posted on Jun, 10 2016 @ 10:54 PM
a reply to:
baddmove
This thing is amazing!!!
Reminds me strongly of the lost history of pneumatic trains and etc...
Many things like this show immense potential to really revolutionize modern technology and infrastructure by combining the old with new enabling
technology.
Here's a fun compressed air lost technology. Well before the steam engine deep earth mines existed, but how did they power their pumps and
ventilation? I'll tell you how, they would sink a shaft near the mineshaft that was close to a lower elevation piece of ground. This shaft had a dome
shaped chamber between this vertical shaft and the horizontal shaft leading to the low elevation area. Now that vertical shaft had a constriction
point near the bottom where it halves in diameter. When falling water from a diverted stream hit the narrow point it would physically trap air in the
water. When this water passed through the domed area of the horizontal shaft the air was released now pressurized and trapped in the dome! A series of
pipes sent this high pressure air where it was needed both in the mine and above ground. In the era of the locomotive it was even used to fill the
tanks of pneumatic trains that moved ore etc.
To me this is very very cool and casts a shadow of illegitimacy on various groups who just so happen to have been deeply involved in dismantling
american street car systems, and other colorfully nefarious acts from the 20th century to today.
Threads like this highlight just how capable our ancestors were and regenerates a hope in us that the status quo isn't as good as it gets... After
all if they could do all that in 1960, imagine what a modern version would be capable of!