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numbat conspiracy
Strong Steam
by mark weber - Thursday, 28 January 2010, 11:43 PM
 

Fear of Strong Steam

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Newcomen successfully developed a ‘fire’ engine that exploited atmospheric pressure to do work. The cylinder of the engine was filled with steam after which cold water was let in condensing the steam. This formed a partial vacuum and atmospheric pressure forced the piston down, thereby performing work. In the latter half of the eighteenth century James Watt carried out a large amount of development work on the engine; including the introduction of a separate condenser, which improved thermal efficiency. However, Watt refused to use what he called ‘strong’, high-pressure, steam. He believed strong steam to be far too dangerous, on a par with gunpowder.

Watt was right: not only was strong steam dangerous, it was unnatural. By unnatural I mean that it exceeded, in a fundamental way, the capacity of the forces of nature. His engines were a part of the natural order in that they employed only atmospheric pressure. That is, they were in the same category as windmills and waterwheels. For going beyond what nature intended, for a craft-based society not long out of the medieval mindset and that had yet to systematise science, was fraught with danger. Watt, however brilliant an engineer, was determined to frustrate this ungodly enterprise, and did so through the patents he controlled.

For a quarter of a century, he delayed the deployment of strong steam until, around 1800, the dyslexic Cornish engineer Trevithick successfully built a high-pressure steam engine. Within twenty-five years the Stockton and Darlington railway was running. Another twenty-five years after that came the Great Exhibition. In that half-century, the foundations of our technological society were laid. The powerhouse of change was a small but powerful strong-steam engine. Watt’s trepidation vindicated, nothing was ever the same again?

numbat conspiracy
mark prensky, eat your heart out
by mark weber - Saturday, 12 December 2009, 07:16 AM
  I am 34.

I went through a terrible period in computer education. The first computer that I saw was in 1987 [from memory an Apple 2e at school] in year 7. I left school in 1992 knowing absolutely nothing about computers - nada, zippo, zilch. I didn't know where the on button was. I couldn't insert a disk [which was a floppy back then]. Yet I had been at a school for 6 years with stacks of computers that were, for that time, good computers - mainly IBM clones since apples were only in the year 7 section for some reason. I had tried to learn. But in the final analysis school utterly failed my technological needs. The reasons for this were complex.

There were qualified computer teachers. But in the main they were not used. Rather, incidental teaching of computers was the norm such as an English teacher teaching word processing, or, to be more accurate failing to teach anything. I remember my English teacher saying to us on year 12 "you are all using computers as glorified typewriters" meaning that nobody was cut/pasting. In truth nobody had learnt how to cut or paste. There were issues of room layout/architecture such as the computers being at the sides of the room, not leaving room to use a mouse. So I never saw a mouse in my entire school life.

Yet the worst aspect of it all - the worst of all possible worlds - was that it was assumed that I was learning about computers when I wasn't learning a thing. For instance there was that dreadful Australian Studies unit that was compulsory and the teacher said "I want to everyone to print out their final assignment on a computer". I had no clue. So I got a mate to do it for me. Thus I learnt nothing. It is cute how outcomes in computer illiteracy are very analogous to issues in alphabetical illiteracy. Then I failed a year 12 maths unit called Reasoning and Data. It was assumed that I knew how to use a spreadsheet and use minitab. I didn't have a clue how to type on the keyboard. And as usual I got no help from the teacher. For practical ends he was no teacher; he was as bad as an administrator.

I would have been better off with maths and computers had I been in year 12 in 1980. At least then issues were clearcut. People didn't assume that you knew how to use a computer. You were not assumed to have a PC at home [I didn't.] And in maths A/B I would have had Pascal in the back of the textbook. Maths A/B was ahead of its time. The idea of combining maths/computing at year 12 was not new despite the pseudo-revolutionaries of the VCE trying to tell you that it was. IMO Reasoning and Data was a major step backwards.

I have the deepest jealously of people who learn computers at school now. It was an utter failure for me.

anonymous victorian linux users group
numbat conspiracy
My Merino Webquest
by mark weber - Tuesday, 4 August 2009, 10:21 PM
 
Here is a webquest for year 10 Science students abnout the genetics of Merino sheep.

numbat conspiracy
Solar Eclipse 2009
by mark weber - Tuesday, 28 October 2008, 11:54 PM
  2009 has been declared the International Year of Astronomy.

Serendipidously, there will be an anullar eclipse of the sun passing over Indonesia on January 26, Australia day.

http://www.eclipse.org.uk/eclipse/0132009/
numbat conspiracy
Lunar eclipse in detail
by mark weber - Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 09:35 AM
  I actually got up for this at 5.30 A.M. local time and saw a small part of this.

The moon "shines" because it reflects light from the sun. Basically a lunar eclipse is when the earth gets between the light from the sun and the moon.



Check out this blog.

Sydney Observatory




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