Xref: utzoo rec.autos:5937 talk.bizarre:6173 alt.flame:909
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!bu-cs!madd
From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: rec.autos,talk.bizarre,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Truly relevant discussion
Message-ID: <17251@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 10 Dec 87 18:27:45 GMT
References: <4134@bellcore.bellcore.com> <7106@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: madd@buita.UUCP (Jim Frost)
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 32

In article <7106@sunybcs.UUCP> ugjeffh@joey.UUCP (Jeffrey Horvath) writes:
>In article <4134@bellcore.bellcore.com> tr@wind.UUCP (tom reingold) writes:
>>
>>What color should my interior of my car be to make my car go faster?
>>
>>Enquiring minds want to know.
>>
>>Tom Reingold           
>
>  Why, I should imagine that you would want the interior parts that face
>foreward to be white, and the backwards facing parts to be black.
>
>  Reasoning:
>
>The black would absorb the energy of the light, thus transferring your energy
>to the car in the forward direction.  The white would reflect the light, thus
>reflecting potentially harmful backwards thrust. :-)
>
>  Of course, you should always drag race with your back to the sun.  Helps
>visibility too.

Oh, I don't know about that.  Consider the reasoning behind "solar
sails".  The sail is extremely reflective so that light coming after
that bounces off and some energy is transfered to the ship.  What
you'd want would be a silvered back and do whatever you want with the
front.  In order for any of the colors to make any difference, you
need a directional light source -- it MUST be behind you or you won't
gain anything.

tiny jim
madd@bu-it.bu.edu
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