How high (no, not an oriental joke!) can you lift water?

got that far?

Actually, I used to like Christopher Hodder Williams books as the stories (and the physics) seem so well researched.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+
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American werewolf in London?

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

well byzantine copper goes back to 400 AD so when was the novel situated?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

It says that once primed and used, they stay primed, so that shouldn't be a problem after the pump is commissioned.

Reply to
Davey

Byzantium is not England and, thanks to Charlemagne, by the ninth century most of Europe was using the silver penny as the medium of exchange.

The novel was set in the 1300s and the context was that a rich merchant only had a silver shilling (a coin that was not in circulation until

1509, when it was called a Testoon) to pay a tradesman as he disliked the weight of copper coins, which were not in circulation until Charles II introduced copper halfpennies and farthings in 1672.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

Ah. NOW it makes sense. Should have been silver pennies.

Its interesting how copper had value in the bronze age, but collapsed when the iron age came along and only silver and gold had value then..until the idea of money as a token, rather than something having much intrinsic value, came along.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

You can't use air pressure to pump over 34 feet as that is as much pressure as air can put on the column.

You can use mechanical means to raise it and when the pressure gets too much for the plumbing do it in stages. They can get oil out of wells hundreds of feet deep.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

Austins First Law of Economics is set out plainly at the start of her first chapter of Pride and Prejudice:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Nick

Reply to
Nick Odell

I think you mean 'atmoshperic pressure' not 'air pressure'.

I can assure you that 1000psi of air pressure is perfectly capable of blowingliquids more than 34 feet into the air.

No shit, sherlock?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No that's Austen's Law. Austin's law is

"If it doesnt fail by virtue of being badly made on a Friday, the engine will wear out or the lucas electrics develop and expensive fault, anyway"

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Eh? What? For f*ck's sake, if the pump depicted in the novel was actually incapable in reality of doing the job, the ant/protagonists would still be stuck there, unable to go anywhere. That's the kind of nit-picking detail that either makes a book worthy of suspension of disbelief for me (and I'll carry on reading it) or has me turning red at the ears and tossing the book in the bin, followed by swift note to the author, informing him of my despicion of physics illiterates.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

No, they don't. Not after the warranty is up, at any rate. You can absolutely guarantee that when you really need water, the bastard will need to be re-primed.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

True, but they left that bit out of the description!

Reply to
Davey

Then I suggest you avoid Jack Reacher novels entirely. I only buy them if they are 50p from a charity shop and I have nothing better to read.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

I do. Long ago.

Even then, they could be used more positively by spending the time tearing out the pages and threading a string through each corner for use in the staff /gardeners' loo.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

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