Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] at home outage

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 1 May 2001, Kmicic wrote:

> Jonathan King wrote:
>  
> > close enough), the force of attraction between steel digging blade and
> > cable became nearly infinitely great, causing the blade to move towards
> > the cable at an incredibly high speed...apparently, this kind of thing
> > is the current best evidence in favor of the existence of the elusive
> > Fifth Force of Nature that has been posited at various times recently.
> 
> are you referring to the 2nd greatest force of nature - human stupidity
> (greed being the 1st one)?

Well, this is actually like a lot of complex physical situations.  One
(possibly weakish) force is used to cause the interacting bodies to get
close enough for the second one to become dominant.  In this case, I'm
guessing that greed ("let's do the job fast, since it's cheaper") led
to stupidity ("the map says the fiber cable is here, but I'll bet we can
be careful enough to work around it") which led to the backhoe blade
getting to within the critical distance, then, WHAM!

> or was i under a false impression that the above paragraph had sarcasm
> written all over it? if so, plz elaborate: what forces are at work on
> a lit-up fiber cable? 2 yards? that's a loooong friggen way for
> "infinitely great" attractive force... 

See above for the mechanism.  Unfortunately, backhoe/cable events happen
so fast and the results are so dramatic, that good data on the exact
critical distance are unavailable.  So while it seems likely the force
of attraction between blade and cable falls off faster than the r^2 rate
of gravity or EM, it's probably not as fast as the r^5 fall-off of the
strong nuclear force.  Without knowing the fall-off rate, the essential
strength of the interaction is likewise difficult to gauge.

> you sure we couldnt use it to power electric turbines?

The problem with using cable/blade events to power electric turbines is
that the force is extremely powerful and difficult to harness.  Kinda like
nuclear fusion. Plus, once the cable is cut, the force dissipates
completely.  Eyewitnesses to these events report that you start to hear a
very mild hum that slowly grows in intensity, reaches a crescendo then
suddenly sounds something like a double-headed axe hitting a really tacky
oak coffee table.  Sort of like: "...mmmmMMMMthock!!".  Then you see a
dazzling splash of napster packets and pornography ("My God! It's full of
pornstars!"), and then total darkness.

Well, I hope this helps.  We professors are always eager to impart these
nuggets of wisdom that you just won't pick up anywhere else.  It's why we
get paid the big bucks...

jking




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