Word: frictionless
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...times smaller) than the solid-state semiconductors now used computers. With cryogenic techniques, a closet-size computer could fit in a shoe box. Cryogenics will also make possible such esoteric devices as loss-free superconductive motors with rotors that float in liquid helium, and superconductive gyroscopes that float in frictionless magnetic fields...
...problem could arise during any extravehicular activity, and the answer seems simple: haul in the tether. But in frictionless space, the free-floating astronaut is orbiting the spaceship as it circles the earth, and any attempt to pull him in would make him rotate around it so fast that he would be ultimately subjected to fatal G forces. He would also be moving at an uncontrollable speed when he finally reached-and crashed into-the spacecraft...
Verne's underground hike would, have taken far less time, says Cooper, if he had simply fallen into a frictionless tunnel bored through the earth's center. Accelerated by the force of gravity on the first half of his trip, he would have gained just enough kinetic energy to coast up to the other side-against the pull of gravity-in a total time of only 42.2 minutes...
According to Cooper's equations, by "dropping" in airless, frictionless, straight-line tunnels, passenger vehicles powered only by the pull of gravity could theoretically travel between Washington and Moscow, which are 4,850 surface miles apart, in the same time it would take them to travel from Washington to Boston, only 400 miles away. "One can envisage a transportation system without timetables," says Cooper, tongue in cheek, "with the world's cities linked by tunnels, the departure time universally on the hour, and the arrival time 42.2 minutes later...
...rocket is likely to prove to be the Mighty Mouse of the space age. On earth it develops no more thrust than several milli-pounds (engineers call it the "milli-mouse burp"), barely enough to lift a one-carat diamond an inch off a desk. But in frictionless, gravity-free space, such burps can propel the biggest payloads. And the ion rocket's assignment is just that: to take over the task of propelling huge space cargoes to the planets and back after the mighty chemical rockets lift them clear of the earth's gravitational pull...