earthquakes: a usable power source ?

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

If you have an idea, say it. It can always be tweaked.

what can we harness ? energy, the forms of energy produced is what we much target. I was thinking foam with a force plate such that it's transfered at a rate that the plate can handle. The hard part is making it last and getting it where needed to extract any energy it can. oh and environmental effect if possible.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

I'm trying to get more exact numbers so far I've figured out around 800,000 positions that seem legal.

If there were only 800,000 legal chess positions, then a perfect chess playing program could be easily implemented using a lookup table.

There are 1,055,056 legal ways to put three white pawns and a white king on the board. For each configuration, there are at least 46 squares where the black king could legally be. So we're looking at about 50 million positions for just that combination of men.

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

what can we harness ? energy, the forms of energy produced is what we much target. I was thinking foam with a force plate such that it's transfered at a rate that the plate can handle. The hard part is making it last and getting it where needed to extract any energy it can. oh and environmental effect if possible.

How is the energy actually extracted?

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

How is the energy actually extracted?

Well on mythbusters they use the force plate that sends an electric signal to indicate force so if we do that for the force of an earthquake on them could it not send it to shore if it withstood it ? the foam idea was just to slow down the transfer and extract more like mythbusters has said ( though some raise flags at some methods).

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

Well on mythbusters they use the force plate that sends an electric signal to indicate force so if we do that for the force of an earthquake on them could it not send it to shore if it withstood it ?

Force plates measure force. You provide them with power -- they don't gain power from what they measure.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

If there were only 800,000 legal chess positions, then a perfect chess playing program could be easily implemented using a lookup table.

There are 1,055,056 legal ways to put three white pawns and a white king on the board...

Incorrect. I had assumed that every permutation of three out of the 48 squares not on the first and eighth ranks was permissible for the three white pawns. However pawns on a2, a3, b2, and on g2, h2, h3 aren't possible, reducing the number of possibilities for the four white men to 1,054,934.

Not that anyone else here is interested in this digression, but duty calls, even if it is self-referential.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

Incorrect. I had assumed that every permutation of three out of the 48 squares not on the first and eighth ranks was permissible for the three white pawns. However pawns on a2, a3, b2, and on g2, h2, h3 aren't possible, reducing the number of possibilities for the four white men to 1,054,934.

Not that anyone else here is interested in this digression, but duty calls, even if it is self-referential.

keep it to PM sorry if i messed up and allowed this.

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

keep it to PM sorry if i messed up and allowed this.

I'm at least moderately interested in *serious* estimates of the number of chess positions...so it's not inappropriate for Mr P-1 to be updating his numbers. But I have my doubts as to there being less than 25 zeros after the answer, think the answer has 50 or so zeros, and would be surprised if it had more than 100, but these are distinctly impressionistic estimates.

However, we might get a better idea of the numbers involved if we took a look at what those that implemented the world-champion chess playing computers have to say about how many positions they are evaluating, and what they do to prune the search space.

So, in that serious spirit, ScienceMan, it shouldn't be too hard to give an upper bound to the number of chess positions. For homework, find *any* upper bound, and justify your answer. And feel free to ask for help here, I don't think any of my helpers here will have much difficulty; I'm going to be busy doing my own homework for Mr Silverman, who is much harsher.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by Christenson

I'm at least moderately interested in *serious* estimates of the number of chess positions...so it's not inappropriate for Mr P-1 to be updating his numbers. But I have my doubts as to there being less than 25 zeros after the answer, think the answer has 50 or so zeros, and would be surprised if it had more than 100, but these are distinctly impressionistic estimates.

However, we might get a better idea of the numbers involved if we took a look at what those that implemented the world-champion chess playing computers have to say about how many positions they are evaluating, and what they do to prune the search space.

So, in that serious spirit, ScienceMan, it shouldn't be too hard to give an upper bound to the number of chess positions. For homework, find *any* upper bound, and justify your answer. And feel free to ask for help here, I don't think any of my helpers here will have much difficulty; I'm going to be busy doing my own homework for Mr Silverman, who is much harsher.

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=15448 a thread I started.

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

I'm limiting to no hazardous things so the environment doesn't get destroyed.

ScienceMan, the management would like to point out to you that to generate the amount of energy you want to extract from an earthquake, a certain number of people are killed outright in coal mines, a fair number of others die in the various mideast and afghanistan conflicts, and millions in china are sickened by the mercury emissions from the coal. In addition, many trees are dieing in the eastern US due to coal emissions, and asthma is a significant problem. There was a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico at Deepwater Horizon recently, with far-reaching toxicity. My helpers on this thread probably know other ways in which the large-scale extraction of energy kills and or sickens many people.

Extracting energy today is not safe by any measure, and it involves many extremely hazardous substances in very large quantities. The amount of carbon it has put into the atmosphere has a very real, noninfinitesimal chance of wiping every one of us (or our descendants) off planet earth.

Therefore, the first homework problem (extract useful energy from one ton of sand or cement mix, descending from six feet up, with the sand remaining in the 50 pound bags it was purchased in) is amended to indicate that you may use any real material or technique known to science to solve the problem. Do not be concerned with toxicity; it is a peripheral issue. Do not be concerned with cost of materials, it was intended largely as an interactive and educational (to you) thought experiment.