James May's Big Ideas
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James May's Big Ideas
''James May's Big Ideas'' is a three-part British television miniseries in which James May, a journalist and self-acknowledged geek travels the globe in search of implementations for concepts widely considered science fiction, or his ''big ideas''. The series was produced by the BBC and the Open University and began airing at 8pm on Sundays on 28 September 2008. The first episode documents his search for the ultimate form of personal transport, ranging from jetpacks to flying cars. In the second episode, May looks at bionics and robotics and if robots can exceed the boundaries of their programming. The third episode focuses on energy. Episode list See also *''James May's 20th Century ''James May's 20th Century'' is a television series first aired on 10 July 2007 on the British terrestrial channel BBC Two. The series is a co-production by the BBC and the Open University. The series covers various inventions and discoveries o ...'' – series broadcast on the BBC with a sim ...
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Nigel Paterson
Nigel Paterson is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning British television writer, director and producer. Biography Paterson began his career at the BBC as part of the production team on the 2001 series ''Walking with Beasts'' for which he shared the 2002 Primetime Emmy Award for Animated Program – More Than One Hour. He co-wrote and co-directed the 2006 series '' Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial'' that re-enacted the Nuremberg Trials of prominent Nazi war criminals. He directed and produced the 2007 ''Wolof Wrestling'' episode of the series ''Last Man Standing''. Filmography * 2001 ''Walking with Beasts'' producer & director * 2001 ''Triumph of the Beasts'' & ''The Beasts Within'' producer * 2002 ''Human Instinct'' director * 2003 ''Human Senses'' director * 2004 ''Meet the Ancestors'': ''The Hunt for Darwin's Beagle'' director * 2004 ''Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves'' director * 2005 ''The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs'' director * 2005 ''Horizon''/''Nova'': ''The Ghost in Your Ge ...
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Ground Effect Vehicle
A ground-effect vehicle (GEV), also called a wing-in-ground-effect (WIG), ground-effect craft, wingship, flarecraft or ekranoplan (russian: экранопла́н – "screenglider"), is a vehicle that is able to move over the surface by gaining support from the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth or water. Typically, it is designed to glide over a level surface (usually over the sea) by making use of ground effect, the aerodynamic interaction between the moving wing and the surface below. Some models can operate over any flat area such as frozen lakes or flat plains similar to a hovercraft. Design A ground-effect vehicle needs some forward velocity to produce lift dynamically, and the principal benefit of operating a wing in ground effect is to reduce its lift-dependent drag. The basic design principle is that the closer the wing operates to an external surface such as the ground, when it is said to be in ground effect, the less drag it feels. An airfoi ...
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BBC Television Documentaries
#REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ... ...
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers active or main-sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars, where large amounts of energy are released. A nuclear fusion process that produces atomic nuclei lighter than iron-56 or nickel-62 will generally release energy. These elements have a relatively small mass and a relatively large binding energy per nucleon. Fusion of nuclei lighter than these releases energy (an exothermic process), while the fusion of heavier nuclei results in energy retained by the product nucleons, and the resulting reaction is endo ...
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Stephen Salter
Stephen Hugh Salter, (born 7 December 1938) is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh and inventor of the eponymous Salter duck wave energy device. Salter is also a proponent of geoengineering and is responsible for creating the concept of the mechanical enhancement of clouds to achieve cloud reflectivity enhancement. The wide tank at the University of Edinburgh—a novel design and invention by Salter, built in 1977—was the world's first multi-directional wave tank equipped with absorbing wavemakers. Feedback control systems on the wavemaking flaps were used for the absorption of reflected waves, propagating along the water surface of the tank interior towards the 89 flaps. Salter is a Specialist Advisor at wave energy company Aquamarine Power advising on the development of the Oyster wave energy converter. Salter "has been one of the leading voices" of the marine cloud brightening movement. Salter's duck While historic references to t ...
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Pelamis Wave Energy Converter
The Pelamis Wave Energy Converter was a technology that used the motion of ocean surface waves to create electricity. The machine was made up of connected sections which flex and bend as waves pass; it is this motion which is used to generate electricity. Developed by the now defunct Scottish company Pelamis Wave Power (formerly Ocean Power Delivery), the Pelamis became the first offshore wave machine to generate electricity into the grid, when it was first connected to the UK grid in 2004. Pelamis Wave Power then went on to build and test five additional Pelamis machines: three first-generation P1 machines, which were tested in a farm off the coast of Portugal in 2009, and two second-generation machines, the Pelamis P2, were tested off Orkney between 2010 and 2014. The company went into administration in November 2014, with the intellectual property transferred to the Scottish Government body Wave Energy Scotland. Operation The Pelamis machine is an offshore wave energy con ...
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Wind Turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wind turbines are an increasingly important source of intermittent renewable energy, and are used in many countries to lower energy costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. One study claimed that, wind had the "lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands and the most favorable social impacts" compared to photovoltaic, hydro, geothermal, coal and gas energy sources. Smaller wind turbines are used for applications such as battery charging for auxiliary power for boats or caravans, and to power traffic warning signs. Larger turbines can contribute to a domestic power supply while selling unused power back to the utility supplier via the electrical grid. Wind turbines are manufactured in a wide range of ...
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Solar Power Tower
A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target). Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems are seen as one viable solution for renewable, pollution-free energy. Early designs used these focused rays to heat water, and used the resulting steam to power a turbine. Newer designs using liquid sodium have been demonstrated, and systems using molten salts (40% potassium nitrate, 60% sodium nitrate) as the working fluids are now in operation. These working fluids have high heat capacity, which can be used to store the energy before using it to boil water to drive turbines. These designs also allow power to be generated when the sun is not shining. Cost In 2021, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimated cost of electricity from concent ...
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Solar Cars
A solar car is a solar vehicle for use on public roads or race tracks. Solar vehicles are electric vehicles that use self-contained solar cells to power themselves fully or partially from sunlight. Solar vehicles typically contain a rechargeable battery to help regulate and store the energy from the solar cells and from regenerative braking. Some solar cars can be plugged into external power sources to supplement the power of sunlight used to charge their battery. Solar cars combine technology typically used in the aerospace, bicycle, alternative energy and automotive industries. The design of solar vehicles always emphasizes energy efficiency to make maximum use of the limited amount of energy they can receive from sunlight. Most solar cars have been built for the purpose of solar car races. However several prototypes of solar cars designed for use on public roads have been designed and built. There are various solar car competitions around the world that are generally partaken ...
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Aerocar
Aerocar International's Aerocar (often called the Taylor Aerocar) was an American roadable aircraft designed and built by Moulton Taylor in Longview, Washington in 1949. Although six examples were made, it never entered large-scale production. It is considered one of the first practical flying cars. Design and development Taylor began designing a roadable aircraft in 1946. During a trip to Delaware, he met inventor Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who had designed an earlier roadable airplane, the Airphibian, with detachable wings. Taylor's prototype, the Aerocar, utilized folding wings that allowed the road vehicle to be converted into flight mode in five minutes by one person. When the rear license plate was flipped up, the operator could connect the propeller shaft and attach a pusher propeller. The same engine drove the front wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. When operated as an aircraft, the road transmission was left in neutral (though backing up during taxiing was ...
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Robotics
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrates fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information engineering, mechatronics, electronics, bioengineering, computer engineering, control engineering, software engineering, mathematics, etc. Robotics develops machines that can substitute for humans and replicate human actions. Robots can be used in many situations for many purposes, but today many are used in dangerous environments (including inspection of radioactive materials, bomb detection and deactivation), manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive (e.g. in space, underwater, in high heat, and clean up and containment of hazardous materials and radiation). Robots can take any form, but some are made to resemble humans in appearance. This is claim ...
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