Posted by Dave R. (207.204.138.119) on July 05, 2002 at 18:56:02:
Since you are into all kinds of interesting ideas, this one is lengthy but true:
When I first went to work in industry, my boss was an older engineer named Al Rosen. Over a few beers one night, he told me of an experiment that he always wished that he had followed up on (he died a year later). In the 40's, Al worked for a research group where the sky was the limit (those days are gone). One scientist found that if you took a piece of copper tubing shaped like a "Y". and forced air into it, one outlet on the Y got red hot and the other frosted up!
Al did say that the Y angle was critical and it more than a few degrees off, would not work. At that time, freon was plentiful and this devise could not compete so it was dropped. Today, it would make someone a fortune. When we discussed it, I was not that interested (a few beers did not help) and he may have said what the angle was but I don't remember. What I have written is the limit of what I remember. Has anyone else heard of this?
You might file this with one of those "interesting concepts" but who knows, maybe someone reading this is familiar with it.
If other readers have items like this of interest, let's share.
By the way Scott: I like your web site.
Dave