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Mr. Luddite

On 12/2/2015 5:01 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 23:24:43 -0500,
wrote:

Dick, your experience with fabricating large scale vacuum systems
might be just what the doctor ordered for these projects:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-race-to-create-elon-musks-hyperloop-heats-up-1448899356?mod=trending_now_5

===

No interest in working out a manufacturing process for 300 miles of
high vacuum train tubes?

I can't begin to imagine it.

The largest, continuous vacuum "system" I was involved with (in a very
small way) was a project called "LIGO". It's purpose is to detect
gravitational waves as predicted by Einstein. . The LIGO system
consisted of two high vacuum chambers or tubes in a "L" configuration.
Each leg of the "L" is 2.5 miles long.

Simple explanation of it's operation:

Using a beam splitter, a laser is fired down each 2.5 mile long vacuum
tube simultaneously. Using interferometers, the two beams are measured
for any phase shift that takes place. There are two of these LIGO
facilities, one located in Louisiana and the other in Washington State.
The two facilities are tied to each other for measurement comparisons.