Horse Power – Just for Fun

Just for Fun

I have always been enamored by cars, especially powerful ones. Upon graduation from university, my dad promised to buy me a new vehicle if the cost did not exceed $3k. There was no doubt that it would be a 335 HP GTO with a 3-speed floor shifter. To keep the price in line I could only afford a few options. No power anything (steering, windows, etc.). I opted for Wide Oval tires and a basic radio. Turning corners took muscle power. This photo could have been my car’s 1963 twin. The 400 cubic inch engine (equivalent to 6.5 liters). It produced an amazing 52 hp per liter.

Later in life, I purchased a Mitsubishi FTO while living in New Zealand. Not considered a muscle car; nevertheless, the 2-liter V6 5-speed manual transmission produced 200 HP. At 100 HP per liter, it was almost double that of the GTO. BTW it had a top speed of 155 MPH about 25 MPH faster than the GTO.

Engine efficiency has come a long way thanks to auto racing. Consider the 2.2-liter Indy Cars that produce 800 HP, almost 400 HP per liter or the even more amazing 1.6-liter Formula 1 cars that produce 1,000 HP (over 600 HP per liter)

Indy Car

F-1 car

Currency Change Needed

Broken in the USA, Currency

Currency Change Needed

For about 115 years the penny has been our lowest denomination. My issue is that the quarter has less buying power today than a cent did 100 years ago. Why do we still use them.? The 1910 dollar bill had more purchasing power than a $20 bill has today. Why do we hang on to the past? How much cash is in use today vs. 115 years ago? Based on the population increase you might think we need more but the fact is that we need considerably less with the advent of debit & credit cards along with online banking.

I can make a case that change will be more efficient and save tax dollars. The plan would be that the quarter would the lowest denomination of coin and exist along with the ½ dollar, dollar, and 5-dollar coins. Cash purchases would be rounded to the nearest $.25 increment while debit, credit & electronic purchases would remain as is. Paper money only lasts for a few years at best while coins can last a hundred years or more. The largest number of paper notes are the dollar bill and replacing them with coinage will save money.

I know what you will say, “We tried the dollar coin and it did not work”. The reason is simple. We did not have the fortitude to replace the paper note, it was an optional approach.

I was reminded of our broken currency system on a recent trip to La Paz, Bolivia. Their smallest coin denomination is the equivalent of 15 US cents.

Universe vs. Galaxy

Just for Fun, Science

Universe vs. Galaxy

The Universe is far too large for most of us to comprehend. There are 3 trillion galaxies in the observable universe and it keeps expanding (as does our ability to observe).  Our galaxy is minuscule by comparison but it is still huge at 100,000 light years across. The closest neighbor to our solar system is Andromeda, only 2 ½ light years distant. It is estimated that the Milky Way has between 100 and 400 billion solar systems. Using the midpoint of 250 billion and the estimated number of earthlike planets per solar system at 40% (based on what we have seen) puts the potential planets with life at 100 billion. If only 1% of them have life and of that number, only 1% have intelligent life that still leaves 10 million planets that could provide alien visitors. Forget the universe our galaxy has plenty of potential for intelligent life.

Article by Ashley Yeager

February 23, 2017, at 11:08 am

Astronomers have just identified a nearby solar system hosting seven Earth-sized planets. Most intriguing: Three planets that orbit its central star — known as TRAPPIST-1 — may even be within a habitable zone. That means they fall within a region that could support life as we know it. As such, these newfound worlds are good sites to focus a search for alien life.

TRAPPIST-1’s big planetary family also hints that many more cousins of Earth may exist than astronomers had thought.

“It’s rather stunning that the system has so many Earth-sized planets,” says Drake Deming. He’s an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park. It seems like every stable spot where a planet could be, there is an Earth-sized one. And that, he adds, “bodes well for finding habitable planets.”

Astrophysicist Michaël Gillon works at the University of Liège in Belgium. He was part of a team that last year announced they had found three Earth-sized planets around TRAPPIST-1. This dwarf star is only about the size of Jupiter.  It’s also much cooler than the sun. And it’s a relative neighbor to Earth, a mere 39 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius.

Follow-up observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and additional telescopes on the ground now show that what first appeared to be a third planet is actually a quartet of Earth-sized ones. Three of these may be habitable.

If those planets have Earthlike atmospheres, their surfaces may even host oceans of liquid water. Or at least that’s what Gillon and his colleagues reported online on February 22 in Nature. Their data also offer signs of a seventh, outermost planet.