Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 3 months ago
    Its a good story, and who knows what someone might invent. However, its a bit doubtful that one could draw any significant energy out of "thin air". I mean- what would replenish it if there was any significant energy there in the first place.

    There is a very small effect present that generates some voltage, but not any power to speak of.

    Tesla's idea PUT the power into the air from some generating means, and you could tap into over some distance, but there were so many losses that its just not practical.
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    • Posted by samrigel 9 years, 3 months ago
      Where does the power, voltage and current, come from when the generators at Niagara are spun at high speed using the water to do the spinning? After all the generator is only a coil of wire and a few magnets.
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      • Posted by term2 9 years, 3 months ago
        actually one must externally power one of the coils in those generators to produce the magnetic field that is then interrupted by those 'few wires'. Then it takes substantial torque to turn the shafts (such torque is provided by the water passing by turbine blades attached to the generator shaft). Depending on the efficiency of the whole system, you only get some percentage of the mechanical energy expended by the water flow translated into electrical . energy. Attempting to take energy out of the atmosphere would require that it be replaced by some mechanisim. You cant just get free electrical energy ad infinitum.
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  • Posted by WilliamRThomas 9 years, 3 months ago
    I think Galt's motor is similar to some of Tesla's projects just in this sense: they both reflect a late 19th-Century sense of physics and physical possibility. It's like something out of Tom Swift, too. I mean only in terms of the aesthetic of the idea.

    Rand was many things, but an expert in science was not one of them.
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  • Posted by not-you 9 years, 3 months ago
    Nat Taggart= possibly James Jerome Hill. [Might be just one of those 'heuristics' we discussed elsewhere, but every time I saw the words "Rio Norte," it made me think of Hill's Great Northern." (old one-eyed Canadian was tough as hell.)

    "James Jerome Hill (September 16, 1838 – May 29, 1916), was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest. Because of the size of this region and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill became known during his lifetime as "The Empire Builder".

    *

    Kay Ludlow=Katharine Hepburn
    (Hepburn's ex husband was actually named Ludlow.)

    *

    Gulch Fisherwoman=Rand herself...duh.

    Will add more as they come to me..
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago
    Galt's power source for his motor was fictional with no intended scientific basis. Obtaining power from "static electricity" was 'science fiction' as part of the plot.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 9 years, 3 months ago
    If you mean John Galt's motor, I don't know any-
    thing about Tesla. I read, years ago, maybe a-
    bout 25 years ago, about somebody, I think may-
    be over in Hanover, claiming to have invented such
    a motor, and trying to get a patent. But I have
    been thinking about something: plants process
    energy from the sun with their green chlorophyll.
    So maybe somebody could invent a motor using
    chlorophyll. Just an idea of mine, I'm not a
    scientist.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 9 years, 3 months ago
    Below is the You Tube video For Graphite Atmospheric Electricity Collectors. This a video on a test facility for drawing electricity from the air. A similar idea to John Galt's idea.
    Graphene/Graphite Atmospheric Electricity Collectors - Plus Horrific Hexacopter Crash!
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 9 years, 3 months ago
    In AS1 mention is made of the "Casimir effect" which is assumed to be evidence of the existence of "zero point energy". However, this reference is not in the book. Some models of zero point or vacuum energy predict that it represents an energy source that is billions of times more powerful than nuclear fission, fusion, and even matter-antimatter reactions. However, it is a property of space and has nothing to do with static or atmospheric electricity. While Tesla's assumed power source was derived from fluctuations in the Earth's electromagnetic field induced primarily by solar activity we now know that this energy density is so low that, while it is easily measured it is orders of magnitude away from being a source of usable power.
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  • Posted by MarkHunter 9 years, 3 months ago
    It would date Atlas Shrugged if someone were to actually invent a motor, strong enough to use in a car, that ran on electricity from the atmosphere. Still, there’s a grain of scientific fact behind the idea, enough of a grain so that at least the concept doesn’t sound completely outlandish. (Edison’s electric power distribution system sounded outlandish before he invented it.)

    Here’s the grain. Between vertical points in the atmosphere, say from desktop to chimney-top, there is a large voltage difference, just like there is between the terminals of a battery. The trouble is this “atmosphere battery” has a very large internal resistance. If you measure the voltage without drawing any current the voltage is large. But as soon as you begin to draw an appreciable current, the voltage drops to practically nothing.

    You can run a very small motor – a corona motor, or corona discharge motor – designed to use very high voltage, very low current. The late Oleg Jefimenko worked on this idea and it’s described in the article “The Earth’s Atmosphere As a Source for Electric Power” which you can read at (pdf) http://ElectretScientific.com/author/...
    See also “The Amazing Motor That Draws Power from the Air” at
    http://rexresearch.com/jefimenko/jefi...
    (the link there to Jefimenko’s article is broken).
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  • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 3 months ago
    I'm not sure if it was similar to Tesla's, but it is possible to draw broad connections from Atlas Shrugged characters to great American innovators. I'm not sure if Rand ever explicitly stated this connection She might have and I missed it.

    However, I have always associated the following Atlas Shrugged characters with the following people:

    Galt: Tesla (Except for Tesla giving up his patents to Westinghouse)
    Rearden: Carnegie (right up to Carnegie's ultimate goal was to build a bridge)
    Mulligan: Morgan
    Nat Taggart: Vanderbilt
    Wyatt: Rockefeller (except for Rockefeller being a deeply religious man)

    If other gulchers would like to add to the list, or argue against it, please do.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 3 months ago
      I'm tempted not to rain on the parade but in humor point out the

      luddites and greens will intervene
      One shouting 'jobs!'
      The other 'logs!'
      With a chorus of lawyers
      Yipping like 'dogs'
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    • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago
      Ayn Rand did not intend any similarity of lives or character between her heroes and past industrialists. She used known industries such as iron, steel, coal, railroads, investment banking, oil, or copper because they were well known successful industries benefiting civilization. Sometimes some aspect of a particular historical person would spark an idea for some aspect of a character, which you occasionally find mentioned in The Journals of Ayn Rand.
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      • Posted by not-you 9 years, 3 months ago
        @ ewv: Who cares? This is fun and some interesting parallels can be drawn.
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        • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 3 months ago
          I find the Rearden/Carnegie similarities most interesting:

          The fictional Rearden Steel was in Philadelphia; The actual Carnegie Steel was in Pittsburgh.

          Rearden created a new steel alloy; Carnegie industrialized a new method of making steel as mass-production.

          Rearden created his metal specifically to make possible the building of a new type of bridge (which turned out to be a railroad bridge); Carnegie searched for and found a way to industrialize steel production in order to make possible the building of an actual railroad bridge.
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          • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 3 months ago
            Oh yeah!

            And nobody trusted either bridge until:
            a) Dagny & Rearden road a train across their bridge.
            b) Carnegie led a circus elephant followed by a parade across his.
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      • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 3 months ago
        "Ayn Rand did not intend any similarity of lives or character between her heroes and past industrialists."

        Can you cite me the source for this assertion? As I said, I was not certain in either direction on the matter. Thank you.
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