So skimming through the wiki article, it sounds like it it’s still “throw something out the back” to generate thrust, which is largely the same problem as the Wall-E with a fire extinguisher problem another commenter made.
Ion Thrusters sound significantly more efficient (in terms of velocity change vs fuel), but do I have the right idea on that?
Yeah. One uses the passage of a gas over rotating blades. The other uses water as it flows.
Neither use the passage of gaseous water, so theyre totally different!
/s
So your example starts with a wheel who’s diameter is a divisor of pi, which I think it a flawed example (since pi gets divided out in C = [pi] * d)
I wouldn’t expect a craftsman to deliver a wheel who’s dimensions are specified by its circumference, I’d expect them to make a wheel based on diameter (or maybe radius). We can see that even in today’s measurements (e.g. a 8mm bolt has a diameter of 8mm).
So with that, a 1m wheel would have a circumference of 3.14 ish meters (which would then emerge when doing math on the side length of a structure).
My thoughts then go to the units (at top level commenter noted. If they used an arcane ancient unit of measure like the Roman pes (using cause I’m most familiar with that one) to measure their wheel and say the wheel is 5 pes in diameter, their wall will be 5 * [pi] * [rotation count] pes long.
But a pes is .296 meters. So assuming the wall is 10 rotation counts long; we come along and measure the wall as ~4.67 meters long…I don’t see pi in that number.
…so how did the “ancient astronaut theorists” conclude pi was involved in this at all? I suppose that means they knew the units the Egyptians used to build the pyramids? But that doesn’t seem very likely.
Maintaining healthy trees with urine covering with federal employee benefits and a government pension sounds like a dream job.
No doubt they’d find a way to make it a bureaucratic nightmare of a job. But I’m down.
Because I recently rediscovered this, sharing here:
All right," said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.
–Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Wow, the Pacific Ocean must be really wide, like, that’s gotta be longer than 2 football fields placed end to end.