PIX: Unrelated, from the Sun Temple at Konarak
A bunch of new stuff from a short visit to Chennai -- will try to post things over the next few days.
First off, thoughts triggered by the railway journey:
1.) Why is it that land and sea based transport is nowhere as fast as air transport. There must be some physics principle that is at the the heart of this question. Can you identify it ?
2.) In the earlier days of rail transport there used to be pieces of rail track, 30 or 40 feet long, and bolted together (it used to be cited in physics text books as an example of expansion and contraction, that there had to be a small space here to accomadate the expansion). Yesterday in some stretches I couldn't see these boltings and the track looked to be a seamless piece. Probably there was some small welding that was not visible from the running train. I remember reading about this sometime earlier.
3.) Poll: How many of you have taken the time to figure out the mechanism that allows tracks to join up and separate. I mean the junction kind of things, where two rail tracks intersect and go on, and an incoming train on one of the tracks can switch to the other one. I confess that I only did this recently. Its quite a clever system. I wish things like this were explored early on in school, it would make the education more practical and relevant.
8 comments:
The reason land and sea transport is slower than air transport is because aeroplanes go on air and not on land or sea.
This underlying physical principle is sometimes referred to as aeronautics.
If aeroplanes were built for land travel, then of course land travel would be faster.
Also they would then be called landoplanes and not aeroplanes.
The reason aeroplanes were built for air, was that Orville and Wilbur wright, wrongly thought, that air travel is cool.
They did not anticipate, unfriendly flight attendents making the same repetitive announcement over and over again.
They could not even anticipate that flight passengers, if they could earn enought to cough up wads of dough, would be capable of fastening a seatbelt without an announcement.
Which brings us to the second physical principle of why air travel is faster than sea or land - Foresight. Oliver and Wilbur Wright did not have the foresight to build aeroplanes for land.
Thirdly, thermodynamical principles apply and the Carnot cycle principle basically states that for sea travel to be fast, it is necessary to build a boat that flies in the air. This explains, in some depth, why fast boats are called sea planes.
One other physical principle that matters is the earths rotation. As long as you are on land, you are rotating with the earth. Since the earth goes around in a circle, so are you. It is never possible to get anyplace quickly if you are moving around in circles.
Air travel on the other hand, means you are moving in the air. So, if you jump high up for a few seconds, the earth has moved under your feet and since the earth rotates very fast, when you land you will have travelled quite some distance. So, really this is two principles in one, the earths rotation and the theory of gravity.
Einstein did come up with a general theory of gravitation that tried to explain the above. But the theory was not specific enough and was widely dismissed as being highly general. Relatively speaking of course.
Arvind
Also, sorry I forgot to address 2 and 3 that you raised.
There is a good reason why you did'nt see the gap between the rails. Its called global warming.
As a result of global warming, the inconvenient truth is that the tracks have heated up considerably and they have expanded.
After global cooling occurs, or should the ice age reoccur, the gap will be visible again.
Also, I must confess I didnt take the time to figure out 3. Thats because I knew the answer instantly and did not need any time.
The way tracks separate into two is called branch change. In order to do this, one must first take the Brilliant tutorials track and sign up for the Elite course.
Then after studying hard, one might get into say Chemical Engineering at an IIT near you. Then you can study really hard in the first two semesters and if you finish on top, you can change tracks to some other really cool, chill out branch like Civil Engineering.
Arvind
Terrific Arvind. I loved reading through that :p
this belongs on your blog...
with an appropriate title
Editing Arvind's first post for clarity, tightness, and omitting nonsense about the Carnot principle that doesn't have the basic seed of truth that makes humor work. Please vote on which version is better:
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The reason land and sea transport is slower than air transport is because aeroplanes go on air and not on land or sea.
This underlying physical principle is sometimes referred to as aeronautics.
If aeroplanes were built for land travel, then of course land travel would be faster.Also they would then be called landoplanes and not aeroplanes.
The reason aeroplanes were built for air, was that Orville and Wilbur Wright thought, wrongly, that air travel is cool.They did not anticipate unfriendly flight attendents making the same repetitive announcement over and over again. Apparently these attendants think that flight passengers who earn enought to cough up wads of dough for their expensive tickets are not capable of fastening a seatbelt without an announcement.
One other physical principle that matters is the earth's rotation. As long as you are on land, you are rotating with the earth. Since the earth goes around in a circle, so are you. It is never possible to get anyplace quickly if you are going around in circles. Air travel on the other hand, means you are moving in the air. If you jump high up for a few seconds, the earth has moved under your feet and since the earth rotates very fast, when you land you will have travelled quite some distance. Same thing applies to aeroplanes only much more so. See ?
Arvind
Arvind -- you should add Siddhu to your exclusif mailing list where your blog entries get mailed
Vijay
What are the email addresses?
Arvind
Arvind, I'd love to get your blog entries mailed.
siddharthdasari@gmail.com
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