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Diesel engines are beautifully simple: they squash fuel, which gets it hot, so it explodes. Once they are up to working temperature, all they need is fuel and off they go - much more efficient than a gas / petrol engine, and (until recently) a lot less complex as well. My old Mitsubishi Shogun had mechanical fuel injection, and the only electricity it actually needed was to warm the cylinders at the start, and a solenoid to shut off the fuel to stop it running - both could be replaced with electricity-free versions very easily.
Take a test drive in a modern Diesel powered Ford and I think you will be pleasantly surprised - they are very nice engines these days (just not as many horsies as a gas / petrol of the same CC can be - a lot more torque though)
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OriginalGriff wrote: My old Mitsubishi Shogun had mechanical fuel injection, and the only electricity
it actually needed was to warm the cylinders at the start, and a solenoid to
shut off the fuel to stop it running - both could be replaced with
electricity-free versions very easily
Some of the larger diesels use compressed air to spin the engine to get it started. Not sure how the system works since I don't have one that large, but yes, if you spin a diesel long enough, you can even forgo the preheat/glowplug requirement.
OriginalGriff wrote: Take a test drive in a modern Diesel powered Ford..
Better yet.. go take a test drive in a modern diesel (TDI) Volkswagen.. I'm finding it pretty hard not to spin the tires from a standing takeoff in mine, and I get 36 MPG buzzing around town (50+ hwy). If you don't like VW, there's a bunch of automakers introducing small diesel passenger cars for the 2014 model year.
The Jetta's far from non-electric though.. but my 30 year old Mercedes diesel don't need no electrons for nuttin.. can be push started, all mechanical injection and throttle control, vacuum to shut it down. Kind of a pain sometimes, like when you turn off the ignition and the engine keeps running.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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patbob wrote: Not sure how the system works since I don't have one that large
If you compress something, it gets hot. Forcing the engine to spin will compress air in the cylinders, heating it (and them) up to the point where spontaneous combustion starts, and the reaction is self sustaining.
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OriginalGriff wrote: I haven't been watching it, but "OK" is a relative term: the premise would
appear to be flawed.
Presumably you are referring to the show and not the concept.
The fact that a stable growing society can produce such alternatives doesn't have much to do with the reality that the show is presenting.
First one sees only a segment of what exists. There could be some place with a bunch of engines.
Second, however, that isn't likely because this isn't really a society that is growing. Or it certainly is not one that has been stable and growing for a while. The show depicts a number of chaotic events occurring to communities and those represent destabilizing events. The ability to putter around in ones workshop and take an idea from that to produce a thriving economic market requires that one isn't being actively attacked every day and that one also has more than enough resources (food, heat, shelter) so that one has some free time left over. The show wouldn't seem to suggest that in general that that is the case.
Third one can also note that at least one stable community does exist but it has had a very real and obtainable goal for some time - restoring the electricity. And thus they might not have wished to allocate resources to projects that were less worthwhile.
Of course none of that really means that the writers for the show actually considered that, but then I am not sure there are any fictional shows on tv that reflect anything close to reality.
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It is possible that reality is an engineered illusion. However, it is very hard to change physics without ruining the cosmos. Stop electricity, the flow of electrons, and you will also stop the electron transport chain that our cells need to respire! It just so happens that an apparent fluke of physics puts a resonance of the carbon nucleus at just the right energy to allow stars to manufacture significant amounts of carbon, otherwise life would not exist as we know it. Tweek physics in the early universe, even slightly, and you may inadvertently shift that resonance and prevent life from occurring. Physics seems just right, at least for life as we know it. Then again, tweak physics and maybe life would be silicon based, so maybe the final outcome remains essentially unchanged.
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OriginalGriff wrote: A diesel engine does not "need" a spark, or any other form of ignition.
True that, but if the conditions in the show actually hit us, my diesel truck wouldn't start.
1. It has a "glow plug" in it. Turn the ignition on, a "Wait" light lights up, electricity is fed into the plug, sensors detect when it is hot enough, turns the light off.
2. I turn the key further, an electric motor starts cranking the engine and hopefully the engine starts right off.
3. Electric sensors on my dash tell me what is going on.
4. I kind of like listening to the radio.
5. My clock is off because I haven't reset it, but now I'll have to get a new watch anyway because all my current clocks are battery or electrically driven.
6. I've gotten used to listening to my radio.
3 on is superfluous, but I hate to think about the retrofitting and time/manual work needed to get my truck started without batteries. Oh, yea. I've got diesel tanks to fill. Where do I get it? HOW do I get it?
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Collin Jasnoch wrote: Revolution (its "OK")
I gave up as soon as it became obvious it was Lost meets Jericho.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: Lost meets Jeric
Jericho! That's the series the trailers reminded me of! And why I didn't watch it - Jericho started well then went downhill rapidly, starting with episode two...
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You and the other writers below your message are correct in your assessment. And, now there is this "Under the Dome" program that seems somewhat interesting. They both remind me of the Lost in Space series from back in the 60s. The family Robinson were going to Alpha Centauri then return home. Something along the way blew up (technology problem caused by stupidity) and the family became “lost”. The only cool thing about it was the futuristic technology (even though some of the people using it were bumbling) and the cute teenage girl.
The story was constantly about survival. Some new monster, super human, or fluke of nature each week. But, they never got back to earth on normal terms. And, they never would get back to earth, as long as the writers could milk it and keep it going. I don’t think they ever made it back to earth as expected. I think I gave up watching before that because it all was the same. In other words, it just drones on.
Tonight (Monday) is the last episode of “Under the Dome”. I have put up with it since the start back in June or July. If it doesn’t end with the disappearance of the dome, I will write it off (and hopefully, it will ride off into the sunset.) But, CBS has renewed it for next season. But, if it disappoints and doesn’t conclude, I will get the book.
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Let me know if the dome disappears or not. I've read the book and I'm curious as to whether or not I should even bother with this.
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Hey, it's not like the human body uses electricity at all, is it? Like, say, to run our brains, muscles, hearts, and so on. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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It's a dumb show that is quite entertaining.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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Has the show improved any. It was pretty bad compared to what else is on now. Seems to be a bit of a throwback to the idea of Star Trek where not doing bad things that should be done is aright. Rebels are fighting for thier existance, and, for instance, not destroying the train would mean a lot more deaths. Also seemed improbable without a good transportation network, which did not seem to exist in the early episodes, that could control a large portion of the country. Too many stupid things in that show, and somehow it survived. Almost all the comments on imdb were negative, but somehow got a good rating. Maybe the people who like it cannot write are the ones that like the show.
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Collin Jasnoch wrote: Or maybe there is some other physical behavior we should see in the world but it is not occurring because some device is preventing it so we all think the F(x) is raltional to B(y) but really it is B(x).
Or maybe it's all just a dream; we're all a simulation; it's a hologram; God is controlling it...
and so on!
Losing knowledge over time certainly has happened in the past, so assuming all written works were destroyed and nobody wrote anything down then the knowledge would get lost, I suppose, and legends would grow about how the ancients used to have windows that could show pictures from anywhere, etc.
But I think it would take more than 100 years
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Collin Jasnoch wrote: _Maxxx_ wrote: Losing knowledge over time certainly has happened in the past
How can you be so certain? If the knowledge was "lost" then it is not likely anyone would know it...
We know that certain things existed from archeological records, but we don't know how to make it or what it means. For example, we know of Greek Fire from the writings of Theophanes and other contemporary accounts, but we don't know what its formula was. Another well known example is Linear A and Linear B, languages that we know exist and have examples of, but don't know how to translate or what the examples mean. I could go on.
So we do know, for a fact, that knowledge has been lost in the past, so it's not unlikely that it could happen again in the future.
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Unless the nanobots were at saturation point (ie you couldn't even breath for the bloody things) there would still be lightning and static electricity, not to mention the basic electric field from charged particles.
As to a technology or physical law being suppressed? Locally, maybe. But we all watched Jurassic Park and we know Mother Nature outwits us eventually anyway.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Look up "Gosh numbers"; I think you'll enjoy.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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You have been watching too much TV lately, haven't you?..  ... There are a lot physics we don't understand, mainly at the subatomic level, where our instruments are not good enough or happen things that don't go accord to our models and theories, that's why some people look for unification theories that are valid for any level from macro to micro (or nano), even the mere existence of the universe is big mistery because with out current knowledge we can't know for certain what happened on the Zero day much less before that.
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Physics according to Hollywood and physics in the normal world are two different entities. Just like software, we can alter virtual worlds to be as we like. If it sells, then that's all that counts.
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So THAT'S the rationale behind the show. Meh. It's like the old anecdote of the acid that will eat through anything: if it eat's through anything, how do you contain it?
So these nanites absorb all electricity ... but what about from each other? What about the bioelectric currents that exist in ALL organisms?
And then there's the Second Law - no matter how efficiently it's absorbed, what do those nanites do with all the waste heat? They have to dissapate it somehow, and that's gonna make them hot.
So if there is a volt/ampere threshold below which the nanites don't operate, then lots of common everyday stuff might still be able to function. But then, absorbing all the high volt/amp stuff would drive the heat dissapation problem up exponentialy - do they only operate in the water or the high altitudes, or high latitudes during winter? Because without cooling, they wouldn't last long. And if you reverse it, if the nanites ONLY function at low volt/amp levels, then the first thing to go would be living organisms, not electric powerplants.
Something has to give. Either way, I'm not buying the premise. Nice to know I can strike that off of my list of shows to Netflix.
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Rather, I'm disappointed in the writing. It's an interesting premise: all electrical power is rendered non-functional, resulting in the collapse of our technological society. Great. Leave it at that. Don't evern TRY to explain it. Don't make it a "meddling in powers wew don't understand" meme; it works as a post-apocalyptic show just as well. Mixing the two and making it into a morality play is just ... lazy.
Take the re-imaged BSG. There were any number of incongruities in the science in that show, but it was okay, because they didn't even try to justify them. Rather, the sci-fi settng was so much window dressing for the story, which was an exodus story set in space, combined with the "we brought it in our oursleves" message. The "science" was there to help the story along, not to define it.
The list goes on: "Defiance", "Serenity", "Heroes", even "Lost". "Star Trek" and to a lesser extent "Doctor Who" always played fast-n-loose with this concept, but then, they were episodic shows, not serials, so each individual writer had much more freedom to remake the setting to suit his story. But they were all at there best when the sci-fi part of the story was in the background, rather than the forground.
Maybe "Revolution" started out that way, and is otherwise worthy of viewing, but as soon as they have to try to EXPLAIN it, they miss the point.
Good sci-fi is hard to find.
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Just blame it on the NSA; its more believable.
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