Re: [LAD] OT: alternative fuel for cars

On Tue, Aug 05, 2008 at 05:16:18PM +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:

> I disagree. After all petrol is considered a fuel but unless you burn it
> you don't get much energy from it.

Petrol is considered a fuel because you can burn it,
and then it delivers thermal energy. In the same way
you can burn hydrogen, so it's a fuel. What remains
in that case is water. That doesn't make water any
more a fuel than the waste products of burning petrol.

> Also it is way more catchy...

Being catchy is no virtue. On the contrary, the
'catchy' way science is presented in the popular
media is doing more harm than anything else.
It creates the false illusion that the current
state of science can be understood in intuitive
ways, which is simply not the case.

That goes not only for e.g. physics which we
are discussing in this thread, but also for
'human' sciences such as psychology. Just ask
around: most people are convinced they has some
insight in the psychology of e.g. persons of some
public interest, e.g. noted criminals, by using
terms as 'the human mind', 'passions', 'the
unconscious', etc. etc. while scientific psychology
has discredited and dropped these useless inexact
terms for at leas the last forty years.

Ciao,

-- 
FA
Laboratorio di Acustica ed Elettroacustica
Parma, Italia
O tu, che porte, correndo si ?
E guerra e morte !
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