The Hyperloop: BUSTED

[nctnico]

There are even public transport stations with names that are totally irrelevant to the location it is in or the location it serves.

'Bir Hakeim' in Paris comes to mind.

[technix]

Or places have been renamed but some transport names still reference an older name.  Case in point PEK and YFB airports

The name PEK referring to actually didn't change, however since the local name is in a different script than Latin, Romanization changed. PEK is based on the older Wade-Giles transliteration Peking, while the modern spelling Beijing is based on Hanyu Pinyin transliteration. Pinyin was introduced just a month before PEK opened, by when it is too late to change the codes.

[coppice]

Or places have been renamed but some transport names still reference an older name.  Case in point PEK and YFB airports

The name PEK referring to actually didn't change, however since the local name is in a different script than Latin, Romanization changed. PEK is based on the older Wade-Giles transliteration Peking, while the modern spelling Beijing is based on Hanyu Pinyin transliteration. Pinyin was introduced just a month before PEK opened, by when it is too late to change the codes.

Wade-Giles dates from the middle of the 19th century. Spellings like Peking are much older. The first European settlement in East Asia was Macau. Europeans learned a lot about East Asia from the people of Macau, who speak Cantonese. So, a lot of western spellings for things in China, Korea and Japan are far from how they sound in Mandarin, Korean or Japanese, but not far from how they sound in Cantonese. For example, in Cantonese Beijing is pronounced something like bak-ging, a lot closer to Peking that many munging of Mandarin gets. The Japanese pronounce their nation ni-hon, which is nothing like Japan. However, in Cantonese its something like yat-boon, which is a lot closer to Japan. Add a few centuries of pronounciation drift, and you can see where the western names for many East Asian places originate.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

But for the purpose of this discussion, your pedantic rants are inappropriate and in this case wrong as I was talking about the station, not the city

The name of the station is Pirineos, the other station there is Vilanoveta, now not used, both are in Lérida, and there's no reason to put in the same sentence some city names in a language and some in another. City-name-Station-name: Madrid-Atocha, Madrid-Chamartín, Lérida-Pirineos, do you get it?

[emece67]

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[BrianHG]

  Could be within a decade.......    What are they smoking?

[technix]

Could be within a decade.......    What are they smoking?

Building HSR like this, regardless of technique used, requires a lot of coordination. If the government can secure funds and gain political support like in China, it is doable like in China. If not...

[BrianHG]

Could be within a decade.......    What are they smoking?

Building HSR like this, regardless of technique used, requires a lot of coordination. If the government can secure funds and gain political support like in China, it is doable like in China. If not...

AND I REPEAT:

  What are they smoking?

[EEVblog]

The Hyperloop problem has been solved!, by a 13yo
 
I'll give her an A for effort and imagination though.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hyperloop-design-teenager/index.html

[coppice]

The Hyperloop problem has been solved!, by a 13yo
 
I'll give her an A for effort and imagination though.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hyperloop-design-teenager/index.html

Is that article explaining the idea badly, or does it make no sense at all?

[Cyberdragon]

The Hyperloop problem has been solved!, by a 13yo
 
I'll give her an A for effort and imagination though.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hyperloop-design-teenager/index.html

Is that article explaining the idea badly, or does it make no sense at all?

You can quite rubbing your eyes, I see the same thing, a regular high speed train somehow attached to the side of a redundant pnuematic tube system.

What the hell are they teaching those kids about physics?

[ludzinc]

The idea - build a second tunnel next to the first and drag the train in the vacuum tunnel with the first train by magnetic coupling.

Oh! And make it use 100% renewable energy.

Who’d a thunk it - all we need to do is specify that something uses 100% renewable energy and poof, Job ldone!!

[PlainName]

and drag the train in the vacuum tunnel with the first train by magnetic coupling

I am failing to grasp the problem which this solves.

[tom66]

The problem with high speed rail isn't getting up to speed, it's keeping the damn train from derailing.

You could make a 600 mph train with "relative" ease, but the chance of derailment is fairly high, especially given the near-mm tolerances that high speed rail operates on.

[nctnico]

The Hyperloop problem has been solved!, by a 13yo
 
I'll give her an A for effort and imagination though.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hyperloop-design-teenager/index.html

Is that article explaining the idea badly, or does it make no sense at all?

It makes no sense. It just proves that they don't teach basic physics to 13 year olds. Besides that the idea with a magnet in a secondary tube to tow a train along is over 100 years old.

[EEVblog]

and drag the train in the vacuum tunnel with the first train by magnetic coupling

I am failing to grasp the problem which this solves.

It attempts to solves the death trap that is Elon Musk's humans in a vacuum hyperloop. Which in itself didn't solve anything. it's turtles all the way down.

[soldar]

H. L. Mencken wrote that for every complex human problem, there is a solution that is neat, simple and wrong. A thirteen year old has found the solution that is neat, simple and wrong.

I am not too concerned about a teenager being ignorant. That is what being a teenager is about. What is more concerning is that reporters and media have such a degree of ignorance and incompetence that they would publish such drivel. That is a serious issue.

I remember decades ago every few years we would have the news that someone had invented a car that ran on water.

[KronotonKid]

H. L. Mencken wrote that for every complex human problem, there is a solution that is neat, simple and wrong...

If we totally strip Earth of its atmosphere then all electric trains and cars could operate more efficiently without all that drag. And, as a bonus, with no more CO2 we've eliminated global warming.

I remember decades ago every few years we would have the news that someone had invented a car that ran on water.

I have one. But I haven't been out fishing for the longest time and the outboard could probably use some looking after.

[0xdeadbeef]

Media loves the tale of the solitary genius who is smarter than the whole (inherently malevolent) industry - even more so if it's a child. Plus, the problem with the representation of science in media is that the people who write about it don't even fathom how little they actually know.
Nothing new though. Back in the eighties, newspapers here reported how students easily found a fraction that represent Pi exactly , somewhere in the 2000s, there was a report about a school girl who invented a breakthrough cryptography that would revolutionize the internet.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Most trains ran and all nuclears run on water. That girl surely is a cousin of Greta Thunberg.

[StillTrying]

It makes no sense. It just proves that they don't teach basic physics to 13 year olds. Besides that the idea with a magnet in a secondary tube to tow a train along is over 100 years old.

What about the judges, there's a form of collective stupidity.
The judges are all very clever people, none of them wants to be the first to say "Hang on, I don't understand this, it makes no 'king sense to me", so it all gets passed as a brilliant idea, with each judge individually thinking it's just him/her that doesn't have a clue, until it's too late.

[PlainName]

It attempts to solves the death trap that is Elon Musk's humans in a vacuum hyperloop.

Sure,  but the hyperloop at least had a problem to resolve: going faster than is practical using rails in open air. This 'solution' for the hyperloop issue appears to be to not go faster than a normal train. The only thing it seems to add is complexity, a huge cost to add a tube which will suffer all the failure modes of Musk's tubes, and completely blocking access to one side of the train and tracks.

[soldar]

What about the judges, there's a form of collective stupidity.
The judges are all very clever people, none of them wants to be the first to say "Hang on, I don't understand this, it makes no 'king sense to me", so it all gets passed as a brilliant idea, with each judge individually thinking it's just him/her that doesn't have a clue, until it's too late.

Well, it could be that this was indeed the best idea presented and all other entries were worse.

[nctnico]

What about the judges, there's a form of collective stupidity.
The judges are all very clever people, none of them wants to be the first to say "Hang on, I don't understand this, it makes no 'king sense to me", so it all gets passed as a brilliant idea, with each judge individually thinking it's just him/her that doesn't have a clue, until it's too late.

Well, it could be that this was indeed the best idea presented and all other entries were worse.

Hmm... 'Even in the world of losers there is a winner.'

[StillTrying]

Well, it could be that this was indeed the best idea presented and all other entries were worse.

It's more than 100% useless, I can't think what the others would have been.