cell phone (Score:2)
to set off a car bomb, in the name of fighting western decadence
or you use a gps system to target a bomb in the name of fighting western meddling
do you not see the essential irony in that?
you are using technologies developed in the west, to fight the social and ideological ideas that made those technologies possible
there is nothing about human knowledge that is western, or chinese, or persian: of course, 100% agreed. but what is also true is that humanist principles aren't western either. so islamic fundame
Iranian scientists? (Score:2)
Two perpendicular electric fields? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Exactly. Additionally, I just skimmed their paper, and if the external fields are truly static, then I don't see any way to break the symmetry about the z-axis (their rotational axis). Since all of their little film-cells rotate in the same direction, this says to me that there is an unaccounted-for field which is breaking the symmetry and starting the effect. Alternatively, they could have shown a subtle coupling in which one cell starts its rotation one way, and through interactions with the other cells,
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Since all of their little film-cells rotate in the same direction, this says to me that there is an unaccounted-for field which is breaking the symmetry and starting the effect.
Huh? In that video that's linked to, the film begins with a visible counter-clockwise rotation, and after a few seconds, it visibly halts. Then it begin again with a clockwise rotation. This seems to be initiated by some motion along the top edge of the cell.
So what are you seeing that's different from what's running on my screen?
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Except that these are static fields--from the third FA, "They raise an interesting question: the electric fields are static, so whatâ(TM)s making the water move?"
This is an act of war!!! (Score:5, Funny)
By posting links to MOVIES hosted in IRAN you have used the /. effect to saturate that entire country's available bandwidth. This is terrorism sponsored by the capitalist west! You have fired the first shot, but I ran WILL retaliate. You knew we had nukes, now we will prove it to the doubters. Kiss your precious Israel goodbye!
It'll take us a while to get the nukes into launch position though. The servos are these really cool little motors made out of water and electricity. They have to be really small, so we have a whole lot of them working together.
Micropropeller? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if you could use this effect to make a sort of a propulsion system for a small submarine. If you don't have a propeller at all, and were just spinning water around, it could be very quiet.
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Not impressive. (Score:2)
Call me when they have a motor made from liquid video...
Wait a minute... (Score:2, Funny)
Souther Hemisphere ? (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, water spins electric field !
Perpendicular Electric Fields (Score:3, Interesting)
E = ( E , 0 , 0 )
J = ( 0 , J , 0 )
Then you've just got the resultant field, E' = E + J , where
E' = ( E , J , 0 )
which is just another static, plane electric field. So, given that two fields are really equivalent to one, if you set up just the resultant field in the first place, would this motor effect still occur?
What am I missing?
Glycerin and water? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to know how they got stable films, showing thin-film optical interference, of thicknesses on the order of several millimeters (stated a couple of times in the paper). They specifically call it a "suspended liquid film" and say that the z-boundaries are considered "free", so I don't think these films are sitting in a little box with just the top open.
Electroosmotic flow (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you are on the right track. They have built something not all that different from an induction motor. Essentially, there are two different types of electrodes. The first pair is in the solution, and a current is going to be established. Given this is water, the current will be established by lining up positively charged hydrogen sides of the atoms with the negative electrode (the electron source). The negatively charged oxygen side of the water molecule will line up with the positive electrode
yummy (Score:2)
Video mirror here (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxydLVodoxE [youtube.com]
nope (Score:3, Informative)
"droog" is the Russian word for friend. Also, how come I can't enter UTF-8 chars in a slashdot post without them getting mangled?
Re: (Score:2)
Or is it just a clockwork orange referenced insult?
Actually, Anthony Burgess mixed a lot of Russian jargon into his novel of Clockwork Orange for one reason or another.
As another poster has mentioned, droog is an actually Russian word.
There are plenty others in Clockwork Orange that to westerners seems made up but he is really borrowing from other languages.
Of course you would never know that if you just watched the Stanley Kubrick film (to be fair is fairly faithful to the book's dialog... minus a few scen
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)