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Tim Taylor Technology: Difference between revisions
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== Real Life ==
* [[Truth in Television]]: Aircraft of all kinds (be they prop planes, helicopters or supersonic jets) do not always fly at their maximum speed. They have a 'cruise' speed at which they operate at optimum performance for distance, speed and fuel usage. The [
** The most notorious example is the Mig-25. It is "redlined" at Mach 2.8, though it can fly at Mach 3, but one aircraft that was tracked doing so ended up destroying its engines during the flight.
** Make that ALL aircraft. The Vne generally has less to do with the integrity of the motive power and everything to do with the fact that the airframe itself will start to come apart if the aircraft flies too fast.
** This applies to the four-stroke/two-stroke engine as well. These engines are usually never run anywhere near maximum RPM, for the reason that going that fast will cause a lot of mechanical wear and heat on the engine. Many cars sold have the ECU effectively cap the RPM before the redline (the area in the tachometer that has a red stripe along it). Of course, if you really need that power, you can hack the ECU to not do this.
** Also, combat airplanes technically can turn much tighter than they usually are made to - more often than not it's the pilot who can't take the fact that all ''his'' power (i.e. blood) is being [
* Similar to the aircraft example above, most military vehicles have governers to limit the amount of power the engines are capable of achieving; and thus limiting the vehicle's top speed. When deployed to a combat zone, one of the first things the crews do is remove, disable, or bypass the power governers.
** American military vehicle and radio systems, generators and other non-man-portable electronics, also have special circuit breakers to protect them from power surges or over-power states. In combat there are switches or software modes that will keep it running no matter what. It's called "[[Big Red Button|Battle Short]]" or "[[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Combat]]", basically a switch or software mode that allows the operator to bypass the circuit breaker in emergency situations.
* As seen in the film ''[[The Fast and The Furious]],'' [
** Nitrous oxide ([[N 2 O]]) breaks in the cylinder into nitrogen and oxygen. It increases both the concentration of oxygen, making the engine running hotter, and concentration of inert, increasing the cylinder pressure. This will result in a sudden and dramatic increase of revolutions.
*** This device was known as Haha-Gerät (Ha!-Ha! Device) in the WWII Luftwaffe. It enabled the pilot to squeeze some 60% more revolutions off the engine momentarily - enabling a troubled pilot to escape the enemy. It also worked as a psychological weapon; the Haha-Gerät spat out an enormous tongue of flame off the exhaust, giving an impression of the plane igniting. Often that was enough to convince the enemy that the plane was a kill already and give up the pursuit.
** Another similar device was WEP (War Emergency Power) on American turbocharged radial engines. It employed water-methanol mixture inhection in the cylinder.
* Our existing particle accelerators weren't capable of getting colliding particles to produce the Higgs boson particle. So we built the Large Hadron Collider, a 17 mile long particle accelerator, to give us ''more power!''
** And if that doesn't work, [
* This is basically the whole idea behind overclocking computer components. Likewise, sometimes defective parts can be 'fixed' by adding more voltage to force enough power through the problem. In the latter case, this is mostly a short term solution as too much power will cause issues of its own and long term exposure to overvolting will reduce the life span of the device.
* At the [
* The human body often works this way. Muscles not getting enough oxygen? Crank up the heartbeat and respiration! And if ''that's'' not enough, lactic acid fermentation will provide you with the ''more power'' you need!
** And if ''that's'' not enough? Well, only a third of your muscles normally operate at any one time. Throw them all into gear. (Note that doing this causes massive tissue damage, so the body will save it for live-or-die situations. But this is where stories of people lifting cars unaided come from.)
* Railguns and coilguns work this way. The higher the electric charge in the rails is, the faster the projectile travels. Since railguns rely on the kinetic energy of the projectile to do damage, more power directly equals more firepower. On the downside, the faster the projectile travels, the more friction it generates, causing the rails to heat up and warp.
* As mentioned in a couple of previous examples, nuclear power plants (and to a lesser extent conventional ones) have variable power output and "100% power" generally refers to the maximum output within acceptable parameters. So it's possible, but very dangerous, to operate above 100%.
** The WWER 440 reactors at the [[NP Ps]] [
* In closely matched street races, try turning off the A/C.
* The American "Big Three" car companies tend to take this approach to designing cars, often focusing on ramping up size and engine power and flaunting their '''''MORE POWER!!''''' in commercials. Like Tim Taylor's attempts, this blew up in their faces when the price of gas shot up, tanking demand for their powerful gas-guzzlers.
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** Also played straight by the Bugatti Veyron Supersport. When the base model Bugatti Veyron's top speed record was beaten by the SSC Ultimate Aero, Volkswagen resorted to this trope to reclaim the speed record with the Supersport - [[Up to Eleven|they added around 300HP to the already powerful engine (which was already rated at over 900HP!)]].
** Ingeniously averted by many European and Japanese carmakers, who can somehow squeeze out performance from their cars without resorting to more power. An example is the 2007 Nissan GT-R, which despite being heavier and having less power, can keep up with the 2009 Chevy Corvette C6 ZR-1 on the Nürburgring Nordeschleife as shown [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1h7S2Pa3Ho here]. And even with a bit more power, the upcoming [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQn6FF1VQQ 2012 Nissan GT-R] is still less powerful and heavier than the Corvette ZR-1, but already demonstrated potential superior performance in early tests.
* [
** Similarly, jet engines can sustain short bursts over their maximum rated thrust to take off or abort a landing.
* The ''[
* Laser pickups in CD players usually go bad either due to increasing opacity of the lens, or reduced power output of the diode. In theses cases, a very Tim Taylor fix of upping the calibration trimmer (increasing the laser's power) is employed.
* Similar to the ''Samuel B. Robberts'' example above, we has a civillian example of Tim Tayloring for an emergancy: The [
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