Heavens' Henge

[Boreades]

Hi Jon

It's good to see your video.

I wonder if you've done any work on what temperatures would be reached at the focal point of a full-scale Stonehinge design?

According to Extreme Tech if we scale up to a 45" square mirror, we might reach 1750° to 1950° Celsius, hot enough to split water into hydrogen and oxygen (on a zinc oxide catalitic surface)

See: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1476 ... st-the-sun

[Royston]

I'd be interested to know what you make of the vitrified rock sites - if anything.

[jon]

Hi Boreades

I wonder if you've done any work on what temperatures would be reached at the focal point of a full-scale Stonehinge design?

I haven't done a great deal of work on the Stonehinge design but the test arrangements indicate that up to about 600C could easily be achieved: The commercial designs are easily capable of getting to 800C plus. I did some verification works on this because that is more or less the temperature that we needed to get water hot enough to drive turbines (turbines need steam at 600C plus because otherwise the droplet size can wear turbine blades).

There's a bit more about the commercial types of arrangement here: http://www.flyingoven.com: The technical resources have been put into this type of design rather than Stonehenge because it offers a realistic chance of being able to produce fuel by extracting carbon dioxide from the air: A mega-environentally friendly way of energy production (I will probably start to bore everyone rigid if I go too much into this)

Just got a note from a Professor of Archaeology saying that he agrees with some of the conclusions of Solving the Neolithic!

[Malmaison]

Difficult to tell from such a short video but wouldn't a small(er) circle work just as well? It reminded me of a lighthouse which in turn is a reminder that stone circles are not necessarily large and often feature on coasts and islands. More feasible than keeping a fire burning?

[jon]

Hi Malmaison

Spherical reflectors focus to a line but by adjusting various components can be made to focus to a point: This point occurs at just over half the bowl radius. Below I've linked to a modern version in India (but without the "Stonehenge improvements")



Big difference between this arrangement and one suited to the UK is that the latitude of the above bowl is 6 degrees rather than 51: So this reflector arm points almost directly down: A UK version is closer to the horizontal, so the mirrors have to be arranged in a ring rather than a bowl.

[jon]

I'd be interested to know what you make of the vitrified rock sites - if anything.

I haven't looked to be honest Royston. It's possible to get it to focus to extremely high temperatures, so I guess it's possible. Just had an enquiry from a University interested in developing the 'non-Stonehenge' side of things, so that might be interesting.

[jon]

Some really cool news

Some schools are starting to use the experiments to show children (early teens) how to view the world from a different perspective. Just got told how a teacher explained she was using the book in class.

[Boreades]

Some really cool news

Some schools are starting to use the experiments to show children (early teens) how to view the world from a different perspective. Just got told how a teacher explained she was using the book in class.

Congratulations!
Any in Wiltshire by any chance? :-)

[jon]

Any in Wiltshire by any chance? :-)

None that I'm aware of: Sussex.

Though perhaps when the demonstrator is up and running and people can see with their own eyes what it does and why all those unusual features of Stonehenge are important, the Wiltshirians might be interested?

[Boreades]

Any in Wiltshire by any chance? :-)

None that I'm aware of: Sussex.

Though perhaps when the demonstrator is up and running and people can see with their own eyes what it does and why all those unusual features of Stonehenge are important, the Wiltshirians might be interested?

Definitely!