Extreme Engineering - Transatlantic Ride
I consider myself a fairly good engineer. I built-a..hmm… well… anyway, I must have built something meaningful in the past a few years. I just can’t remember now. Maybe my “software engineer” title is an exaggeration, ‘cause when I am looking at this picture, there is just no comparison between my type of “engineering” and THIS type of engineering:
A magnetically levitated train takes you from New York to London in 54 minutes! You will go 5000 mph through a 3100 mile long tunnel that was itself floating in the Atlantic Ocean.
About a year ago, I saw this on the Discovery Channel. The hour long program explained theoretically how this will work which I still clearly remember. The main idea is simple. We can’t achieve high speed because of friction. With the air friction and the contact between the rail and the train itself, today’s engineering can only achieve about 200 miles per hour speed. In order to achieve 5000 mph speed, friction has to go away, meaning that the train has to flow and the tunnel can’t have air. So, what’s gonna happen? Use magnetic field and suck all the air out of the tunnel.
Discover website just put this Trans-Atlantic Tunnel project into an interactive tool. It’s pretty cool to check out it’s “Extreme Engineering” design. I don’t know if any giant company is funding this project or not. But if this theory can really become reality, I’d be tempted to find out how my guts would feel while traveling 5000 miles per hour… Hehehe… \
\
Nosaj said,
December 8, 2005 @ 5:02 am
More importantly, how would your guts feel if the tube suffered a catastrophic rupture and your 5,000 mi/hr train hit a wall of water…
Yuna said,
December 8, 2005 @ 9:09 am
same thing with train crash and airplain dropping off from the sky… hmm… I still ride them…
mountaincurmudgeon said,
December 8, 2005 @ 2:32 pm
I have a name for this gizmo…”Underwater Tube of Supersonic Death.”
Hmm…That could be a punk band too.
It is nice to see that the designer included a “Vaccuum Pump” so they can keep the tunnel tidy.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Oh, I’m a custodian in the Underwater Tube of Supersonic Death.”
Yuna said,
December 8, 2005 @ 3:39 pm
Damn it! I thought this could be the ride of my life… Now you two smart asses just bursted my dream ride to a supersonic death ride… Grrrrr!!!
Yuna said,
December 8, 2005 @ 3:48 pm
Oh.. just a thought.. Concord travels at 1330 mph speed. Once the aircraft achieves that speed, shouldn’t the relative velocity be almost 0? So my guts should be fine if the object is traveling at either 500 mph or 5000mph as long as there is no sudden acceleration. But I wonder if my guts can take 0 - 5000 mph in 15 mins…. considering it takes 15 mins or so for the usual aircraft to reach 700 mph after departure???
chalk abuser said,
December 8, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
ahh, yes, but…the velocity of the container (concord, UTSD, etc) relative to its passenger isn’t such a concern. It’s the velocity of the container (concord, UTSD) relative to the wall of water (the pilot that appreciates the clouds clearing only to be eye to eye with a mountain goat) that is of concern. i would be inclined to fear the deceleration more than the acceleration.
mountaincurmudgeon said,
December 9, 2005 @ 9:13 am
Like bug on windshield,
Splat.
Yuna said,
December 9, 2005 @ 10:11 am
Yes.. the velocity of the container relative to the external object, whether it’s water or air is the greatest concern. But in this design, the train (which is the container in this case) has no contact with any entity. The tube is free of air, and the train flows by the magnetive field. The water is isolated outside of the tube and the tube will be supported by giant pillars. In this case, the tube is the one that needs to be strong enough to sustain shark attack, bugs, plate movement, underwater volcano or whatever that might cause Tube failure…
I still think tihs is a possible realistic design… if anybody has the money to fund it…
Horse Barn Designs said,
September 3, 2006 @ 11:59 am
Horse Barn Designs…
(Images were converted to JPEG for display on this page.) An original…
Anonymous said,
December 5, 2006 @ 6:55 pm
scale watcher weight…
…
Anonymous said,
December 7, 2006 @ 6:30 am
date oblivion release…
…
xemhvrdp rlxiase said,
February 14, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
lfuozswy hbmrtwl fhwam apowfkhl bhjpvuzrg gezbimjts mdcpy
anal free sex video said,
February 15, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Cool site. Thanks!!!
acyclovir day next said,
March 5, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
acyclovir…
aehs aur…
celexa said,
March 6, 2007 @ 8:17 am
celexa…
etiib uq…
udil oapik said,
March 15, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
erah lua…
itiaq ur…
xenical said,
March 15, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
xenical…
outemol iapanom…
dish network high definition said,
March 24, 2007 @ 9:01 pm
dish network high definition…
dish network high definition…
general hospital jason thompson said,
December 14, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
Businesses on the move (Pensacola…
Baptist Health Care and Pensacola Christian college recently received awards from a blood bank group….
web melayu boleh said,
December 24, 2007 @ 10:47 am
PEARCE STILL GETS SPARK FROM…
PEARCE STILL GETS SPARK FROM MANAGEMENTSportinglife.com, UK -12 minutes ago”We need more goals and more of a cutting edge. If we can…
Mortgages Advice And News said,
August 11, 2008 @ 5:07 am
You got master mind on Extreme Engineering - Transatlantic Ride, that’s why you could able to write a article like this, hats off mate - keep up the good work.