The Hyperloop is snake oil
I promise I won’t start a blog with thousands of quick posts a year–I’m done with that for some years now. This is a one-shot feature meant to illustrate how stupidity, gullibility and the lack of both common sense and basic engineering sense has fooled so many people into believing that Elon Musk knows what he’s talking about–he doesn’t. He’s just an arrogant pompous ass.
I understood from day one that the “Hyperloop” is snake oil, that such a endeavor would be too expensive, the result too fragile, and that with such a huge risk that the tiniest mishap kills everyone inside, there’s absolutely no way that such a crap would get the safety approval from the relevant authorities. And I’m not a mechanical engineer, but I have an engineering education nonetheless.
Here’s the main video from Thunderf00t:
And an equally relevant follow-up:
The saddest thing of all is that some actual engineers seem to be working at this shit. Then, of course, it’s sad that people don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that a 5-second demo of a tiny Maglev has nothing to do with the proposed Hyperloop. Eventually, everything seems to be related to the general lack of understanding of anything that’s science or technology–nowadays, despite using smartphones, the Internet, and lots of technologies that the Sci-Fi writers never thought of, people relate to any such gizmo as to something that “magically just works,” and when it doesn’t, “let’s update the software.” With so much high-tech, people don’t understand elementary phenomena, and they’re bound to believe just about anything. Yes, other unfeasible projects have been praised in the ’50s and ’60s in science magazines, and most of them proved to be either technologically unfeasible, or commercially non-viable, but nowadays we’re beyond ridicule.
Watch both videos carefully. If you have a mind, that is.
Yeah, except that there are REAL engineers commenting in the threads below that video. TF has not done a decent video for YEARS, all his crap now follows around quasi-science, ie stupid people science, guesses, and misrepresentations. He does not even understand what the huge turbine on the front of this thing is for. So yeah, think what you will while trying to halt all scientific progress because “It dun werk nun” but the rest of us will dream big, and then figure out how to make those dreams work, like all the scientists before us did to get us cars, planes, and computers, all things that were impossible.
You are simply wrong. Most comments are NOT made by REAL engineers.
BTW, I am an engineer too, but an electrical, not a mechanical one.
An engineer is not supposed to dream, but to make things possible–that is, if they’re possible. If you pay me, I’ll document you how many FABULOUS INVENTIONS THAT WILL BE EVERYWHERE IN TEN YEARS FROM NOW were advertised in the 1950s and 1960s. None of them is with us. Not a single one. OTOH, we’re now having technologies that nobody dreamed of. Such is life.
That very low pressure (close to vacuum) is required to make that speed possible. But let’s imagine the vehicle runs on an air cushion, on snake oil, on wheels, on whatever you want (magnetic levitation). Any tiny damage to whatever it is would kill everyone instantly, such is the fragility of the entire concept–did I mention the speed? There’s no way such a thing would get the required approvals no matter HOW it works.