Terminus Est

brunians at brunians.org · 02 Jul 2008, 23:39 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 19:39:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: (urth) Terminus Est
In-Reply-To: <277038.16557.qm at web83705.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <277038.16557.qm at web83705.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2059.67.142.130.42.1215041988.squirrel at brunians.org>

Put a one way valve on one side.....



.

> Gwern has a clever suggestion about the mercury
> channel in Terminus Est:
>
>  "Well, why do we need a vacuum at all,
>  when we could just have air in it like normal and
> avoid displacement
>  problems by making our channel a circular tube."
>
> This is a good idea, but I don't think it would work.
>  When you raise the sword, the mercury would pool at
> the bottom in both channels.  Then on the downstroke,
> the mercury would flow down both channels, resulting
> in the same air compression problem.   We might want
> the mercury to flow down one channel and the air to
> flow up the other, but mercury will simply follow the
> laws of physics.
>
> The text also indicates a single channel:
> "There is a channel in the spine of her blade, and in
> it runs a river of hydragyrum"  (Shadow, XIV).
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jack
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jack
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