a different view of the world and what we do to it

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This land that I traveled
Once fashioned with beauty
Now stands with scars on her face

The wide open spaces
Are closing in quickly
With the weight of the whole human race

And its not that I blame them
For claiming her bounty
I just wish that they’d taken her slow


-From a song by Willie Nelson-









Lighten up
The world & how it works
Copyright © 2003
Heie Will Jansen
willgohome@aol.com


Table of contents



Introduction 3


Chapter 1 How the World works 14


Chapter 2 Balance and boundary layer 30


Chapter 3 A building legacy 41


Chapter 4 Methods of lightweight construction 47


Chapter 5 Buildings 54


Chapter 6 Cars 57


Chapter 7 Boats 60


Chapter 8 Aircraft 65


Chapter 9 Land 73


Wrap up 86

Lighten up…
the world & how it works
Copyright © 2003
Heie Will Jansen

Introduction


The purpose of this book is to provide you with a very different yet very logical approach to the reasons for the many, so called, “Acts of God” that are recently becoming more and more commonplace in our world. In the past fifty years or so, we have been experiencing an increase in the numbers of natural disasters. In the past, these “natural occurrences” were simply a part of this earth’s way of getting itself ready for us human beings. It needed the billions of years it took to acquire just the right conditions for us to thrive here on this beautiful and perfectly operating spinning globe. We are the only life forms ever here, that have the creativity, awareness and reasoning power to change the way the world works. Before us, all other forms of life simply adapted to their environment or perished. It is what is commonly known as “natural selection.” The human race is the first race to be able to “select” what it does and how it evolves. We have recently, recently that is, in earth’s time, begun to change the surface of the earth in an “unnatural” fashion. We have concentrated our building efforts to only 5% of the surface of this world. This dense and enormous concentration of weight in the form of cities and infrastructures has begun to affect the balance and the rate of the worlds turning. The earth is “wobbling” more than it did prior to our excessive building. This slight imbalance we are causing is but one symptom of a planet in trouble. Another symptom is the fact that the rate at which it turns is decreasing. It is not much of a decrease but nevertheless, it is a decrease. Because the world is such a large and extremely complicated system, even the smallest changes in the way it is supposed to operate can be a disaster for those on its surface. Tornadoes and hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are some of those disasters. Global warming and rising sea levels are others.

These happenings are the natural responses of a living earth. They are the responses to the changes we, the human beings that were put in charge of this earth are making without fully understanding the consequences of what we do, and do so quickly.

Scientist’s all over the world are aware of these phenomena and are diligently studying and recording them trying to determine the reasons for the recent upswings in these cataclysmic events. To date, no logical all encompassing explanation for the rapid increases in what we are experiencing worldwide has come forward. These “acts of God” are in reality this planets desperate attempt to counteract the acts of men. Acts that are literally causing a serious deterioration in the way the world works, a way that has taken this earth billions of years to perfect.

This beautiful planet we call Mother Earth and which we share with all the other life forms has finally positioned herself so that she can supply us with all the things we need to ensure our survival. She turns exactly once a day for the proper amount of sunlight and orbits the sun exactly once a year to give us the required seasons. She has spent these past billions of years shifting land masses and creating oceans and mountains in just the right places so that she can revolve on her axis smoothly and in balance. It is this smoothness and balance of her turning that we are affecting.

Mother Earth has learned how to decorate herself with just the right amount of vegetation in the form of forests, jungles, grasses and bushes to ease her spin thru the atmosphere. She knows that if her surface were not covered with this vegetation it would be more difficult for her to spin thru the resistance of the air that surrounds her, just as it would impede her turning if the surface were too rough. If it is too smooth, as when there is insufficient vegetation, then the atmosphere would tend to stick to the surface of the earth causing drag. On the other hand, when it is too rough, as with the many buildings and other structures that we create then drag again is created. When we look at our world we see all the beautiful land and seascapes. There is a very important reason for all this beauty besides being a gift to our eyes and our hearts or to provide materials, food and oxygen.

In her own way, Mother Earth, over time, has discovered that just the right amount of this surface irregularity allows her to revolve thru the atmosphere in the most efficient manner possible. It is what we know in technical terms as “boundary layer lubrication.” Birds have it as feathers and fish have it as scales and we human beings employ this phenomenon with airplanes and atomic submarines to make them more efficient as they move thru their elements of air and water. The earth developed just the right combination of these surface irregularities and it knows that too much or too little of this surface irregularity will be a detriment to its turning.

This Super Civilization we are all a part of has somehow managed to downgrade these methods of efficiency. We add friction to the earth’s turning by removing too much vegetation designed as a lubrication, and then we also add friction to its turning by building too much and too tall of what we build. We seem to have figured out how to be double trouble to this earth’s efforts to remain at a constant and smooth rotational speed. When this rotating ball is forced to expend more energy in order to maintain the perfect speed it must have, it develops certain symptoms. Contrary to popular opinion, the Earth does not spin in space; it spins inside its atmosphere which offers resistance to its turning. Without this resistance we would not have the moving wind that is used to create the mix of varying climates that we need in order to survive and prosper.

This Earth is a rechargeable, battery operated, electric motor which uses lightning as its energy source to keep the battery in the interior of the earth charged and turning at a constant speed. When a motor, any motor, has an added load applied to it and is required to maintain exactly the same speed it had before the additional load was introduced then something happens. It heats up. It is the destruction of much of the greenery along with the inordinate amount of heavy building that is causing this motor to require more energy than normal to turn at the same speed it established to be proper. In the case of an electric motor, more energy means more electricity. More electricity means more heat. The added friction we are placing on our world by what we build and destroy is the major contributing factor to the global warming we are currently experiencing. We are told that the pollutants we put into the atmosphere and shifting ocean currents are probably the reason for global warming. As I will explain later on, they are not the only ones we need to consider as they are not the root cause of our problems. Melting Polar icecaps diluting the salinity of the oceans and changing the way the currents of the oceans flow are but symptoms of a world that we have forced to try harder to maintain an extremely complicated set of operating standards.

. A very dramatic example of the consequence of what we do is the more than 500 percent increase in tornado activity that we have been experiencing in the past 50 years in the Midwest and Southwest of this country. This heretofore unexplained tornado increase has been documented by Government agencies here in the United States and similar effects are happening worldwide. We know it is happening but we don’t know why. Later in this book I will explain how the buildings that we build are causing this extraordinary amount of tornadoes. Volcanic activity is also increasing worldwide and will be explained why this is because of the removing and moving of unimaginable amounts of weight in the forms of minerals, petroleum, coal, gases and other elements we call resources that we use daily.

The average person living thru these times does not see what is happening as something too much out of the ordinary because we are right in the middle of it. These historically unusual geo-disturbances have been accelerating in frequency over the past 50 years or so and closely parallel the many changes we are making to the surface of our little blue marble we call home. We tend to consider these happenings as slightly irregular but certainly nothing to be overly concerned about. Of course those of us that have had direct experience with one of these unfortunate events will disagree. It is only when one puts things into a perspective that takes into account how long we modern human beings are here as compared to how long the earth is here that the suddenness from the earth’s point of view of what is happening becomes apparent. What we are seeing lately is just dear old Mother Earth straightening out the mess we are making.

The purpose of this book is to create an awareness of serious problems with our home called Earth, problems that we don’t recognize and that will soon wreak havoc on us all if not addressed and corrected. We have all heard a little about these global climate changes and other seemingly natural occurrences. We tend to leave it up to our governments and scientists to take care of these problems for us; after all, that’s what we pay them for. Unfortunately, what is happening is something that no person or government has had any experience with. These changes we are going thru have never happened before in the history of the world. This is the first time that there have been so many of us, so good at what we do, that we are literally screwing up the way the world works. It is something we all should concern ourselves with if we want to leave our children and our children’s children a happy healthy home.

When you consider how fast we are moving ahead in our capabilities to change this earth we inhabit, it should also be taken into account that because of how fast we are at what we do; things could go to hell in a hand basket quicker than we think. Past civilizations are recognized for how they built their cities and monuments and other structures. The Egyptians of course were noted for their pyramids, and the Incas and Aztecs are remembered for their temples. We of course think of the Romans and their Coliseums and other spectacular buildings and so on and so on. There are thousands of scientists all over the world studying the remains of these civilizations. They try to determine how they lived and why they failed. Very few, if any, of these investigators are studying our own present day efforts in construction and what might be the consequences of what we do. Construction is and always has been the biggest business on earth. It is the hallmark of each civilization but with us there is a difference. We are doing much more of it faster than any other prior civilization. So much more and so much faster that we are actually unbalancing and heating up our pretty little rotating world.

History shows us that the major concern and detriment of the world and its civilizations has been war. Wars have been the destructive power on this earth since time immemorial. We are almost at the stage of our development where war between nations will be a thing of the past. The smaller wars being fought in the form of so called “terrorism” is at least less destructive of the world itself than the prior forms. Hopefully, this too shall pass. Later in this book I will offer some suggestions on how to alleviate the inequalities that are the cause of this current sadness. I will show how to provide more living space for those crowded, yet divided and contested areas.

What this book is about is a different kind of “war” that we are engaged in; we are at war with the world but don’t seem to know it. This is a war we cannot win unless we understand just what the world wants. It wants to be a good home for us and will fight to do so. The world, being so much bigger and more powerful than us will easily make it impossible for us to continue waging this “war” we are currently waging. Our weapon of choice in this war is what we call construction.

If we continue accelerating our building efforts as we are doing, we should not be surprised if one day soon, our dear Mother Earth decides that, in order to correct for some imbalances we are causing, she moves a major piece of her surface around. I do not mean a small 8.0 or 9.0 earthquake; I mean a major shift of a large piece of populated land, or the eruption of a volcano like the one sitting beneath the Yellowstone National Park. It is estimated that this particular “super volcano” could be 1000 times worse than St. Helens that blew not too long ago. These are the sorts of events that would take and ruin the lives of millions and throw us back to the Stone Age. To Mother Earth that would simply be her way of adjusting for the increasing wobble she experiences as a result of our heavy handed and haphazard way of building on her surface. This is especially true in the northern hemisphere where most of the land is. She will do whatever she has to do in order to add or move land as weight where she needs it, again and again, until she feels herself back in equilibrium. She has already started.

If we human beings hadn’t made any obvious changes to this planet lately then I would not be writing this book because it would be obvious that what is happening is fairly ordinary. It is just little ole earth doing what it usually does. This is not the case, this is not ordinary. What we are seeing is the result of what we, as a very advanced civilization, are capable of and are doing and doing faster and faster all the time. Look around you; it is called population explosion and the never before seen corresponding construction to support this enormous growth of the human race. Along with the construction comes the destruction of what was there before we build, such as the forests and fields and other natural landscape.

This planet may be big but when we look back at our recent progress, one can see that size is inconsequential to what we are capable of doing. Anyone that has taken a drive across this country or visited places in other parts of the world they have not seen for 10 or 20 years cannot help but be amazed at what we have accomplished in just the recent past. Haven’t you ever gone back to a small town you knew or where you grew up and every road and building in town was unfamiliar? Did you find yourself needing a road map just to get around? It used to be that we would look up and be thrilled if we saw a building more than 20 or 30 stories high, today we barely notice them. Some of us have gone back 50 years later and are amazed at how much we have “accomplished”. This is happening all over the world. We have gotten past the point of doing things just to provide for our needs. Not too long ago an apartment or a small house and maybe a car were considered a mark of success or being a part of the good life. Today it could be thought of as someone living close to the poverty level. I am not lamenting the “good old days,” rather, I am trying to point out how much more stuff one needs and wants just to be considered “normal” today. We now are at a very dangerous stage of our development as a species, where ego, greed and materialism have become a more powerful driving force than survival. It is true that we have built great cities and structures in the past. This was mainly because of the inflated ego of a relatively few leaders and kings who wanted immortality or because of religious beliefs, but what they did then is nothing compared to what we do today. Compared to us as builders, we make the ancients look like they were children playing with a set of Lincoln logs or toy blocks.

Today it is different. It is different because of the tremendous advances we have made in construction technology, knowledge in general and the very fact that there are so many more of us. Historians estimate that only a few thousand years ago there were about 10 million of us on this planet whereas today there are approximately 7 billion. Keep in mind that a billion is one thousand million. In the past if a king wanted to build a city, a monument or other large structure, it took a long time and there was plenty of room to do it in. Today this power is in the hands of anyone with an idea for a project and the ability to create the proper paperwork that shows a profit. Today we have so many more rich people able to fuel the building machine. If an individual decides he would like to have a skyscraper to satisfy his ego or greed, it can be done and done extremely fast. Just find some vacant space or knock down a smaller building and put a skyscraper in its place. The two or three years needed to do this are nothing compared to how long things took in the past. In the past, the earth had time to compensate for what we do, today she has very little time so she is forced to compensate faster which means more violently.


I will describe how to make our living and working structures and associated infrastructures more user and planet friendly. I will offer ways and means to improve the way we build our land, sea and air vehicles not to mention, the building of land itself. I will show how to build what we need without having such an adverse impact on our environment. I will explain the real reasons for the recent increases in world temperatures and sea levels. I will also provide information for those that study this that will bring to light other problems being caused by the melting of the North and South Pole icecaps. Rising sea levels and shifting ocean currents from global warming are not the only effect we are seeing from the melting of all this ice. It is also a matter of the weight of all this ice being redistributed around the world and no longer being used as a factor in the balancing of the worlds turning.

I will provide answers to why we have so many more tornadoes each year and also why hurricanes forming in the Atlantic are on the rise. All of these “happenings” are not simply because we have better communications today and are able to hear about them more often on TV. It is not just because we are putting more pollutants into the air, it is more than that. These things are happening now, more than ever, because there are more of us and we are building more stuff for us than ever before. In the past, a few hundred square feet of shelter or working space was sufficient for each person or family. Today a few thousand is the norm and the norm is going up all the time along with how many of us there are. There is a building revolution that is happening and it is accelerating exponentially. Along with having more people, we have more people that require themselves to have more space to be in as well as more stuff that also require more space. Today we also have to build many more factories, office buildings and other miscellaneous structures than ever before. We also need shelter for our many transportation vehicles as well as other separate places to sell what we make and the roads and infrastructures to get back and forth between them. Add all this up and you have what is known as a Super Civilization. Has anyone ever considered what all this weighs? Add a tiny lead weight in the wrong place on a spinning tire and see what happens to the balance. Keep in mind that the surface speed of your tire is about 60 mph while the earth’s is 1000 mph. The higher the surface speed, the less weight you need to affect the balance.

We are building haphazardly using heavier than necessary materials in the wrong places and removing much of the green that, as will be explained, plays a definite role between the earth and its atmosphere. As any good doctor would tell you, you need to look at the whole patient, not just the individual symptoms to determine a proper cure. Our patient, the earth, is sick and struggling and we need to find out why so we can prescribe a proper cure. If we don’t cure the problems the earth is having, we will be the ones to suffer. Some of us already have.


Here we are, us tiny little beings on the surface of the earth going about our business of living. As we grow stronger in numbers and knowledge we use this tremendous power to create. We create a multitude of things to enhance our lives and make ourselves more comfortable. We have learned how to build great cities and corresponding infrastructures. We have learned how to build super machines to move massive amounts of materials from one place to another to build these cities. Our expanding knowledge has allowed us to find and use the seemingly infinite supply of resources necessary to feed these cities, suburbs and transportation systems in between these cities. Our cities now are getting so big that the suburbs of these cities have become large cities themselves. The signs of our problems are becoming more evident each day; we do not recognize these problems because they are “hidden in plain view.” Just as fleas on a dog can cause discomfort to a dog without knowing it, we are causing discomfort to mother earth and she is starting to scratch.

Because we are human beings and not fleas, we have the ability to recognize the signs of this discomfort. We can and must do something about it before our taken for granted and all providing mother kicks us out of the house. Like all children we make mistakes in order to learn what not to do and then must apply these lessons learned. Mother Earth wants us to stop acting like children because she knows we are at the stage in our evolution of becoming responsible adults and she expects us to behave accordingly. When a plant or an animal doesn’t evolve in a fit way it will tend to disappear and become extinct. These plants and animals only have to worry about their own evolution because they have no real control over what happens to the environment around them.

We human beings do have control over our environment; therefore, how we treat the environment is an integral part of our evolution. We not only have to evolve our minds and bodies in a way consistent with good growth, we also have to show that we can allow this Mother Earth to evolve in a similar fashion. So far she has only been gently nagging us with a small earthquake here and a little volcano puff there. If we do not grow up she will be forced to show us the tough love of all good parents.

Our individual mothers know that when we come of age we need to leave home and create our own lives. Our collective mother which is this planet knows that we cannot leave home and therefore must show us how unhappy she is with our disrespect and sloppy housekeeping. She knows that for us to remain at home and continue multiplying in a way consistent with the way that has been set up for us, we must learn how to keep our home clean and orderly. Mother Earth has been around a long, long time and will continue to be. If we don’t start to listen to what she is trying to tell us by the signs she gives us, we will be the ones that have to go. Since there is no other place for us to go to, we must pay attention. If we do not pay attention, we will simply pay.

For the past fifty or so years, Mother Earth has been trying to tell us how unhappy and in ill health she is. She shakes more than usual in the form of more earthquakes, and gasps a lot in the form of more volcanic eruptions. She has a rising fever in the form of global warming. Her breath, the atmosphere which we breathe, is becoming rather unpleasant and is wheezier in the form of more hurricanes and tornadoes. She is losing her hair in the form of deforestation and rashes are showing up as improperly planned cities and infrastructures and the associated destruction of her natural earth covering.

All of these signs should tell us of the declining condition of our mother, could we but read them. I suppose that, like most children, being selfish, we don’t consider the feelings of our mother. The point is, we are no longer children, the human race is now grown up but we don’t seem to know it. Mother Earth has given us everything we need, nurtured us and shown us nonjudgmental love. We are smart enough to create all the things we want and need to make us happy and keep ourselves entertained but are we smart enough and compassionate enough to notice that our poor old mother isn’t well because of our doings? Are we to go down in history as people that just didn’t care? Will we even have history? We are all members of a family called the human race and our family has a parent, a parent which also happens to be our home. This book is designed to explain how the world works and why our Mother Earth has these problems, how to fix them and why we have to lighten up.
Chapter 1 How the world works


Everything we see in this world, including the world itself, has to keep advancing and changing. Nothing is allowed to stand still. Either advance or die. It is the natural order of things. However, sometimes too much advancement, too fast can create problems.

The earth has been moving and changing for a very long time. The latest estimates put it at about four billion years old. There are some that say it is more and some say less. Actually, the exact amount of time isn’t all that important. Personally, I can’t imagine what a few million years is like much less a few billion. The 64 years I’ve used up so far seems like a lot to me. The point is that this world has had a very long time to perfect what it is supposed to do, which is to go around the sun in a very precise and consistent manner as well as rotate on its own axis in a precise and consistent manner.

Just like us, the earth had to learn how to evolve in order to grow into what it is today. It had to try different orbits at different speeds and then figure out just how fast to rotate so that it would maintain that course exactly. It established an elliptical orbit rather than a perfect circle in its travels around the sun because it learned that the suns gravity was stronger in some places than others. Each little correction it made took a long time because it had to wait for the climates to change and settle down and see if that particular method of going around the sun would be suitable for life. The earth then it had to wait and see if whatever life was here flourished under those particular conditions. Sometimes the animals and vegetation that thrived after each correction were deemed unsuitable for human beings to associate with so it tried something different. After each tiny correction, it took a very long time to see the results of each little change it made. Ice ages, mountain formations, floods, land dispersal, ocean locations and things like that are some of the results of these corrections. Dinosaurs may have been the result of one of her corrections that didn’t work out. This world has always known we were coming and that it had to meet a certain set of standards to accommodate us. It may not have known we were coming as you would know a friend was coming to dinner at a certain time, but it knew never the less. Just as a tree knows it must send its roots downward, it knew.

After billions of years it finally figured out just where it needed to be and at what speed to travel at in order to sustain life as we know it today, then it had to make sure it could stay there. One thing it had to concern itself with was its rotational speed. The fact that the earth is a giant gyroscope is what keeps it exactly where it is supposed to be as it orbits the sun.

A baseball pitcher puts a spin on the ball as he throws it to give it a more programmed and steady flight. Rifling or the twist inside the barrel of a gun causes the bullet to spin to achieve the same purpose. The reason spitballs were made illegal in baseball is because the extra weight of a little bit of spit or some hair pomade on one spot on the surface of the ball caused the ball to become erratic and extremely hard to hit because it wobbled. In combination with finding the right speed to rotate at for navigational purposes, the earth also had to concern itself with the balance between its own gravity and the centrifugal force of its spinning. It needed to have just slightly more gravitational pull inwards so that the things on the surface wouldn’t fly off. Things like us. Imagine if Mother Earth didn’t spin at exactly the right speed to create one “G” of gravity. More than one “G” and we could all be three feet tall. Less than one “G” and we would all be bumping our heads every time we went thru a door or everybody would be on a basketball team.

The earth being a gyroscope as well as a home for us means that it took a lot of trial and error for it to learn how to be perfect. It had to learn how to multi-task. Rotation and orbital speed have to be just right. It needed time to develop all the processes and mechanisms to keep it turning at exactly the right speed and at the proper angle to the sun. As it taught itself how to spin at just the right speed it also had to concern itself with the balance between the gravitational pull of the sun and the centrifugal force of its orbit which tends to pull it away from the sun. It is like a major tug of war between the two. Just a little bit more of its own centrifugal force, which is a product of its orbital speed, and it would fly out of orbit and end up going straight out to space. Just a little bit more of the suns gravity than its own centrifugal force and it would end up flying into the sun. Both scenarios would of course be a bad thing for us. Before anything like this happened, the earth would correct any problems we cause it by our changing of the surface. She will and does do this in spite of her “motherly” instincts. She would rather lose some of us than all of us.

Because there are many complicated forces at work, even the slightest disruption to this complicated and delicately balanced system that the earth has finally established, will have dire consequences. There is literally no room for error. The slightest change to its rotational speed or its orbit around the sun that it has not done of its own accord will eventually lead to disaster. The disaster I speak of is ours, not the Earth’s. The Earth will survive because it will do whatever it must. We will not because we are weaker and least able to endure the changes she will bring about to ensure her own survival. Its sort of like a “catch 22” for Mother Earth, she will kill us so that she will survive so that we will survive.

Human beings have inhabited the world for only a very small fraction of the time the world has existed. A friend gave me a very descriptive analogy of this time comparison I would like to share with you. He said that if you stretch out your arms, that amount would represent how old the earth is. If you take one swipe with a nail file on the tip of your fingernail, what came off would represent the time human beings have been here. This same analogy could be used to demonstrate the period of time this book concerns itself with. The past 50 years would be what comes off the tip of your fingernail compared to the time humans are on this earth which is represented by your outstretched arms. I like to think that we were put here at the time the earth was ready for us. We were installed as caretakers to keep it in good running order and at the same time advance civilization. Lately, we have become damned good at building things, too damned good in fact, especially big things and so very many of them so fast, that we are becoming a detriment to the perfect operation of our little blue marble. Our destructive talents are readily apparent along with our creative ones. It is said that not too long ago, a squirrel could travel from one coast to the other in this country without ever having to touch the ground because of the abundance of trees. Obviously, this is not possible today. Today, a squirrel would be lucky just to make it across the street. We have made many large alterations to the surface of the earth, especially in our recent history. The world is alive. It has continuously adjusted and corrected itself to changes that it has faced over time. It now has to face us.

Time for the world is different than our own time. Our time is so fast compared to the world’s time that it is having difficulty keeping up with the many dramatic and rapid changes we have imposed on it. Especially those changes we have made in the last fifty years or so. If we are to survive, we are the ones that have to modify our actions, if we do not; we will be gone long before the world is gone. The world can only do what it was programmed to do; we on the other hand can do whatever we feel like doing. It’s why we are in charge of the world. The power that put us in charge knows that along with responsibility goes authority. I wonder if the higher power that gave us the power to do as we like knew that we would abuse that power. I suppose its all part of the process of learning what not to do. Only by doing it wrong, would we would know for sure it’s wrong. Only after that will we know for sure what we do is right. It’s kind of like growing up.

What we are seeing lately are signs of our ignorance of how this world works. We do not understand that global balance and global friction are elements of the earth’s rotation that we can affect by how and where we modify the surface. We are on a world desperately trying to counteract our actions and balance itself to maintain the conditions suitable to the life currently on it. We need to help the world reestablish its previous balance because we are the ones that are the cause of its current unbalance. We must desist from the way we progress and find better ways to do it. If we don’t, she will do it all by herself. When that happens, we will be like the children that kept on misbehaving until the surprise of the inevitable punishment came about. Surely, we have grown enough not to let that happen.

If we look around us we can see that everything keeps adjusting and changing itself to acquire the form and traits necessary for survival. We do it, animals do it, and trees do it. The earth does it too. Even mountains grow and subside to accommodate the needs of the earth and in turn the needs of the human race. Continents have split and moved to allow this spinning planet to add or remove weight wherever it deemed necessary to establish an equality of weight around the world. Rivers, seas and oceans were created and shifted according to its needs. Volcanoes were activated to correct for any changes in its equilibrium by creating new land where required. Earthquakes are what we feel when the earth has to shift land whenever and wherever it feels it needs it. Forests, jungles, bushes and deserts along with oceans, rivers, mountains and valleys are all part of the mechanisms needed for it to rotate efficiently as it turns thru the atmosphere. All of these things are going on simultaneously and orchestrated by a sentient being, an alive and perfectly programmed entity created for the sole purpose of making a smoothly functioning home for us.

Why does it seem strange that the DNA of all organisms on this planet is so closely related? DNA is essentially the same stuff in a human and a fly as well as a mouse. It has been discovered that most of our genes and most of those of any other organism have no purpose, no purpose that can be accounted for other than to reproduce themselves as genes. Some DNA is to give you a certain eye color, some to tell you how to grow hair and so on. However, most of it is just there, seemingly with nothing to do. Nature, in my humble opinion doesn’t do things just for the hell of it. Everything I see or even the things I cannot see have some sort of part to play in this drama we call life. Scientists tell us that there is a majority of everything’s genes that are reproduced over and over without any apparent purpose. There must be a reason for these unaccounted for genes. DNA is after all, a plan, a plan of the future. We and everything else on this planet, including the planet itself are all part of the same plan. The 60 percent or more of the seemingly unused DNA that all organisms have is there for a reason. Nature wouldn’t waste her time reproducing time and time again the major part of every organisms DNA if she didn’t have a plan in mind. All this DNA which appear to have no purpose is in reality the background plan, or you could call it the master plan. It is the plan to steadily advance civilization and all things are a part of this plan. There is a prerequisite to this plan though; it needs to be followed in an orderly and balanced fashion. It appears that human being type organisms are the only ones not adhering to the plan.

. We are the noble beings of this world. We are able to choose our destiny. The earth has no choice but to do what it was made to do, unlike us it cannot allow mistakes without immediately correcting them. When it finds itself operating outside its given parameters it must take action to correct any improper acts made by others. If we continue our efforts in the fashion that we do now, the earth will accelerate its efforts to counteract us, without regard to us.

The earth and the things attached to it, or better said, the vegetable and mineral worlds do what they do as a natural instinct. They have no choice because their instructions come from a higher power which I call God but you can call it nature or whatever you like. They simply cannot disobey their orders. The nature of fire is to burn, the nature of water is to flow. The nature of the earth is to rotate and go around the sun in just the right way so that we human beings can thrive. This planet has been programmed to become a comfortable place for human beings but it doesn’t know what a human being is. It doesn’t exist on the same plane or level that we do. A rock has no awareness of the life of a tree or a human being. A tree has no awareness of the life of a human being or a rock but they do know what they are supposed to do. We, on the other hand and animals to a lesser degree, are aware of rocks and trees and have choices. We can do as we like but we do not have the same clear cut instructions as the other domains.

We have the ability to change our minds and accordingly the surface of the earth and thereby its interaction with its covering of the atmosphere and how it rotates on its axis. We have the ability to move and remove large amounts of materials and weight on the surface of this planet. This ability has developed in an orderly and steady fashion since we have been here. However, in recent years our abilities to create and construct, move and remove have far exceeded our knowledge of our world and what we are doing to it. Today we can add cities with towering skyscrapers and the corresponding infrastructures to the surface of this finely balanced spinning ball in just a few years. We dam up rivers that create very large lakes. We remove large portions of the natural surface. We do this without giving thought as to how this might affect how the world turns. The earth is starting to show signs of difficulty in dealing with the things we are doing to it.

We know lots of things about our world and even things about other worlds, but we don’t seem to know the overall picture of how our world works. If we knew, then we would know for sure that in many respects, our world is not working exactly right. It is not well. It seems to have a slight rising fever and in order for us to find out why, we need to first understand what is causing it and then prescribe the right medicine. Slightly rising temperatures and sea levels are only harbingers of what is to come.

Everything we know of that moves and has resistance has to have some sort of an energy source in order to keep moving. Why do we think that the earth just keeps on turning and will keep on doing it forever? It always has as far as we are concerned, so why worry about it? Besides, it’s so big that we really can’t hurt it. We know that when something is in space it will just keep on going because there is no resistance. We take it for granted that it will keep on turning at just the right speed simply because that’s its nature. I believe that this earth will do just that, it will keep on turning at just the right speed in spite of what we do. However there is a price that will have to be paid for the extra energy the earth has to expend to overcome what we do. The price will be paid by us.

This perfect little ball will do everything it has been taught to do to keep itself fit and trim. It will shift land, ice and water, it will produce more storms and lightning to provide itself with more energy, it will blow away with tornadoes and hurricanes things that do not conform to its way of being. It will raise the levels of the oceans to eliminate the concentration of structures we have put on the coastlines of the oceans. It will, for a period of time, find it necessary to raise its temperature by working harder to get itself back into shape so that it can be what it is supposed to be, a healthy home for us.

This earth isn’t dumb, it isn’t intelligent in the way we are either, but it knows what it must do even if it means removing some of the causes of its problems which are us. The problems are of course the detrimental structures and changes we make to the earth. Detrimental that is, to the way the world is supposed to work. The earth will not only remove the things we have done to it, which are really the symptoms of its problems in its way of looking at it. In the process of its housecleaning efforts it will also remove the root cause of the problems it has, too many of us doing too much too fast in the wrong places. It’s that old “catch 22” thing again. In some mysterious way, it knows it must be a lifeboat for us out here in space but if we keep on rocking the boat then some of will have to go if we don’t settle down and behave. She has already started on her campaign to stabilize the boat. We are being given the signs. If we recognize the predicament we are in we can save ourselves the agony of what is to come by settling down and doing the right thing. We can lighten up.

How can us tiny little creatures do anything that would change the way something this big works? After all, it’s been doing just fine for billions of years. We all know from the satellites we put up that once something is in space it will just keep on going. The earth is in space, so what’s the problem?

I think we are overlooking something. It is true that as we orbit the sun there is no resistance to the earth with its surrounding atmosphere because the atmosphere is in space. However, as I mentioned before, what about the earths other movement? As the earth goes around the sun it also spins. The spinning motion, called rotation, unlike the orbital motion, does have resistance because the earth itself is not in space. This planet is separated from space by its atmosphere. The atmosphere, it is true, is in space and therefore has no resistance to its movement around the sun. However, because the earth is inside its blanket of atmosphere it does not enjoy the same benefits of perpetual motion possible in space. There is a certain resistance or friction between the earth and its atmosphere as it rotates inside it. An airplane moving thru the atmosphere has resistance which is why it needs a motor. A bird has to flap its wing to stay in the air. Alterations that we make to this finely tuned interface between the Earth and its sky can and are having consequences. The motor of the earth is working harder to overcome the added load we are subjecting it to. It is heating up.

The results of carelessness with our own persons, houses and neighborhoods or what we call our environment become readily apparent to us. When we don’t bathe often enough we start to look, feel and smell dirty. When we don’t practice good housekeeping it becomes noticeable rather quickly. If we don’t maintain our houses, the neighborhood deteriorates and we can see the results. We can see these things because they are close to us. The results of carelessness with the Earth, our environment, and the atmosphere, are not so noticeable to us because they are so much bigger. Sloppy housekeeping on a bigger scale is just as important even though we cannot readily see or do not understand the signs of this inattention to our home.

Increases in tornadoes are a direct result of increasing the size and numbers of buildings and other structures in the path of natural wind flow, especially the skyscrapers. A building sticking up in the air is a vortex generator. Tornados and hurricanes are vortexes. The more buildings and cities we add to the landscape, the more hurricanes and tornados we will have. The two actions go hand in hand. The records of the past 50 years show these events paralleling the growth of cities and buildings. We human beings have gotten much too proficient at building and destroying things on the surface of this planet which has an agenda to maintain a perfect operating system to accommodate us.

There are scientists that theorize that the earth has a solid core of iron almost as large as the moon and an outer core of moving molten liquid iron alloy covered by the mantel and then the crust. This theory was developed with computer models because as we all know, we can not see or sample anything that far down in the earth. We have only been able to reach down into the earth maybe 7 or 8 miles towards the center which is about 4000 miles deep. In essence, we have barely scratched the surface. We haven’t even gotten thru the skin of the apple yet.

It is then extrapolated from computer models that the flowing metallic liquids of the outer core made up mostly of molten iron, developed an electric current because it moved thru a magnetic field believed preexisting when the earth was first formed. This electric current in the molten outer core then creates its own magnetic field thereby forming the earth’s self perpetuating geomagnetic field. This current flowing in the outer core would put a magnetic torque on the inner core forcing it to spin faster than the outer core, the mantel and crust which in turn, turns the world. From this, the scientists then deduce that the earth is a type of self sustaining electric motor. In other words the earth is a generator supplying electric current to turn a motor to turn the earth. If we are to believe in the laws of physics then the idea of self sustaining, just doesn’t wash. A human being is self sustaining provided we eat but we eventually run out of motion if we don’t keep eating. Self sustaining in the terms of the latest scientific explanations regarding the turning of the earth means perpetual motion and that just doesn’t happen unless it happens in pure space where there is no resistance to motion. The elements of the earth are not in space. The inner and outer core, the mantel and the crust are not in space and they are subject to the laws of physics. They are subject to the forces of friction. It is the friction developed between the surface of the earth and its atmosphere. I agree that the earth is an electric motor and that it generates its own electricity to turn the motor to rotate the earth but that it does so in a different fashion than how it is described in the latest theories developed from computer models.

In a book I read many years ago written by Issac Asimov, a renowned scientist and cosmologist, he stated that the inner core of the earth was so dense that a spoon full of this material would weigh as much as a mountain, This material which he likened to an “electronic fluid” so captured my imagination just trying to visualize it that it has always made me curious as to what its use would be. It now seems to suit my own idea of how the world works. This so called “electronic fluid” is the charge of the battery that drives the motor that turns the world. It is not self sustaining; it has to be constantly recharged.

The element that is used to provide the means to create this electrical charge is called water. The water comes from the oceans of the world. This water, although in plentiful supply will not last forever but for all intents and purposes as regards the human race and the world, we can say it will last forever so in a broad sense you could say that it is self sustaining. Self sustaining, that is, as long as we don’t mess with the system too much. The oceans of the world are here for a purpose other than to be pretty or to give us a place to use boats or to catch something to eat. They are the reservoir of our energy needs to keep the world turning. They are the source of our atmosphere which interacts with our earth’s magnetic field to provide the electricity to charge earth’s battery with electronic fluid to keep it turning. The way this is done is called lightning.

Lightning has always been a source of wonder for us. We wonder what it is for and how it is produced. The latest determination is that it is caused by atoms in clouds rubbing against each other in the violent up and downdrafts of thunderstorms creating static electricity which is then discharged as lightning. This is the latest scientific explanation I could find. NASA, the National Aeronautic and Space Agency and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study the phenomena of lightning along with other scientific bodies and they all tend to describe it as so. In all fairness, it should also be noted that they say they are not really sure just how lightning is produced.
Nor do they offer any comprehensive explanation for the existence of lightning.
Atoms rubbing or bumping together does not do it for me. It just doesn’t tell me enough. Along with how it is produced, I have not been able to find any reason for the existence of lightning in my research of current scientific knowledge other than to add nitrogen to the soil. Knowing that nature always has reasons for what it does and knowing that it must follow the same laws of physics that we do leads us to the answers of the how and the why of lightning.

The how of lightning is the same as the how of when we ourselves produce electricity. We pass a conductor through a magnetic field causing a current to flow in that conductor. We do this with atomic generating stations by heating water with atomic reaction which creates steam which is then used to turn a turbine. The turbine then turns wires thru a magnetic field made by magnets. Out comes electricity. The generator or alternator on your car does it the same way. Nature does it the same way also; however nature uses water as a conductor rather than wires. The clouds of a thunderstorm have water in the form of moisture or rain. Water is a conductor of electricity which is why we don’t use a hair dryer while taking a bath.

When we have a fast moving cloud like a thunderstorm which contains water moving across the earth we effectively have the elements necessary to produce electricity. We have a conductor called water and we have the magnetic field of the earth. Clouds are in effect the conductor. It is wire on a giant scale. The earth is the magnet on a giant scale. The more movement of the passing thunderstorm or moisture laden cloud that there is, the more electricity is produced. Voila! We now have lightning. A current is caused to flow in a conductor. Incidentally, it is the reason that old Indian lore says that when a person sleeps he should do so in a position where head and feet are aligned east and west to help recharge the body’s electrical system. In that way your blood flows east and west across the north and south of the earth’s magnetic field. I cannot say if this is in fact beneficial to us but the idea does seem to make sense. We humans think we invented the method to produce electricity when the earth has been doing it since day one, whenever that was. A bolt of lightning is striking the earth 100 times every second, day and night whenever and wherever there are the conditions necessary for lightning to be produced. A view of the earth from one of our orbiting satellites shows this constant “twinkling” of lightning flashes happening all over all the time. Do we really think that nature does this just to provide a pretty light show?

Ok, so that’s how it’s produced, but why is it produced? Remember that battery I was talking about? That’s why. It is lightning that is used to recharge the “electronic fluid” battery in the center of the earth. The lightning strikes the ground and passes to the core of the earth where it is stored to be used as needed to keep us turning and turning. The turning of the earth thru the earth’s atmosphere is in effect a big magnet turning thru a rather large conductor called the atmosphere supplying the electricity for the motor. It’s the reason that there is lightning flashing all over the world all the time. This seemingly slow moving dumb sphere made of dirt we all live on is really a pretty smart rechargeable battery operated motor with its own built in generator. The oceans of the world are in a sense the factory that makes the wire of water that allows current to flow and become lightning.

Probably we do not think of the earth as having resistance to its turning because the atmosphere moves with us. It is also the reason most people rarely if ever give thought to the fact that they are always traveling at 1000 miles per hour. That is if you are standing on the equator. It would be less as you get to higher and lower latitudes because the earth is a globe. As you go away from the equator, the distance around becomes less and less the nearer you get to the poles. We also do not give much thought to the fact that the speed we need to maintain our orbit around the sun is about 65,000 miles per hour. If someone tells you they are having a slow day, don’t believe them.

There is a very complex relationship between the earth and the area where it rubs against the air. The very point of contact between the earth’s surface and the air, in airplane talk, is called the boundary layer. In computer talk it would be the interface. Contrary to what we would think, if this earth’s surface was very smooth and uniform there would be more resistance to it’s turning than when there are slight surface irregularities. The atmosphere would tend to stick to the surface of the earth more if there were no bushes and trees or waves on the oceans. Rub your finger across a piece of glass and it tends to stick, rub your finger across a wood table and it tends to stick less because of the surface grain or irregularities. Conversely, if “irregularities” become too big and numerous on the surface of the earth, they can become a hindrance rather than a help to its turning such as in the form of buildings and such. You may wonder then about mountains because they are so big. Mountains are a “natural” structure that are around where they are for purpose of weight and climate differences and they are also shaped better than buildings so that they don’t become a hindrance to the earth. The natural covering and contours of the earth is nature’s way of making it easier for the earth to turn thru the air. The earth has created its own form of “streamlining” to reduce the friction between its surface and the air.

When nature finds a way to do something that is efficient it will usually use it wherever it can. Birds have feathers so they can fly more efficiently. Fish have scales so they can swim better. Sharks have sandpaper like skin so they can swim faster than if they had smooth skin. These are all tiny forms of vortex generators designed to enhance performance. We have learned to copy nature by using similar techniques with our atomic submarines to make them more efficient. We also add little protuberances to the top of some airplane wings to allow the airplane to generate more lift and fly more efficiently than it could without them. Those little vortex generators add extra energy to the boundary layer by speeding up the air around the protuberances. They cause the atoms of the air to speed up and separate, producing more space in between the atoms which means less resistance. The more space in-between the atoms or molecules you have, the less friction you have. The wind flowing around each individual leaf or branch of a tree or bush or blade of grass must speed up to keep pace with the main wind flow of that area. This is nature’s way of increasing the efficiency of its turning inside the blanket of air that surrounds it. It is nature’s way of reducing friction. It is all part of a “green machine” that we are unknowingly tinkering with by removing too many parts of this machine.

The surface of the earth has been arranged in a certain way so that it can efficiently rotate or better said rotate with less friction than if it were smooth. Its one of the things it has spent its lifetime learning to do. If that arrangement is altered in a way that is not in its nature, it is not as efficient as it can be and will develop certain illnesses. It will have to work harder to maintain the rotational speed it needs to keep us healthy and happy. It has to turn once every 24 hours. If the earth does not turn once a day exactly, its ability as a gyroscope, which keeps us in the proper orbit around the sun, is compromised. Think about driving your car on a very long stretch of highway. You have the steering wheel perfectly set to keep the car in your lane. If a brake pad happens to rub on a wheel ever so slightly, or a bearing develops friction because of lack of lubricating grease, the car starts to drift to one side ever so slightly. You know that you must correct this because you also know that eventually you will run off the road. The earth is on a road too, it follows a path around the sun that it has discovered to be perfect for our climate. The slightest change in its steering mechanism will eventually cause it to drift off the road. The speed of the earth’s gyroscopic rotation is slowing down. It’s not much of a slowdown but considering the length of the road around the sun it will eventually have an effect on maintaining the proper distance from the sun. Given the length of the road around the sun the earth must take, only a tiny fraction of a degree of change in its course will begin to show up. The steering of a car on a very short road can be slightly askew and still traverse the road without going off but when it’s a long road it will eventually go off the road. When our vehicle called earth gets too close or too far away from the sun, our source of heat and energy, things change. It is this super exact speed of the world gyroscope that maintains the perfect orbit around the sun. Change the speed of the gyroscope and you will change the orbit.

Just as importantly, it is the extra energy the earth has to produce and expend to maintain its perfect rotational speed to overcome our construction and deconstruction efforts. If a study could be conducted on how much lightning the earth produces today versus 50 years ago, I am sure we would find the overall power generated in the from of lightning has been increasing right along with all the other phenomena. Unfortunately, there are no records of this from the past as far as I know of, or as far as that goes, from today. It has been established by some Scientists that there are more thunderstorms now than before so this makes it reasonable to assume we now have more lightning. If it were possible to compare the amount of daily lightning strikes from then to now I am sure it would just be another piece of the puzzle that fits this picture of problems I am painting. The earth needs more power to turn today than it did 50 years ago because of the increased friction we cause it. More power means more heat. Add up the lack of assistance no longer afforded to the turning of the world by each individual leaf, branch or blade of grass we have removed and a surprising result would become apparent.

By building our cities and associated infrastructures and removing so much of the natural covering of the earth’s surface in the form of forests and vegetation which is the boundary layer between the land and the air, we in effect have caused a major change. The earth has found itself having to work harder to maintain its desired rotational speed. When a motor, any motor, has an increased load applied to it in the form of increased friction and is required to turn at the same speed it was at before the load was applied, something happens. The motor heats up. Any motor does.

Nature has a reason for everything it does and everything it does, it does according to certain laws. We can try to figure out things like, how far away other stars and worlds are and even what they are made of, or how big an atom may be and even how it seems to be structured. In order to better understand a particular system it is necessary to first look at the big picture as to what it does and then study the details and parts in relation to their contribution to the whole system. A person that studies cloud formation or lightning for example would find the task much easier if he first understood the purpose of each element. A mechanic figuring out a problem with a fuel pump without knowing its use in the engines system or a doctor diagnosing a liver in the body without knowing its function is like going to the movies and not seeing the beginning and the end but still being able to understand the entire movie. There are elements of the weather of which many of us know only as something to talk about when we run out of something to talk about.

I studied meteorology and even taught it in an aviation course. To this day, when I see the map on the 6 o’clock weather report, and the weatherman starts talking about occluded fronts and so on, I get all confused and just hope that it’s a nice day tomorrow. The point here is that we can study highs and lows and occluded fronts and stratus and cumulus nimbus clouds and what to expect when they do certain things but what about the bigger picture? Why is the weather like it is? Sure we know it provides rain so things can grow and changes so we aren’t always too hot or too cold but is it like it is for other reasons that may not be obvious? Sometimes we need to question the obvious or at least be curious about it. It may not be what we think it is or do only what it appears to do.





Chapter 2 Balance and boundary layer

How do you write a book that touches on many if not all aspects of our lives and the life of our planet? Bear with my attempt to describe why it is so important and so very necessary to lighten up our thinking and in turn our doing in regards to how and where we build the things we use. We also need to take a closer look at the consequences of the things we destroy in this world. By things we use, I am speaking of assorted types of living, working and playing structures and infrastructures. Houses, buildings, skyscrapers, roads, highways, interstates, airports, bridges, tunnels, dams, man made lakes and other types of construction. By things we destroy, I speak of the resources we burn up and the natural covering the earth has, or rather, used to have, such as all the green forests, jungles and fields that are no longer here. Even the agricultural fields we see today are quite different than what they were before we cleared them.

Lately our building and destruction efforts have increased dramatically. We human beings have been changing the way our little blue marble called earth is supposed to operate as it spins like the perfectly balanced gyroscope that it is, or better said, was, in its travels around the sun. We are moving from one place to another, untold zillions of tons (trillions is too small a number) of weight in the form of minerals and other heavy substances as we strive to advance civilization by building our cities and infrastructures. Does anybody have any idea of what Chicago or New York City weighs? How about Tokyo or Mexico City? What about just one 4 or 6 lane highway or a shopping center parking lot? How many of these are there in this world and are they all located in the right place? By the right place, I mean is thought given to how, all this weight moved from place to place on the earth’s surface, affecting the way the earth rotates? Does what we do affect the balance? It must be pretty obvious by now that this person believes that this is happening. I only hope I am not alone.

We are also removing from the surface of the earth further unimaginable amounts of weight in the form of hydrocarbons like oil and coal and other chemicals and gases that we burn up daily. It is true that lately we have started to fill a few of the holes we make in the earth with water when we take out the oil thereby replacing the weight but the water came from someplace else and that oil is no longer a weight factor that was a part of the earths original balance scheme. The fact remains that we have removed weight from various parts of the earth. This weight is no longer a part of the earth. It has changed form into gases and is a part of the atmosphere. The atmosphere will eventually redistribute a little of this weight back onto the earths surface as a form of dust and ashes but it no longer acts as a balancing weight for the earth itself. It eventually becomes evenly distributed over the surface which defeats its purpose as balancing weight. A large pocket of oil or coal, a deposit of minerals in a particular location on this spinning ball is a part of natures balancing act just as is a lake or a mountain. They are where they are for a reason. In the Real Estate business there is a saying that the three most important things about a particular property are, location, location and location. The same could be said of weight as regards its use in balancing the earth’s rotation around its axis.

I wonder if there are people in the world that could figure out the net result in weight of all the global construction done in the past 50 years along with the amounts of weight removed and or moved and apply it to balance? There are people that study the effect on sea levels as the polar ice caps calve and fall into the sea. I have read predictions that sea levels would rise dramatically if they continue to melt due to global warming. Sea level rises of over 200 feet are predicted. No doubt that if this did happen, getting to the beach would be a much shorter trip. What about the other aspect of these retreating glaciers? Ice, being a form of water has a fair amount of weight to it. If such large amounts of volume can raise sea levels to such a degree, couldn’t the same large amounts of the weight of this ice being redistributed affect balance? Let’s see now, if I put one child on one side of the teeter totter and two on the other side, I wonder what will happen?

I know it is a huge undertaking because of all the physics involved even if someone could come up with a number to start with and I freely admit that I am not capable of such a calculation. All I can do is to rely on logic and experience to give me a “gut instinct” that we have a problem. After spending many years flying all over the world and looking down at what we have done, I have been connecting the dots of the “happenings” for the, excuse the repetition, “past 50 years” and I am convinced that there is something wrong with this picture. There is just too much of a parallel of 50 years of construction growth and 50 years of geo-disturbance growth for it to be simply a coincidence.

One of the reasons for the earth’s spinning is so it can maintain its perfectly preprogrammed course around the sun without deviation to its course, thereby providing us with our required seasons and climates. This is what a gyroscope does, it holds a steady course. If a gyroscope gets out of balance just a little bit, it starts to wobble and can no longer be depended on to accurately do what it is supposed to do. When a tire on your car gets out of balance you take it to the mechanic where he adds a little weight at a certain spot to put it back in balance. He could also put it back in balance by removing a little weight. He can also change the balance by simply moving weight. Adding, removing or moving even small amounts of weight on a rapidly rotating object will change the balance of that object, be it a spinning wheel like a tire or a spinning ball like the earth. The speed at which the object spins is an important factor that will determine how much out of balance it will be or how much weight will be needed for balance.

When traveling at 60 mph in your car, the surface of your tire is doing 60 mph and it only takes a very small amount of lead weight to change the balance. If your car traveled at 160 mph it would take much less of the same lead weight to balance or unbalance the same tire with a diameter of about 24 inches. This spinning ball we live on is about 8000 miles in diameter and its surface, where we live, is doing about 1000 mph as it rotates around its axis. It is not too difficult to understand that too many large cities in the wrong places will have an effect on its balance as compared to the little piece of lead weight used to balance your cars tire spinning at a much slower speed. The reason we don’t notice the speed we are moving at is because the sky, otherwise known as our atmosphere moves with us. It moves with us because the surface of the earth is irregular. It is basically smooth where there is water and rough where there is land. As the earth spins, it tends to push the atmosphere ahead of it a little. This is why our winds generally move from west to east especially where there is land because that’s the direction the earth is rotating.

Current meteorology teaching tells us that the winds are a function of convection, high pressure air flowing into low pressure air or cold into warm. This is true under local conditions but the main wind pattern of the earth; west to east is because of the earth scraping the bottom of the atmosphere and pushing it along west to east. The mountains, valleys, and other natural features of our global landscape grab the air at the surface and force it ahead slightly which is why we have about an average 10 mph westerly wind around the earth. Sometimes the big picture gives you the more logical answers. Where there is mostly water such as at the equator we have very little wind which is why we call it the doldrums. Except of course when waves build up which then act to move thru the atmosphere similar to the way land does. In other words a smooth ocean will offer more resistance to the turning of the earth than a rough one. I am curious if we are experiencing rougher ocean conditions over the past 50 years as a way for the earth to compensate for the lack of the small vortex generators that used to be on the surface of the earth. The small vortex generators I speak of are the forest and jungles and various trees and vegetation we have removed. These are the small protuberances that act similar to the scales on fish and the sandpaper like skin on sharks and feathers on birds that allow them to slide thru their elements easier with less friction. The vegetation of the earth is the lubrication between the earth and its atmosphere. Are the oceans of the world are rougher today than they were 50 years ago? According to some studies, they are. Is this another piece to complete the puzzle?



The how in what we build is mainly the result of continuous trial and error induced improvements but the “where” of what we build is considered only in regards to the use of whatever it is we are building, although, now, in modern times, zoning is taken into account. Aside from use and zoning considerations of what we build, rarely if ever, is thought given to the combination of the weight and the geographical location of our construction. We need to think in global terms of what we do and how it may be affecting the very health of our fragile and finely balanced little blue marble spinning in space.

There needs to be established a reference table made up by knowledgeable persons that can tell a builder while still in the planning stages, how much his construction will affect our balance. This will of course require the builder to know the weight of what he is building as well as the weight of the materials and where they came from. We need to know the consequences of his plans in terms of global balance as well as the structures ability to act as a vortex generator. Models of large buildings today are subjected to wind tunnel tests and computer modeling to determine if the wind will affect the building. I feel that they should also be tested in terms of what the building does to the wind. Will the building act as a vortex generator, adding speed and energy to the air as the air travels around it? Is the building to be located in a place where tornadoes occur? Will the building add to the occurrences?

The size, weight, shape and location of our construction needs to be studied as to its consequences to our world in more respects than profits and looks. Before this happens it must first be determined by those capable of such calculations what is the effect of our present construction worldwide on the rotational balance of the world and wind flow patterns. Things such as the centrifugal force of our spinning, the moons gravitational pull and the various physics associated with this by the very nature and scale of the world will be quite a project. Maybe we could start a new profession and call it Geo-Architects or Geo-Inspectors. How about Spin Doctors? Never mind, I think we already have them.

There is no doubt that there is a problem with the earths turning. Along with the study of other escalated “happenings” such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tornadoes, global warming and rising sea levels there is another study that fits the puzzle of what’s happening. A while back a fellow named Chandler figured out that the earth has a “wobble” in its rotation. This wobble is now called “Chandlers wobble.” It too, is increasing, especially in the last 50 years. Is this a coincidence? All of these “happenings” are increasing in only the past 50 years or so. Hmmm, I wonder if there is some sort of a connection as to why all this stuff is going on at the same time. I mean, what has changed with this planet that could account for all these things? I wonder.

This world we live on is a precise and well thought out biological system designed to operate in a certain way and last a long time. We human beings were given the task of maintaining it and in some ways improving it. This is our home and like any other home it requires a certain amount of maintenance. Daily use and sometimes misuse cause it to fall into disrepair and unlike any other home, we cannot just sell it and move to another one simply because we want one that is newer or we need more room. In other words, we’re stuck with what we’ve got and until we understand just how this home of ours is built and how it is supposed to work, we can’t fix it. Fix it we must or our children and our children’s children will inherit a wobbly broken down shack.

Before I became a “writer”, I was an airplane mechanic, a pilot and a teacher of aviation technology. I have also, amongst other things, been a carpenter, which by the way, I enjoyed most because I could see what I did. Sometimes people called me to fix what was broken in their homes because they didn’t understand what’s inside the walls. What is inside the walls and ceilings is really a fairly simple system made up of subsystems that provide light, water, heat and cold and of course shelter from outside conditions. Of course, if everybody knew about these things, people like me would have less work but fortunately there are some folks that do not have the time or inclination to do what I do.
In a way, the earth and its atmosphere provide the same things that our house provides, except on a much bigger scale. Our world house and its roof, the atmosphere, provide us with the same light, water, heat, cold and shelter that are provided by our regular house. We all need to learn how to be carpenters of our world so that we can fix our home, which, I think we would all agree, is not in tip top condition. The first thing we need to know is what is not working. Sometimes things that are not working properly are not quite so evident, because they can deteriorate gradually over a period of time and may not be noticed until it is too late to fix the problem. Once we have determined what the problem or problems are, we need to find out what caused these problems so that when we do fix them we are fixing the root cause and not just the symptoms. If the sheetrock in your ceiling is wet and deformed, simply replacing the damaged area will be ok for a while but rest assured the problem will come back the first time it rains. You might as well fix the leak and eliminate the real problem. As that new song says, “There’s a hole in the world tonight”, and we need to fix it. There is more involved here than a few drops of water hitting us or a little damage to some sheetrock.


There is a law of physics known as Bernoulli’s principle. That is, if you increase the speed of a gas or a fluid you decrease the pressure inside the gas or fluid. The college aviation course I taught involved various subjects, physics, meteorology, and electricity, to name a few. In order to teach about electricity, it was necessary for me to study the subject rather intensely, because it is not one of my strong points. I still have trouble installing a 3- way light switch in a house I may be working on. While teaching the basic elements of a circuit and how current, called amperage, reacts to a resistor, a restriction to the flow of electricity, I found out that the voltage, which is the pressure of the flow, drops or is reduced at the point of the resistor. I thought, well now, isn’t it strange that electricity acts in the same way that water and air act in this regard, when forced to go thru an area where it apparently must speed up, the pressure drops. I know that electricity travels at the speed of light and should be a constant but why does it have a pressure drop just like air and water? Is it possible that the atoms or electrons or waves, or the electricity itself is speeding up somewhat as it travels through the pinch in the line? Is it speeding up just as the atoms do in air and water? Einstein was always looking for what he called a “unified field theory” or, what is the basic connection between things that make the world work? When we talk about work, we talk about movement and as far as the surface of the earth is concerned, air, water and electricity are the things that are actually moving to any degree, besides the earth itself. I know it seems strange to think that electricity has something in common with water and air but according to Ohm’s law and Mr. Bernoulli, it does.

Whether or not this has any connection to a unified field, I do not know, I am just pointing out a “coincidence” that caught my eye. There is a reason why I am discussing these things. They naturally lead to other assumptions about things that affect us all. One of these things is the weather. Please, don’t be worried; I haven’t got to the point of not knowing what to say, so I talk about the weather. The basic moving parts of our world are less understood by most of us than are things like economics or gardening.

A tornado or a hurricane as I mentioned before is a vortex. It is an area of low pressure caused by the speeding up of the air which is formed into a circle and the tighter the circle gets the faster it goes. The faster it goes, the lower the pressure. A vortex can be created with air or water, by diverting it around or in between obstacles placed in its path. In order to maintain the same speed as the surrounding air or water it must speed up. Air going around a building does the same thing water does when it goes around a rock in a stream. It speeds up. It has to because it has further to go. The pressure drops. It becomes capable of forming a vortex. Extra energy is added to the flow because of the extra speed. If you ever rowed a boat, you may have noticed the little whirlpools around the oar as you moved it thru the water. These are vortexes. They are created by the speeding up of the water as it goes around the oar. The same thing happens when you flush the toilet, the sudden flow of water rushing thru a smaller space makes it go faster and a vortex is generated. The space between the atoms or molecules is increased as they speed up and since space is a vacuum the pressure drops. Of course in the case of water around a rock, air over a wing or wind around a building it would be only a partial vacuum. The amount of vacuum or low pressure developed depends on the speed of the flow.

A hurricane or tornado is a result of low pressure and warm temperatures combined with the extra energy added to the atmosphere in the form of vortices generated by buildings or natural obstacles in the path of the flow of wind. Skyscrapers and other structures are the cause of the extra ordinary amount of tornadoes we now experience. They add energy to the air and lower the pressure because of the increase in speed of the wind as the wind flows past them. There has been a fourfold increase in the past 50 years in the tornado belt of the South. The only difference between 50 years ago and now in that area is the addition of the cities with their skyscrapers and associated structures. I notice the telling use of a new word, “skyscrapers”. Cities like Houston, Kansas city and Atlanta or Oklahoma City or other cities that may be in just the right or better - said, wrong location, are having an effect on the weather patterns.

The tornado frequency in the South and Midwest has paralleled the progress of these many cities and tall buildings. If studies were done of similar conditions in other parts of the world, similar results would be found. I have noticed that most hurricanes that form in the Atlantic Ocean all seem to form in the same area of the South Atlantic. The westerly winds coming off the many buildings of the east coast of the United States appear to be in just the right position to add the required energy and conditions to the air as it travels to warmer waters. Has the east coast of the United States grown enough vortex generators in the form of skyscrapers in the past 50 years to account for the many hurricanes forming in the Atlantic? It should also be noted by those that study hurricanes the way they develop or “spawn” tornadoes once they start traveling over land. These tornadoes occur when they reach land with tall buildings to further increase speeds of the already fast hurricane winds turning them into separate tornadoes. A tall building is just like the oar in the water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in their 14th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations, tell us that since 1950, when records were started, that there has been an almost linear increase in tornado events. There were 200 tornadoes in the early1950’s, to about 1000 annually by the early 1990’s. How many buildings and other structures have been added to the landscape since then? Of course I don’t know for sure, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, well, you know what I mean. What I do know is that we have significantly reduced the amount of vegetation and trees in this country, not to mention the rest of the world, and replaced them with other larger structures in the form of buildings, houses, bridges and other infrastructures. These many changes to our weather we are seeing lately are the result of the alterations we make to our earth’s surface besides the most talked about one, the pollutions added to our atmosphere.

Take a look at our cities and corresponding infrastructures and you can see that
These structures occupy a considerable portion of our land area. They are getting bigger and doing it faster all the time, especially in the last century. In the scheme of time that is but a few seconds. Maybe we should think about how much all this civilization weighs or what effect they have on our environment.

When I was younger and better looking, I had a job with a defense company in California making inertial guidance systems for atomic submarines. Part of my work was to electronically monitor the balance of the gyroscope used in this system. If it were out of balance, it would have a slight wobble so I would drill out a tiny bit of the metal on the surface of the wheel in a prescribed spot to put it in balance. The earth is a gyroscope. It spins as it travels around the sun and if it gets out of balance, it too will wobble or shake just as a tire on your car will do if it gets out of balance. An unbalanced tire will cause you to feel it in the steering wheel. An unbalanced or wobbly earth will cause the things on it to shake also. If this finely balanced gyroscope we call earth is put out of balance, even a little bit, it will cause Mother Earth to do the only thing it can do. Put itself back in balance. Eliminate the wobble. The earth’s surface is composed of large floating platforms called tectonic plates and when they move even a little bit we get earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There is another force that could have an impact also. It is called gravity. Not just the earth’s gravity, but the moons gravity. The moons gravity as it passes around the earth is strong enough to move a lot of weight around. We see this in the form of tides, but because the oceans can move and return to their rightful place, our balance is not affected, at least not in a fashion that wasn’t meant to be. What about the pull of the moon on those things that can’t move and maybe weren’t meant to be where they are? What about the things that is supposed to be where they were but are no longer there? My understanding is that the moons pull is stronger in the latitudes above and below the equator, just about where most of the cities are that we build and are building. It is interesting to note that most of our land area is located above the equator and that of course is where we are doing the most building. This also increases the propensity for error. Could the combined effect of the earth’s centrifugal force and the moons gravitational pull be enough to cause a slight imbalance in our spinning gyroscopic world? Maybe someone out there in reader land is also curious enough to do a few calculations. I would, but the batteries in my calculator are dead and batteries are so expensive today.



































Chapter 3 A building legacy



Early man has passed on to us a legacy, a way of thinking, that in order for something to be strong it must also be heavy. This ingrained mind set persists today even though we have evolved to be so called “modern man”. I am not criticizing early man for this legacy because conditions during his time were entirely different than ours today. About the only materials he had available were dirt, stones and trees. Whatever he built was of course, extremely heavy, but at the time there was no reason to think it should be otherwise. As he developed knowledge about his construction needs and some basic tools he was able to reduce these materials to more manageable sizes and shapes and gradually became more efficient builders. This went on for many, many years until other materials were discovered and invented and the building business took a giant leap forward. Before you know it we had wagons with wheels and other helpful gadgets to move these things around and attach them to each other. We learned that wood floats and we were able to venture out onto the seas and meet and live with our neighbors. Some of these neighbors were only too happy to copy what they saw, so building methods and techniques were spread around the world. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

Along came the industrial age and we were making all sorts of things with various metals, cements, wood, glass and other materials and we were making them look better too. Motors were put into the wagons so more stuff could be moved around and in order to get more stuff moving faster, bigger wagons with bigger motors were introduced. We started making bigger and better everything, houses, buildings, cars, trucks, roads, bridges, railroads and various other ways to improve our life. Rarely did the idea of weight reduction enter into the process because everybody knew that if it was heavy, it was good, it was strong and it was safe and there were plenty of these materials to go around. About the only time weight was a problem was in mining, harvesting, moving, or assembling it. To solve that problem we just invented more powerful and larger machines and vehicles. The world was full of these materials just there for the taking along with other resources called coal and oil that energized these projects and made everything go much faster. At the time the per capita use of these resources wasn’t much of a problem so why try to use less of these abundant materials? That is what you would have to do in order to make things lighter in weight. The only people who gave passing thought to how heavy everything was were those poor souls moving it from place to place and putting them together. The terms, population explosion and conservation weren’t very popular back then either, it’s the way things were at that time and should have been because there just weren’t enough people in the world to consider these things a problem. In other words, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it! One by-product of all this rapid expansion of technology was more of us. As we progressed into the twentieth century and beyond more and more of us started showing up and we needed more and more stuff.

We just happily increased our efforts in collecting these materials and producing more stuff. We began moving and removing enormous quantities of materials in the form of minerals, hydrocarbons, gases, and just plain dirt. Villages and then cities began sprouting up all over the world without regard to the effects all these activities were having or were to have on our little blue marble spinning in space or to the many little creatures including ourselves that call it home.

During this time someone got the idea of traveling through the air and Voila! Airplanes were born. For the first time in history lighter thoughts were being thunk. Alas, this new way of thinking was only because air travel required it for the successful building and operation of aircraft and had nothing to do with a concern for the health of the world, which is the reason for writing this book. Efficiency and the safety of the things we build are other reasons. To be entirely frank I should also mention that the possibility of personal reward in the event this book should ever get published and sell enough copies for that to happen is also a slight consideration.

Aviation is the first segment of our modern world that gave cause to man to consider ways to build using lighter materials and methods to put them together. My own early training and experience was in the field of aviation and later on in the field of ordinary construction as a carpenter, I earned my living by lugging around and putting into place a lot of heavy stuff. I was also able to try other ways to earn a living that were easier by using lightweight materials that were available. Because government regulations and red tape concerning large products such as housing are too expensive and difficult for one person without the financial means to overcome, along with little desire to be a “business” man, I found it easier to live simply. I am putting some of these ideas in book form in the hopes that it may spark some interest in others. Since I have told you a little about myself, I should also tell you that I am basically a lazy person so my motives for exploring lighter ways to build were and are somewhat selfish.

If we want to continue this seemingly inevitable growth of the human race and at the same time to ensure better, not worsening conditions for the newcomers then we have to use what we have left much more efficiently. Present thinking in mainly industrialized parts of the world is betting on conservation and less progress as the obvious answer to many of our problems and as a way to let the newbies share in the earth’s resources. I agree with the conservation part even though I don’t always separate my garbage, hug trees or do all the things so many good people are doing to conserve. I don’t know if it helps much but sometimes I use a toothpick more than once.

I submit to you, the reader that by changing the way we think about building things, that they needn’t be heavy to be strong, that we can not only continue progress but we can accelerate this progress, reduce the damage done to the environment and at the same time, use less of what is left of our resources. Big talk, you say, yes it is big talk, but it is so important to all of us and to our heirs that we talk big about something so big, the future of us all. Before you decide that the author is just another kook with some crazy theory and rush to the bookstore to get your money back, please try to humor me and continue reading a little further. Besides, don’t you find it a drag to stand in the return line?
Thanks, ok, where were we? Oh yeah, saving the world. Would you agree that if we could build most of the larger things we use in our daily lives cheaper and better and use less material that it would be of benefit to the world? Notice that I said cheaper which means less expensive but does not mean to infer inferior. It just seems easier to say cheaper. By “larger things” I am talking about vehicles, buildings, infrastructures etc! I am saying we can build these things using existing materials and technologies and at the same time reduce in many if not all cases the energy and materials required for their production by half. This may seem to be an unachievable goal but be assured I am quite serious and intend to prove it in the following chapters. If after you finish reading this book, you will agree at least in the possibility of what I say, I will be happy. If some of you feel it is more of a probability than a possibility then I will be even happier because I have succeeded to some degree, in changing the way you think about building stuff.

Almost 200 years ago, scientist’s decided to give an atom, a specific weight. They knew that hydrogen was the lightest element we have so they assigned it an “atomic weight” of 1, and every other element was numbered according to hydrogen. Oxygen weighs 16 times as much as hydrogen so its atomic weight is 16; iron is 56, and so on. This is because hydrogen has 1 proton in its nucleus, oxygen has 16, and iron has 56 protons. For obvious reasons, a singular atom was never weighed on a scale. You can’t pick up something to put it on a scale if you can’t see it, especially if a pair of tweezers is billions of times (or something like that) bigger than the atom. A quantity of hydrogen was weighed on a scale and this weight was compared to an equal amount of oxygen. This became the measuring standard for the weight of atoms of all the elements, as it is today.

In my opinion, an error was made back then, an error, by calling it weight. It should have been called, attraction units, or something that better describes how an object reacts to gravity. Science today, refers to the force between an electron and the nucleus of an atom as an “electrical attraction” and to gravity as the “attraction” between the earth and objects near its surface. There are many attraction type forces, such as, magnetic and a rubbed comb attracting bits of paper. People too, have some of these qualities, but we won’t count that as part of this discussion.

I say an error was made because there is no such thing as inherent weight to an object, other than the fact that we call it weight or the object feels heavy. In other words, we have all agreed that weight exists and because of this, it appears that it does. When an object goes out to space, what happens to the “inherent” weight? Does it just disappear from the object? It is true that it still has its mass but that is not the same thing as weight. It will still take the same effort to push it as it would if it were on the surface of the earth but it doesn’t want to fall down which is the weight part of it. What happens is, it gets to a point where it is out of range of the earth’s attraction. We arbitrarily assigned the term, weight to an atom, which converts to pounds or kilograms, instead of the amount of attraction the atoms or molecules of the object has to the earth. We mislabeled the attraction force, probably because weight was a given, well before the atom was discovered to be the basic building block and scales were calibrated in pounds or grams,

By doing so we may have denied any budding scientists and other interested persons the opportunity to investigate the possibilities of manipulating, or at least understanding more fully, this force. A force that is inherent in the atom itself. We also know, or better - said, do not know for sure that an atom has any substance or matter for that matter. We only know that the atoms and molecules were weighed on a scale a couple hundred years ago. A scale calibrated in terms of weight rather than in attraction units, which better describes the interaction between gravity and an object. Science has operated on a theory, set down by other scientist’s almost 200 years ago, a theory that has worked very well. In other words, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Does the squeezing together, of the atoms, in a piece of steel, cause the electrons or particle waves as they are known today, to interfere with each others orbits, or energy levels? Is this what makes steel “heavy”, the fact that they are closer together? We have learned that we can overcome gravity somewhat by causing air atoms to separate as we do with air going over an airplane’s wings. I use the term “energy levels” in relation to atoms because the latest scientific thinking, called quantum physics, is that electrons previously thought to “orbit” around the nucleus of an atom are now considered to be “waves.” The height of these waves determines the energy level of the atom, the higher the waves, the higher the energy level. The waves in the open ocean are higher than the waves in a bay because they have more room to wave. Is an atom with higher energy levels lighter? If so, then is an atom with lower energy levels heavier? Who knows what could have been accomplished during the past few hundred years if we looked at weight as something other than an inherent heaviness in objects themselves, rather than an inherent attraction force. I realize this doesn’t make a difference as to how things act, but sometimes how we label something can make a difference. So as not to confuse the issue, I will continue to refer to attraction force as weight, for the purposes of this book.

























Chapter 4 Methods of lightweight construction

In aviation, we use a “power to weight” ratio to describe the power of an engine compared to its weight. In construction we need to have a similar term that would describe the weight compared to the use of whatever it is we are building. A “weight to use” ratio would give us a measure of its efficiency. An example of this would be the weight of a house compared to the weight of the occupants and their belongings. Another would be, the weight of a car vs. the weight of the people using it.

The idea I am trying to convey is, how heavy does something really need to be to accomplish its task? Does the weight of a house really need to be a few hundred thousand pounds to shelter a few thousand pounds? Does a car really need to weigh several thousand pounds just to carry around a few hundred pounds of passengers or stuff on the average? A modern jet passenger airplane weighs about 300,000 pounds to carry about 40,000 pounds of people and their baggage. Granted, they need to be designed for their maximum use and performance but what if this could be done where the structure itself, the house, the car or airplane could be built weighing significantly less and still perform as well? If you could cut the weight by, say half, would it be more efficient? In the case of a house it would require less building materials and less labor to build it. Granted, it would need to be strong enough to do its job. A car would be more efficient if you could cut the weight by half because the car would need a much smaller and therefore a lighter motor and associated running gear to achieve the same performance as a car twice the weight.

The airplane benefits are readily apparent. I will discuss houses and airplanes in more detail later, including boats. As for a car, all parts of the car would be subject to less stress due to the reduced effects of inertia and that old bugaboo called gravity. The heavier something is, the harder it is for it to change direction. A bump is really a rather fast change in direction. Another performance issue that would be greatly improved would of course be that much less fuel and oil would be needed to operate the car at the same speeds as the heavier one. Multiply that by a zillion or so cars and see if it won’t help with our pollution problems. OK, I know that zillion isn’t really a number but it is descriptive, besides, I have no idea how many cars there are in the world. Also, you wouldn’t need to carry around as much gas, which also has weight, to travel the same distances. Braking distances would be decreased and handling characteristics would be improved because the lighter something is the easier it is for it to stop or change direction.

As for driving on snow and ice, again, inertia enters the equation. A lighter car in the same conditions as a heavier one would want to slide less because it has less impetus or call it desire, to slide. Less wear and tear on the roads being traveled on is another benefit of lighter weight cars. These are some of the operational benefits that could be achieved by reducing the weight of the car not to mention safety which I will discuss later but for the moment know that lighter stuff hits with less force than heavier stuff.

I have noticed that the Government puts limits on how much mileage a car should get but they never seem to get to the crux of the problem, which of course, is the weight of the car. It’s true that manufacturers are using more plastics, but cars do not seem to be getting much lighter. The auto industries answer to weight has always been to add more power in the form of a bigger engine and that again adds more weight and more fuel. This philosophy is a dangerous vicious circle. Why not put some restrictions on the weight of the car? Wouldn’t this increase the mileage? When the producers know that they have to build their products lighter in order to put less of the pollutants in the air, they will figure out how to do it.

We have available today the materials and technology to accomplish this but because of our inherited way of thinking about building it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Engineers and designers are not to blame because they are taught by other engineers and designers and they in turn were taught by other engineers and designers and so on. The emphasis has always been on speed, looks, comfort, and safety and I have no problem with this. What I do have a problem with is how this is accomplished. How can we possibly improve on our wonderful, modern, hi tech way of doing things? The answer lies in developing ways and means that are relatively low tech and to use fewer parts. I do not include the makers of computers in this discussion, as they are one of the few industries that have successfully and dramatically reduced the weight of their products, they have done this by making them smaller, whereas, this book deals with big stuff, and how to make them as big, or even bigger, while at the same time making them lighter. I will show how this can be done as this book goes on but first lets look at some other benefits that would result by reducing the weight of a car. Basically, half the weight means half the energy would be used to build the car, half the raw materials are mined, half the transport of materials to the builder is necessary and half the pollution created by the building and use of this car is put into our world. Half the deaths and injuries associated with cars is also a very real possibility and that in turn would lead to half the insurance payments. When I say we could reduce all these things by half I do not mean exactly in half, some of these elements could be reduced by more than half and some by less. It is not possible to put an exact figure on such a broad array of possibilities but you get the idea.
Some will say that industry could do this today but they just don’t want to. To do so would reduce the price of cars and the use of gasoline. I agree with the reduction in price and less use of gas but disagree that they could do it today because of how this industry thinks or more precisely, how they do not think.

My experience in construction has shown me that not only is weight not given enough weight as a consideration, lightweight construction is not even considered a field of study, it has scant academic standing and there are few groups of people collaborating on this topic as you would find in most other fields that are involved in some way with all of us. There is some interest in the field of lightweight construction (May I call it a field?) in Germany but other than that I find very little interest in something that has so much importance to so many of us. There are a few isolated pioneer companies producing lightweight housing components and others involved in racing boats and home built aircraft but not enough for it to become general knowledge or as a way to accomplish some of the tasks previously discussed. There are a few books available on the internet about this but they are mainly directed towards advanced engineering students and other professionals. No point in lamenting about this because if it were general knowledge I wouldn’t be writing about this.
As I write, it comes to mind that there is one field or industry, that is very involved in building something that has excellent weight to use and serves as a very good example of what can be done and is being done not by engineers and designers, but by mainly young people. These people are “surfers”, yes I said surfers. They have learned to use a technique called composite sandwich construction, and have reduced the weight of surfboards from around a hundred pounds to boards weighing in the teens that perform better than their predecessors. Actually, they help to prove my point because a surfboard has to support more than ten times its own weight, is subjected to extreme forces, and still is able to maintain its integrity, even in extreme conditions. Imagine the stress it must endure when a giant wave crashes down on it, twisting and turning it at high speeds and pressures, yet these boards do a remarkable job of surviving that kind of treatment.

The fact that it is so lightweight is one of the reasons it can withstand these forces because its inertia is at a minimum. A heavier board would not be able to change direction as easily or as quickly as a lighter one. In the raging turmoil of a breaking wave it must be able to do that or, itself, break.

A surfboard, for those not familiar, is made by encapsulating a rigid lightweight plastic foam in a thin plastic skin, usually a type of fiberglass or even a carbon fiber cloth impregnated with resins which are also a plastic. This forms a structure known as a composite or sandwich panel that has a remarkable quality called a high “strength to weight” ratio and is an example of a construction method that can replace the typical “frame” type method generally in use today to build most of our larger structures and vehicles, including aircraft. Most of the things we build today use a method that is similar to the human body. We build a skeleton or frame and then cover it with various “skins” like wood, metals, cements, and plastics. In the case of houses we use metal or wood for the skeleton or frame and cover the frame with these various materials. In the case of large or tall buildings we use steel beams and girders for the frame and cover them or “skin” them also. In the case of airplanes we build the frame of ribs and stringers of aluminum and skin them with sheet aluminum. Cars also have a frame built of metal, mostly steel, and are skinned with steel or in some cases, partly with plastic.
Aside from those structures built from solid materials such as stone, concrete, cement blocks, bricks and timbers which are in a class all by themselves because of their extreme weight, most of the things we build today are similar to natures way of building, mainly, a frame inside and a skin outside. Animals, birds, most fish, even people are built this way. Please understand that I am not presuming to improve on nature’s way of building, only on the way man does it. We have copied nature in a sense by using the example of skeleton and skin and it has worked very well for many years but because we need to build so many large things that use so much materials there is no way we can continue in this fashion without harming our fragile little blue marble more and more as time goes on.

Nature has ways of efficiently controlling and recycling everything it creates, we do not. We need to change or die. I don’t mean individually or right away, I mean, die as a civilization or to be more direct, eventually as a species. Sooner or later we will run out of stuff to build stuff with or the residues of this stuff will become intolerable. We have to find better ways to build what we need that use less of our resources. I hate to use this following term because it sounds like a threat but it should be considered a warning…………. Or else!

There is a way to build what we need by again copying nature’s way. This involves another realm of nature that most of us don’t like to think about, much less see. Insects! Yes, bugs! One thing these tiny critters are known for besides being pests is their amazing strength to weight ratio. Who hasn’t seen an ant on a TV show carrying around something far bigger and heavier than itself? The main difference between those little critters and most of the bigger critters in terms of how they are built is that they have their skeleton or frame on the outside. It’s called an exoskeleton. In that respect, the surfboard I mentioned is quite similar to the ant. Sorry, it’s the best analogy I could think of.

Now, let’s examine why this ant and this surfboard have a better strength to weight performance than if they were built like we are with a frame on the inside. Most insects have a skin that is stiff and hard, yet slightly flexible and separated by a lightweight material inside that is not very compressible. In the case of the ant it is mainly fluids and muscles inside and in the case of the surfboard it’s a lightweight plastic. Both serve a same purpose, to keep the outside skins separated. When we think about construction materials, one of the first considerations is how strong it is and will it bend or break easily?

There are two main forces that act on let’s say, a 2x8 floor beam or joist. It is spanning across a room along with others and they have plywood laying on them and nailed in place. When you walk into the middle of the room on top of the plywood you exert a force. One of these forces is compression, which is applied to the top part of the 2x8 and another is tension, which is exerted on the bottom of the 2x8. The top is being squeezed together and the bottom is being pulled apart. The 2x8 can withstand the compression better than it can withstand the tension because of the wide plywood sheet on top which is also compressed. If you invite a lot of friends who are rather large, to join you in the middle of the floor you may exert more pressure on the 2x8 than it can handle and the very bottom of the 2x8 will start to separate. As it separates the tear will travel up to the plywood on top and it too will go through the same process. The bottom of the plywood will come under tension and begin to separate until it too fails and before you know it you and your friends are on the floor below. Next time choose your friends more carefully or choose less of them.

However, if you insist on inviting these same friends again what you could do is nail another sheet of plywood underneath the 2 x 8’s, just as there is on the top and then this floor will be much stronger. The floor will now be strong enough so you and your friends can party away and even dance if you want to. This is because the width of the bottom of a 2 x 8 is only about 1½ inches. (Calling a 2x8 a 1 ½ x 7 ½ would just confuse us carpenters) When you add the three other 2x8’s under this sheet of plywood then the total width of wood on the bottom of the 2x8’s under tension was about 6 inches. When you add another skin of plywood under the floor you now have an additional 48 inches of wood to resist the tension on the bottom. A composite sandwich panel uses the same principal, a skin on both sides and instead of the 2x8’s in between there is a lightweight material of sufficient thickness and resistance to compression and shear to keep the two skins separated. A lightweight core in between the skins of such a structure can increase the stiffness or strength proportional to the cube of the core. What this means is that you can build something much stronger simply by increasing the thickness and can do so without adding significant additional weight. In the example of the floor given above, using 2 x 8’s, you could also increase the strength of the panel you created by using 2 x 10’s or 2 x 12’s but you would also be adding significant weight. It should also be noted that the frame type floor of 2x8’s and plywood mentioned above has twice as many parts as a comparable sandwich type panel would have without even counting the nails or screws.

I apologize for the long diatribe in carpentry, physics and talking about bugs. I realize that many of you are very knowledgeable in these things but if this book is to be of any use I must try to help those that are not involved in the arts of construction to understand that it is possible to improve our methods of construction and in turn help ourselves by building things cheaper, quicker and better by building them lighter and last but not least by using less parts. Keep in mind that each part needs to be produced and put in place by someone, so that, if you use fewer parts, it takes less time to build whatever you’re building.









Chapter 5 Buildings

What is a house or a building? It is shelter, a shelter from weather. The shelters we build are probably, the worst examples of the comparison of weight to use that I can think of. One of the best places to use the advantages of lightweight construction is in a typical house. Frame houses, a brick house, a cement block house, all have many, many parts that add up to an awful lot of weight. They weigh many, many, thousands of pounds, to shelter a few thousand pounds of people and their stuff. Most of the strength of the structure is used to support the materials themselves that the house or building is made of. This is not necessary nor is it very economical.

The average price of a home in this country is over $200,000 dollars. In my area of Long Island it is over $300,000 dollars. Granted, the land is a large part of the price, but I will speak to that problem a little later on. The main force that needs to be considered when building a house or a building is the weather and gravity. A structure needs to be able to withstand high winds. When we build a square house like we usually do, we invite winds to blow them down. A preferable shape would of course be round, because a round shape is much more resistant to winds force, but for now I will not try to change the customary preferences of people.

The building codes in this country just don’t allow you to build according to your own knowledge. They make it too expensive in terms of paperwork, for someone to even try it on an experimental basis. Maybe someday, they will allow it like they allow a person to build his own experimental airplane, which lets you build it and fly it but only for yourself, but for now it is just too difficult to build an uncommon house. There should be a plan where you can build but are not allowed to sell it, until a few years have passed and the structure has proven itself in use. Many innovators of all sorts of products find that it is easier to build what they have innovated, than to overcome the many obstacles put in their way by the powers that be. This is not sour grapes; it is a fact of life. Ok, maybe it is sour grapes.

Ok, back to the house and how to build it. Because a house has very many parts involved in its construction, one of the first considerations is to reduce the number of parts required, while at the same time use less expensive and less heavy materials. At the present time there are two building materials on the market that meet these requirements. One is cement and the other is lightweight plastic foam called, expanded poly-styrene, otherwise known as EPS. A 4 foot x 8 foot x 6 inch thick, EPS panel, coated with a relatively thin coat of fiber reinforced cement would be the basis for building a house that has the qualities needed. Its compressive strength is about 1400 pounds per square foot for the foam alone. A 6- inch thick square foot piece only weighs one half of a pound. It is very strong, very cheap, very insulated, very waterproof, very fire resistant, and very light and does not rot. Since this core material can be cut and shaped with only a hot wire, and cement can be sprayed or hand applied before or after it is in place, the actual construction process is extremely simple and non- labor intensive compared to typical frame or block construction. Plumbing pipes and electrical wires are routed thru simple grooves in the panel. Floors and roofs can have extra reinforcing added as needed in the form of steel wire mesh or other devices or simply made thicker.

The cost of such a house, because of the use of less parts and labor can be less than half of what it costs to build a conventional house. We could be doing this today, but for the government system that does not allow it. Actually it is being allowed in some places but not in very many unless one wants to spend all his time and money going thru batteries of testing and other red tape type paperwork. I should also mention the mindset that it has to be heavy to be strong. By now, you should have an idea of the basics of this type of construction, so in the case of buildings, I will only say that if it needs to be bigger, make it thicker. Tall buildings can be built by making the lower walls thicker than the upper sections. Skins can be made of other materials besides cement. The problem with the extreme weight of the buildings presently constructed is the fact that all this weight always wants to come down. It is what is known as gravity.
The tragic event of the World Trade Center collapse is a result of the upper floors, above the area of impact, weighing so much that the floors below the damage could not support the weight of the upper floors once some of the steel beams failed. This was evident because it took some time for the beams to fail due to the heat generated by the aviation fuel. Had the buildings been lighter in weight, especially the upper floors, the secondary disaster of collapse would not have occurred. It is interesting to note that the Twin Towers weighed almost 2 billion tons. This is not Monday quarterbacking, it is a simple statement of fact and a basic rule of gravity. The heavier something is, the more it wants to come down. Lighter weight structures can also survive earthquakes better because the heavier something is the more it wants to continue shaking once it has started and the more it shakes, the weaker it gets. Another benefit of the type of lightweight construction I am championing is the inherent flexibility of using a lightweight core. If a tree didn’t flex a little in a strong wind it wouldn’t be a tree for very long.

There are some areas of this country, where flooding is a major problem. The house stays where it is and the water rises inside. When the flood recedes, the damage is still there. Water soaked wood and electrical circuits, ruined sheetrock, rusted nails and metal, and various other water damages are the result. Replacing walls or floors or even parts of them gets to be pretty costly. If the house were made of materials that weren’t affected by water and the house were allowed to “float” up, held in place by tethers or other methods, it could be a very valuable attribute. A lightweight house built as described above would do just that. A slab, one foot thick, built of a lightweight core and a cement skin would be enough to let the entire house float and return to its original position when the water receded. It’s what I would call a “go with the flow” approach to building in flood areas. Incoming utility lines would need to be made flexible to allow for a few feet of upward movement but that can be easily accomplished. It isn’t exactly rocket science to figure out that if the water rises, so should the house. Duh! There are many ways to overcome many of the problems we have today but they require a change. I realize that change is difficult, but when it is a change for the better, the possibility should be looked at.




Chapter 6 Cars


Cars could today be built today using similar techniques used to build those amazing surfboards. A core of rigid lightweight plastic foam, encapsulated in a skin of other types of plastics that have the ability to be sprayed or layered would be the basis of such a car. The entire body and floor would be produced in a mold with the finish already in place. Areas of the car could be adjusted in terms of thickness and toughness according to needs. For instance, the front and rear of the unit could be made thicker to allow for more shock absorbing qualities along with the doors and interior dashboard area. Seats can be molded as strong lightweight structures also. Floors could be designed to allow for any space required for the running gear such as transmissions, drive shafts, axles and wheels which could all be designed smaller and lighter to suit the reduced weight and use these parts would serve. Areas of attachment for these and other parts and accessories can have imbedded into the molded sections appropriate connection plates and devices. Any area can be further increased in strength simply by adding more of the exterior and or interior plastic skins or adjusting the density or thickness of the core material. Notice that I said, exterior and or interior skins, which are both contributing to the strength of the structure, whereas in today’s typical frame construction only the exterior skin is used for strength while the interior is mainly for cosmetics or comfort.

Those parts of the car that are subject to impact, such as sides, front and rear could be additionally protected simply by making them thicker. This would be similar to putting air bags all over the car because as we all know; lightweight rigid foams of various types are used today for just that purpose. They protect products from damage during shipping. Areas where there may be high heat from the engine or exhaust could have appropriate heat resistant materials such as metal or ceramics set into the structure before the molding takes place. Because of the nature of the molding process and the removal of the part from the mold it would be necessary to make molds for several different sections of the car such as front, rear, top, bottom and sides or however the experts in making molds determine as this is a discipline all its own. It is an established fact that production by molding is a more efficient and precise way to manufacture. Because this would be a new way of doing things for the auto industry, it would require a certain amount of research and development and learning, but the benefits would be enormous to the producer, to the user and to the world. It will take a person or groups of people with the foresight, vision and the courage to initiate this kind of change. It will also require financial investment but how much does the industry spend just in retooling for one new model? I am sure there are leaders in the auto industry that, once they understand the advantages of using these comparatively simple, yet effective technologies they would want to be the first to make use of them. To be the first to come out with a car that weighs half as much as the competition and performs as well or better would be quite an accomplishment. A car that is safer, a car that costs less to buy and to operate, a car that will put fewer emissions into our air both in production and in use. A car that can produce more profit for the maker because he can increase his margins and still sell it cheaper than the competition and sell more of them. This can all be done but it will take someone to do it. If you are one of those persons that have the ability to change how we build cars, please be advised that my intent here is only to pique your curiosity and hopefully get you to at least look into the possibilities. You could end up doing yourself and the rest of us a very important service.

Until the day that all cars are made much lighter in weight, we will not achieve the greatly improved safety record that is possible. By driving a car on the road today that weighs half as much as other cars, you would not be any less safe than you are now because the improved handling and braking characteristics would help to keep you out of harms way. The idea of not having any hard stuff on the inside of the car that could harm you, along with the fact of less inertia and shock absorbing materials completely surrounding you when you hit something else, or when something else hits you, will be a saving grace. The real improvement in highway safety statistics will become evident, as more and more cars are made lighter. What this means is that if the vehicle laws were changed to ensure a gradual lightening up of cars, we would see a corresponding improvement in the rate of deaths and injuries caused by accidents. The only way this can come about is for the governments to begin limiting the weight of cars or the manufacturers doing it voluntarily. Most cars are off the road after about 10 years, so that in a relatively short time, we could all begin to enjoy the many benefits of weight reduction. The sooner we start, the sooner it can start to happen.





























Chapter 7 Boats

The building method I champion in this book, the method of a frameless
lightweight construction, is useful when building cars for the reasons I have describe. It’s
even more useful when applied to houses and buildings for obvious reasons. There is one
mode of transportation that we use, where weight is accorded even less consideration in
the planning of its construction, less than those mentioned above, buildings and cars.
.
That mode of transportation is boats, or as they are called when they are bigger, ships. What is the primary purpose of a boat or a ship? It is to enable us, and our things, to travel on water without getting wet. Some boats allow us to travel more comfortably than other boats, some are faster than others and some are more safe than others but all have one thing in common, they all float. Or at least they do most of the time. Boats float because of their shape, just as airplane can fly because of the particular shape of their wings. A boat is shaped to take advantage of something called displacement. It pushes enough water out of the way until the water moved out of the way by the boat sitting in the water weighs as much as the whole boat does. Water weighs about 60 pounds a cubic foot so if the boat weighs a thousand pounds, all it needs to do in order to float is push away one thousand pounds or 16 cubic feet of water and it will float.

A one thousand pound boat can do this and still have most of the boat sticking out of the water. This is relatively easy to do because even a heavy cast iron bathtub can float. All it has to do is make a hole in the water big enough so that if that hole were filled with water, that same water would weigh a little more than the bathtub. This is one reason why boats are generally built heavy, it just isn’t that tough to make them float so why bother try to make them light. And anyway, heavy is strong, everybody knows that. Of the three main methods of transportation, cars, planes and boats, a boat is the one that needs to be the strongest.

Why? Because a boat takes more of a beating in use than does a car or a plane.
Anyone that has cruised at even moderate speeds in a little chop in a boat has felt that foot jarring pounding coming up thru the floorboards each time the bow hits the next wave. A car has shock absorbers and tires to soften the bumps in its road and a plane travels on a road of air, which is a lot softer than water. A boat however, travels on a road that most of the time is not smooth, and the faster you go, the harder the bumps. It’s true that some boats can rise above the small bumps to smooth out the ride by attaining a planing speed but the bow and hull will still take a beating as it hits the top of each wave and the faster you go, the harder the hit. If the space between the waves is more than the length of the boat and you go fast, you will ride up each wave, become airborne for a moment, and crash down the other side with a pretty good thump.

The heavier the boat is, the harder the thump. Drop a balloon on the floor and it will just bounce a little but drop that same balloon filled with water and it will break. Why does it break? It breaks because it was a heavier balloon. It hit with more force. It had more energy. Two boats, same size, same shape, same strength, one weighs 1000 pounds and one weighs 500 pounds. It is easy to see that the lighter boat will take less of a beating given the same circumstances.

Remember that part about displacement? Where the boat makes a hole in the water big enough, so that hole, if filled with water that weighs as much as the boat, the boat will float? OK, now you have a break or a leak in the boat and you start filling that hole in the water with water, only it’s inside the boat. If the hole in the water gets too small you don’t float. Now, if you build a boat where the structure itself, even if completely submerged, displaced enough water to equal its own weight, the boat would float. It would bob up again even if you pushed it completely under the water because the entire boat weighed less than the water it was displacing even by being under water. How do you do that? You make it thick. Thick enough, so that, the thickness of the hull by itself, displaces enough water that weighs enough, to equal the weight of the boat. If you make the hull, say, a 2 inch thick hull, comprised of a rigid lightweight plastic core such as an expanded poly-styrene which has a weight of one pound per cubic foot and a tough skin on both sides that weighed say one pound per square foot you would have a structure that weighs about one and one sixth pounds per 2 inch thick square foot. A, 2 inch thick, square foot of water weighs about 10 pounds, so even if you completely fill this boat with water it won’t sink. You could blow the boat to pieces with dynamite and the pieces would still float. It would just refuse to sink. The reason a wood boat will sink even though wood itself floats is because a 2 inch thick square foot of wood weighs about 7 pounds which is less than the weight of water but, when you add in the weight of the motor and other equipment attached to it, it sinks. If it were a rowboat with no motor or equipment and you submerged this rowboat, it would still float but this is not about rowboats.

In the case of a typical fiberglass boat, since it is only about ½ inch thick on average, it sinks because it isn’t thick enough to displace enough water. In the case of really big boats or ships they are usually made of steel and tend to sink even faster. Conventionally built boats or ships depend on one main factor to stay afloat. Don’t let water get inside. A boat or ship built the way I am describing wouldn’t be bothered too much if it ran into the rocks and tore a hole in the bottom. It would get lower in the water and the captain might be bothered but the boat would remain afloat. A boat or ship can be made of fiberglass or steel but it would need to be thick enough to displace enough water that weighed significantly more than the material itself. That is to say that the section of hull could have skins of fiberglass or steel or aluminum or whatever the boat designer preferred but separated by a lightweight core between the skins, so that, that section of hull, when immersed in water, displaced enough water that weighed more than the section itself and the proportionate amount of motor and equipment onboard.

Another way to think about it is a square bottle with the top on. This bottle will float because the sides are separated by air and therefore the entire volume of the bottle will displace enough water to allow it to float. If you take the top off the bottle and allow water to enter the bottle, only the sides of the bottle will displace water and since the sides are made of glass and the glass is heavier than water, it sinks. The core of the structure I describe is like the air in the bottle, it will not allow water to enter the space between the skins. It is somewhat lightweight, like air, but unlike air, it has qualities of strength that combine with the strength of the skins to form a structure where the strength of the entire unit is more than the sum of the strengths of the individual parts, much more.

Small boats can be made strong yet light by adding thickness to the hull in the form of lightweight cores that displace enough water to make them virtually unsinkable. A 20 foot boat would have for example a 2 inch thick hull, a 30 foot boat, a somewhat thicker hull and so on. A 500- foot ship may have a hull that is a foot or more thick. These figures are only to help you understand the idea that the bigger it is the thicker it needs to be. Calculations would need to be done for each size and type of boat or ship by the designers. Because of the much lighter weight of this kind of vessel, a hull style would be required that would allow it stability when standing still because it will not be very deep in the water. This can be accomplished by using some of the design features in the following drawing. There are added benefits to this type of construction. Some of these are obvious such as less engine, fuel, etc!

A floodable keel would provide stability when not moving but would also allow the boat to “hunker down” in rough weather and provide counterbalance against “turnovers”. By the use of inlet and outlet doors in the bow and stern this water weight can be removed as needed simply by accelerating the vessel and could also be used as a braking system by allowing water to enter while underway. A hull, which includes the use of properly designed stabilizers in the aft portion of the hull, would also provide some lift to get more of the hull out of the water when underway allowing for more efficient travel. This same design can be for both small and large boats or ships and has the advantage of a much shallower draft. Large ships would be able to enter ports previously denied them because of a much shallower draft and would certainly save money in fuel which is a major factor in shipping costs. When in really bad seas, with the keel chamber filled, the boat would be self- righting in the event of a turnover.

In the case of smaller boats that are trailered, built in wheels to replace the trailer could be a very practical feature, as the lighter weight would allow it. You could put your boat in the water in one place and take it out at another place without worrying about having a trailer. Anyone who has dealt with a boat on a trailer knows what a pain in the you know what that can be. A further benefit is that you don’t have to drag around all that extra weight and expense of a trailer.

A lighter boat takes less of a beating, uses less gas, needs less engine power for the same speeds and also means you could increase the range of the boat. In today’s small boat market, the outboard motor usually cost’s more than the boat does, so if you cut the weight by half, you save quite a bit of money just on the motor. Aside from the savings, there is one other factor that the boat manufacturers should consider. Many people do not like boats because they know that they can sink. If they knew they could safely venture out onto the water, many more would.






















Chapter 8 Aircraft


Ok, now let’s talk about airplanes and flying and how weight affects it. Actually, Air isn’t too concerned with the weight of an object flying thru it. Air is more concerned with the shape and size of the object. Gravity is the culprit that forces us to consider the weight of whatever it is we intend to use for flying. Actually, in the beginning, airplanes weighed less per foot than they do now but as time went on and more speed and carrying capacities were needed so the old materials of wood and fabric were replaced by metal
and some plastics. Higher speeds and altitudes demanded the use of stronger materials
than wood or fabrics could provide. Any increases in weight from using these new
materials was compensated for by adding more powerful engines, similar to what the
automobile industry does for cars.

How does an airplane fly? Well, according to a guy named Bernoulli, the following happens as air flows over and under a wing, as the speed of the air increases the pressure decreases. Pretty simple isn’t it? It gets slightly more complicated as we examine why this is so and why we design wings with a curve on the top. Somebody read what Bernoulli said and figured out that a curve on top of the wing and a flat bottom would mean that the air had to travel faster on top of the wing in order to arrive at the back of the wing at roughly the same time as the air underneath. Because a curve is longer, more distance was required to be covered by the air on top than the air underneath in the same amount of time. I really don’t know if somebody actually figured it out because of Bernoulli or if it was the result of copying birds but in any case, it worked.

As to why the pressure is lower in air moving faster, it is because the air molecules separate somewhat as they speed up and they have more space in between each other. Because air molecules have more space in between each other, and space is a vacuum, they exert less pressure on their surroundings. One part of this surrounding area is the top of the wing. The top of the wing reacts to this lower pressure or you could say, partial vacuum formed on top of the wing by being sucked into it. I guess you could say that flying sucks. My reasons for saying that the air molecules separate is because we know that as you get higher and higher into the atmosphere you encounter less and less dense air, which has less and less pressure. When you get past our atmosphere and arrive in space there is no air but there is no pressure either. Space is a vacuum, which I would describe as the reverse of pressure and in some ways can be more powerful than pressure. Nothing is more than something sometimes. That same vacuum in space is what is formed on top of the wing except that it is a partial vacuum. This phenomena, occurs with water, increase the speed, and you decrease the pressure. You can increase the speed at a certain point in a water pipe by restricting the flow (pinching the pipe for example is creating a longer distance for the water to travel around the inside of the pinch) causing the water at that point to move faster than the water in back of it as well as the water in front of the restriction. If you place a pressure gauge at the pinch it will be less than the rest of the pipe.

This quickie explanation of how airplanes fly was necessary in order for me to set the stage for the reasons to build an airplane lighter than we currently are doing. The motivation behind most of the advances in aviation has been both size and speed. Make it bigger to carry more stuff and faster to get there quicker. By working within the “framework” of current state of the art methods, this policy has led us to enjoy the wonders of air transportation, as it exists today. We have created some magnificent flying machines and I for one was always proud to be a part of this amazing industry. We can fly much further and faster than we could have imagined only 100 years ago.

Safety has always been a large part of the thinking that goes into building and operating airplanes, however, along the way we slowly increased speed. Speed is the vital factor involved in safety or whether or not you could survive a mishap. Most aviation mishaps occur during landing or taking off and since landing and taking off speeds have increased dramatically, any mishap is inherently more dangerous today than the first days. I learned to fly in a piper cub and did so at only about 45 miles per hour while landing and taking off and I never had much fear because I figured I could always jump out when I was close to the ground if things didn’t go as planned. Today a typical landing or taking off speed for modern jets is 4 times that, so jumping off is no longer an option. The reason for these increased speeds is that the air flowing over the wings must go fast enough to create enough suction on top of the wings in order to lift the airplane and since airplanes got heavier and heavier more and more power was required to reach these higher landing and take off speeds. An airplane the size of a 747 that weighed ½ as much could still travel at 600 mph when it wanted too but would have the decided advantage of landing and taking off at roughly half the speed of the heavier one. Survival rates would follow suit in the event of a mishap due to the slower speeds..

As with the example used to reduce the weight of a car, the same principles apply to building airplanes. We can build airplanes today using composite sandwich panel principles with lightweight core materials. Aluminum can be used as the skin as it is used today except that the skin could be much thinner because it is supported throughout its entire surface by the lightweight core, in comparison to the aluminum skin in frame construction where it is only supported at those places where it is riveted to the ribs and stringers of the frame. Another advantage of sandwich construction is a two for one thing. In typical frame construction only the exterior skin is counted on for strength along with the frame itself. The inside is generally used more as a cosmetic feature than for strength. You wouldn’t want to lean up against a rib or a stringer, while seated, so panels are added to the inside along with insulating materials to make things more comfortable. These things naturally add more weight but do not contribute significantly to the strength of the structure. By building the structure using the methods I am describing you get a two for one deal. An interior that you can lean on that also contributes to the strength not to mention the fact that the core has excellent insulation properties, so you could even say you get three for one. Naturally what follows, are smaller engines, less gas, lighter landing gear and so on but more importantly, slower takeoff and landing speeds. The slower you go, the more time you have to figure things out if things go wrong. Just like when you drive a car. Hitting something in a large airplane at 75 mph is a lot less demanding of the plane and its contents than hitting something at 150 mph, not to mention there would be much less fuel onboard.

I said earlier that I would question the weight compared to the use as I did with cars. A 4-engine jet weighs, let’s say 330,000 lbs at takeoff. The airplane itself weighs 160,000 pounds, the passengers and baggage weigh 40,000 pounds and the fuel for a long flight would weigh 130,000 pounds, so we need 330,000 pounds to carry 40,000 pounds of payload. Not a very pretty picture is it? Cut the weight of this same size airplane in half to 80,000 pounds and you will need half the fuel for the same performance. You now have a total of 185,000 pounds versus 330,000 pounds for a 40,000 pound payload. If airplanes were lighter they could use more airports with shorter runways. We could then get to the airport faster than to our destination, which sometimes isn’t possible in today’s world. As for the actual construction of a lighter weight aircraft it would be accomplished by the use of adhesives and modern epoxies to attach the skins to the core material eliminating the need for the thousands or possibly millions of rivets and the many other parts such as ribs and stringers and interior panels needed in frame construction. This new type aircraft would require significantly less parts and again fewer parts which equals less work equals less cost, less pollution, etc! Sometimes this is referred to as the “KISS” method. Keep it simple, stupid. The best part of this way of building is the fact of lower speeds for take off and landing.
While I was transcribing the discussion on airplanes and why and how to reduce their weight from my handwritten notes into my computer, I became aware of the demise of the space shuttle Columbia and its brave crew. I had not intended to include space vehicles in this book as a subject because I didn’t feel it related to things we use in our daily lives as we do regular aircraft and cars and such. We use the many wonderful by- products of our space program but not the vehicles themselves, at least not yet.

The time now is about 2 days after the accident and I have been watching with interest the many discussions on TV about this unfortunate tragedy. As is usual in this type of accident the focus goes to what happened to cause this and as of this writing it appears that a few heat shield tiles were damaged by insulation foam coming off the external fuel tank during takeoff and upon reentry some 16 days later were the reason for the failure of the ship. This was due to the super high temperatures and winds generated at reentry speeds of around 12,000 mph.

The many people involved with the space program and other experts that are on TV are saying, that we will get to the “root” cause of why it happened, so that whatever it was, could be fixed. The root cause will probably end up as tiles or the insulating material on the external tank and methods to improve on this will be implemented eventually. Looking at this objectively you could also say that heat is the root cause and then say that the reentry speed is the root cause because it was the speed that generated the heat. I would take it a step further and say that weight is the root cause of this sad event because there wasn’t enough fuel left to slow the ship down on reentry. Maybe the real root cause is our handed down way of thinking.

The space shuttle weighs about 180,000 pounds and carries a payload of about 50,000 pounds An additional 4,250,000 (4 ¼ million) pounds are attached to the exterior of the shuttle in the form of fuel, fuel tank and detachable rocket motors. This is about the most dramatic example of inefficiency I could describe in an aircraft, or a spacecraft for that matter. The shuttle is at the same time, an aircraft and a spacecraft.

This same size structure can be built using lightweight cores and skins instead of the current frame method the shuttle uses which is similar to regular airplanes, consisting of ribs, stringers and spars etc! Various, graphite epoxies, carbon fibers, titanium, and other strong yet relatively light materials are presently being used but are used mostly for their properties of heat resistance, along with the 25,000 or so heat protection tiles and thermal blankets that are currently used on the shuttle. It is my opinion that the same size shuttle could be built at less than half the weight of the current shuttles by using a form of the lightweight core with exterior and interior structural skins this book talks about and still have the ability to carry the required payload to orbit. Many of these materials are available or even being used by NASA today. A case in point is where NASA reduced the weight of 42 crew storage lockers inside the shuttle by as much as 83% by the use of Kevlar/epoxy sandwich panels with a non-metallic lightweight core, replacing the original lockers made of aluminum.

A change in tactics by NASA would be required to also eliminate the millions of pounds of weight represented by the associated external tank, its fuel and booster rockets. A change in tactics means that instead of going straight up to overcome earth’s gravity, which unfortunately precludes the use of Bernoulli’s wonderful principle to overcome some of the gravity. A gradual increase in altitude could be used to take advantage of the fact that the shuttle is also an airplane which is presently not being taken advantage of by the shuttle on the assent portion of the trip. It only fly’s like an airplane on the way back. Smaller and lighter rocket engines inside the shuttle could be used to take off using it as the aircraft it is. Sufficient fuel could be carried to reach space by gradually increasing speed as atmospheric drag decreases with altitude. If it were deemed necessary or desirable, additional and smaller detachable power could be used to assist during the initial lower atmospheric stage of flight where much of the fuel is depleted. Possibly, the same method used by NASA to carry the shuttle around the country by mounting it on top of a 747 could be used to carry it to 50,000 feet or so in order to save fuel on the way up similar to what we did with the old X-15, the first spacecraft.

The problem with going straight up is the 4 million or so pounds of fuel required for that approach. Most of that fuel and the rockets are used just to lift the fuel itself. Columbia did not encounter a friction heat problem on the takeoff because the speed while going thru the atmosphere on the way up was not fast enough to generate the same high heats and winds encountered during the descent phase. If the shuttle was light enough and had sufficient power and fuel on board to allow a gradual descent slowdown in space before and after hitting the atmosphere there would be no need for the various heat shields designed for temperatures up to 3000 degrees. The various heat shield tiles, thermal blankets and associated cooling systems are a significant part of the shuttles overall weight. Speed could be adjusted to match the density of the atmosphere as the shuttle descends by the use of computers to stay within the operating limits of the craft and eliminate the need for non-structural heat resistant materials. In other words instead of a “falling down” type reentry, a gradual slowing down type reentry, under power, could be used, starting in space and then reentry into our atmosphere at speeds where heat is not a problem. Instead of traveling at 12,000 mph when encountering the atmosphere, it could be at much lower speeds where heat just wasn’t a factor. Once the vehicle reached speeds where it could again be operated as an aircraft rather than a spacecraft it could continue normally to a landing with power available if required instead of the one shot only landing it has to make today.

I have heard a NASA official state that such a method was against the “laws of physics”, but that doesn’t make sense. At least, not if the craft was light enough. During the descent stage it requires power, (thrust) to slow down just as you need power to go up. NASA could make these changes rather easily because they are well versed in lightweight sandwich panel construction and fully understand the benefits. What would be required of NASA is a new way of thinking about how to go about getting to space and back, a way that does not involve super high speeds in atmospheric flight where so much heat is generated. In order to accomplish this, they would have to change the way they build their craft. It is also possible that the weight of the payloads sent into space could be reduced somewhat using some of the techniques described here. A lighter shuttle going to space more like an aircraft would save enough money so that more flights could be made more often. If it were determined that insufficient fuel could be carried to fly up and back, then possibly other “tanker” flights could take payloads of fuel to the international space station for the use of other flights on their return voyage. Sort of like a gas station in the sky. It is pretty obvious to me that an organization like NASA with all their knowledge and experience could do these things if they wanted to, all they would need is to want to.

Of the thousands of comments made by people knowledgeable in space travel and the construction of these vehicles and the many comments on the internet written by regular folk, I have not encountered the word “weight” as a root cause and that is why I decided to add my 2 cents worth about the space business. I make no claims to knowledge of astrophysics other than some basic physics insight and some know-how in lightweight construction. As to whether or not this information will be useful in space travel depends on those in that business taking a closer unbiased look at the possibilities.

I personally, do not think we need to be in space other than to place the useful satellites in orbit around the earth. I feel we should leave exploring other planets until we more fully understand our own.
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Chapter 9 Land

A number of years ago, I heard a commercial by a real estate company that said, “Buy land now because they don’t make it anymore!” Well, in my simplistic way, I thought, Why not? How come they don’t make it any more? What is land? Well of course, land is something you stand on and build on! If I can make a floor and stand on it, why can’t I make land? Oh, I know, there isn’t any space left. Then I thought, well why not build land on water? There’s plenty of that around. If you build it light enough to float and build the structures on it in a similar fashion, it shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, we stand on boats don’t we? After considering this for a number of years, I came up with a basic form of “land” that could be built cheaper than you can buy regular land for.

Because of the strife between some peoples in many parts of the world, the location or the lack of land is the problem more so than the price. Many of the current problems in the world are the result of not enough land in certain areas. In some cases it is land that has historical value to the parties involved but since there does not seem to be an answer to these problems such as in the Mid-East, using the space available on the nearby water would be a sensible solution. This is space that is not in contention and is not being used by anyone. When you can provide space for building and living at an affordable price, you would be doing more than just making money or providing a neat place to live. If someone would provide a few islands in the Mediterranean Sea or the Sea of Galilee for the Palestinians or the Israeli Settlers, things would cool down a bit. The same could be said for other hotspots in the world. An island about a mile in diameter could easily accommodate more than 3000 homes and businesses. I am sure that the Israelis and the Palestinians are spending much more money trying to maintain some sort of peace than it would cost to build some “sealand.” Living on a mobile island is like living in an RV, you can always move the Island or even your part of the Island if you don’t get along with your neighbors.


How can this be done, knowing that land needs to be rather big and stable? The best way would be to copy nature, more specifically, bees. They build pretty large structures in relation to themselves by using one basic part, or shape, and that is a hexagon. A hexagon is nature’s most efficient shape for joining parts to each other. In order to build this floating island, you would need to do it with parts that are maximum size yet still be able to be handled without the use of heavy machines. A hexagon about 10 feet in width and about 1 foot thick would be about right. This would allow each hexagon to support about 4400 pounds before it submerged, allowing for the weight of the EPS (expanded poly styrene) foam and the cement coating it would need. Joining together just 100 of these hexagons would support half a million pounds. A sizable “Island” consisting of a few thousand of these modules will accommodate a small city that can be grown as needed. This type of material is not affected by water and since cement increases its strength in water, the two together are ideal for the job. They also happen to be the two cheapest building materials available today.
The design of the basic “module” would use a simple attachment device so that as each module is produced, it can easily be attached to the one before it in the water. As for how to produce this system, a mold would allow each module to be completed with cement and attachment device when it comes out of the mold. After the fiber reinforced cement skin is allowed to cure, the module can be added to the ones before it in the water. When enough pieces are produced and attached to each other in the water, the entire production operation can be transferred to the new “land”.

The stability of this new land would depend on how big the island is. To be a true island, capable of existing on the open seas, it would need to be about a third of a mile in diameter with a beach area around it about 200 feet wide. This would be sufficient to ward off any extra large waves. The outer fringes of the island would need to be designed somewhat differently than the interior parts to allow for wave absorbing features. In protected waters such as lakes or inland seas, much of this beach area can be used for more housing or other structures. An island of 2000 feet or so in diameter would be so stable that you would think you were on land. Land being attached to existing land in a bay or other protected waters could be whatever size you like. It could be for any number of houses or other uses. Structures put on this new land would be built using the same methods of lightweight construction used to build the land itself. A hexagon makes an ideal part to build geodesic dome shaped houses and other buildings. Dome structures are easier to build, they are stronger and a dome shaped structure is the best shape for purposes of wind resistance. They are also more efficient in terms of space versus structure than typical box like structures. Please forgive me if I am going too fast for you to get your mind around the idea of building land. What I am describing here is very “low tech” and extremely doable.

There have been other attempts to build land on the seas but they failed. They never came to be mainly because of the enormous expense involved in their construction. One design I became familiar with a few years back anticipated using large steel interconnected floatation chambers. They were quite complicated and expensive to produce and therefore the idea never got off the ground, so to speak. In order for this new land is to be seaworthy, it has to be large and it must be completely unsinkable. The method and materials I am describing fulfill these requirements

The two basic materials involved, cement and EPS foam are both non-toxic and non-polluting and are at the same time, recyclable. They are also very available. EPS is an oil product but since it is so lightweight it requires very little oil to produce large volumes of the material. Besides, if some of the things in this book come true, we will need something for the oil companies to do.

.There needs to be a complete infrastructure incorporated into the “island.” To be entirely self contained it should have its own electrical generating systems. I say systems, plural, because there are various ways to produce energy. One obvious method is to use the power of the movement of the tides and currents. The design of individual hexagonal modules allows for placement of separate and relatively small water turbines, turned by the ever present moving water underneath the island. These would be rather simple wheels that are turned by the moving water current and are attached to electrical generators that could be disconnected whenever not in use. The use of this type of individual “energy module” would allow for individual placement at each house or facility that requires electricity. This would eliminate the need for a centralized power station or an electrical “grid system” which is not only costly but complicated because of the transformers and associated equipment necessary, not to mention wires running all over the place.

The beauty of generating electricity on an island like this is the fact that if you can produce electricity in one place on the island, you can produce it anywhere on the island, separately or all at once because they all tap the same source. There is an additional source of energy that would be available to the island and that is called solar energy. Solar panels available today have become much more efficient and cheaper and can be placed wherever required about the island and used in conjunction with other systems. Producing power at sea is inherently easier than on the old fashioned type of land. In the case of land being provided on enclosed bodies of water where currents did not run such as lakes or inland seas, existing land based energy stations could be connected to the new land to supplement the island’s energy systems if required.

While on this subject of energy production, I will also mention that these same “energy modules” would have another method of producing electricity. On the bottom of each energy module would be the “water turbines” to drive the generator while on the top would be located a “wind turbine” that could be connected to the same generator to take advantage of another of natures helpers called wind. At sea, there is usually more wind available than there is on regular land because there are few obstructions to the wind. At times it may be more advantageous to use the wind than the water for energy. One of those times may be while underway as it may be that while underway the current runs in the same direction you are going. If I didn’t mention it before, yes, the island would be able to move. What would be the use of such an island if one couldn’t take advantage of going south in the winter and north in the summer? Of course it wouldn’t move so fast that you would have to hold on to something. Something this big would travel in the neighborhood of 2 or 3 knots. It would take a while to get from say, the North Atlantic to the Caribbean but so what. You could sit in your backyard and have a barbeque or go out to a nice restaurant while you’re getting there. Some may want to do a little fishing in their backyard to pass the time. All you would need to do is lift one module up or just make a hole in it. The idea of living on an island like this is that you’re never really going somewhere when you’re going somewhere, you’re already there.

By now you probably wonder? How does something this big get “underway”? Just as there are redundant means of generating electricity, there would be various methods of propulsion depending on conditions at the time. If wind were available, which it would be most of the time, those same individual “windmills” which are used to turn the generators in each energy module would be designed to power those same generators but they would also be generator-motors to power the same swiveling omni directional water turbines- cum -water paddles to be used for propulsion. Naturally, any long distance travel would be planned to take advantage of natural ocean currents to assist in propulsion. It goes without saying that an anchoring system would be available when needed.

In today’s world, Satellite navigation and meteorological information is readily available. Worldwide weather forecasting would provide ample time to avoid hurricanes. Computers would do most of the work in handling these systems. A third method that would be available to use for propulsion is the old fashioned one called sails. Retractable sails could be placed wherever and whenever it was felt they would be advantageous. Engines could be used also if it were deemed necessary. One thing to remember, on an island of this size, there is plenty of room for whatever you want or need. Also, weight is not a major consideration for something like an engine because as I mentioned before, each 10 foot module is capable of supporting over 4000 pounds. If necessary, any modules that were required to support more than that could simply be made thicker. A two foot thick module will support 8000 pounds. This is not a very complicated system. It can be modified wherever and whenever necessary, even after it is built. Just replace a few modules with whatever you like whenever you like. In the event of an island that wanted to stay in one location but may have to move occasionally, tug boats could be utilized thereby saving the cost of built in propulsion.

You could take out a few modules in your backyard to create a swimming pool and put them back in when you get tired of it or the water got too cold. A net could be fastened to the pool underneath to keep people from straying too far from the pool or to keep unwanted underwater visitors out of the pool.

While we are on the subject of pools with a net, it is also a good way to have your own little fish farm. Creative waste management would provide food for the fish to grow along with whatever natural food would be there and you could take them with you as you travel. There are similar net fish farms producing Tuna presently in operation in coastal waters of Australia. Some modules could be allowed to accumulate barnacles and other sea growth underneath to attract fish. All the other modules can be cleaned as needed just by lifting them out periodically one at a time. Other marine foods could be developed such as oysters, crabs and certain seaweeds that are edible and nutritious. I am sure that there are people that could provide knowledge about this type of thing. Hydroponics modules would be suitable for growing vegetables and fruits. Dirt could be used as a growing medium also but it would not be as efficient as hydroponically grown food. Even trees can be planted wherever you like. I am not talking about giant oak trees and such but smaller fruit trees and the like. Water can be provided by having a certain number of modules converted to evaporation stills using the seawater underneath to condense on plastic coverings thereby providing fresh water. Modules used for planting can be covered with transparent plastic domes that would act as evaporation stills and water the plants directly as well as be a protection for the crops from the elements. It would be a hydroponics self watering hothouse.

This is not very high tech; it is just another way of doing things, things that have already been done and proven. Water for the use of the island can be produced by banks of these evaporation still modules along with small osmosis plants if necessary. Another back up system for water would of course be to have water tanks, made from the same materials as the rest of the island that could be refilled by rainwater or whenever near shore or by supply ships. Of course the island would have its own built in port so that boats and ships could visit. Naturally the island would also have its own ferry service. Small airplanes could land on the island also. The inhabitants could give tours to cruise ship passengers who might want to come “ashore” to visit the restaurants or see a show in one of the island nightclubs. A few nice motels would be there if visitors wanted to spend the night.

Some of the inhabitants of this “island city” could specialize in different foods and a trade system developed such as two oysters for one fish or something like that, or just plain 50 cents each, whatever. After a while it may be that one island could trade goods that that island specializes in with another island that is set up for a different type of product because of where it spent most of its time or the people living on it suited that particular type of product. You could have an oyster island, a hydroponics lettuce island, a chicken island or a TV set island or even a car island. The possibilities are endless. Once a year all the islands would get together somewhere and have a big trade fair. By that time, someone would probably figure out that they needed to enlarge the Panama or the Suez Canal to allow passage of all these islands. That shouldn’t be a problem though because instead of enlarging the canal, the island itself can be made narrower by separating the island into smaller parts for the canal passage and then rejoining them on the other side.

By now you have probably noticed that I am not treating this island building idea as a fanciful subject. I feel that it will be the way human beings will have to go if we want to maintain our present population growth and the necessary shelters. Population growth is an exponential thing. The more people there are, the more babies there are, the more babies there are, the more people there are. Learning to live on the other 70 percent of the world is the natural way for us to keep our world balanced and at the same time advance civilization. Airplanes and even cars were considered “fanciful” ideas before they got going.

I have read various stories of the fabled continent of “Atlantis” and the idea that their civilization dispersed to other parts of the world after their country disappeared. At that time the population of the world may have been such that it was advantageous to spread people around.

Consider the name, “Atlantis,” in its root form, it means, to me at least, “to the land.” By the same reasoning, the name “America,” in its Latin root form means “to the sea.” The letter “A” means “to” and “mer,” means “sea.” Maybe thousands or millions of years ago the Atlantians were fated to populate parts of the land. Today, it is possible that we are supposed to populate parts of the oceans. I know it seems a bit of a stretch for someone just learning about the idea of being able to live on the seas, but I thought I would mention it anyway. To further strengthen the case, “Amerigo” was the original name of America.

I do not know how a city island would operate in terms of laws or regulations because there would be no laws until the folks living on it decided how things should work. In a way it would be like starting your own country. Actually, not in a way, it would be starting your own country. It is also possible that a company could build such an island and sell or rent the properties on it. If this country or another one wanted to expand they could do so by claiming the island as sovereign territory, similar to how they do with ships. These considerations would be up to those involved and is admittedly beyond my expertise and knowledge.

. Building and living on islands, may seem to be a farfetched and “outlandish” idea, but when considered, it makes a lot of sense if you take into account all the benefits we would get. This is the kind of project that could be started today. We have managed to get to the moon even without any real purpose to do it and have overcome some very daunting technical challenges in doing so. We have spent untold billions of dollars and taxed many brains to figure out how to turn atoms into bombs. Neither of these endeavors has given us any real lasting improvements to the way we live our lives or for that matter helped the world in its operation. Yes, it’s true we have enjoyed some spin off benefits from these enormous efforts such as atomic power plants and space developed gadgets. These advances would have happened in any case simply by letting science progress as it always has without spending all that money for a few rocks from the moon or for bombs to kill cities at a time.

We need to begin to use the other 70 percent of the world that we currently only use for travel, food and commerce. This space available to us called seas and oceans are underused and we could be living comfortably on them. If done properly and with vision, it can be accomplished in a helpful and non-polluting way. At present we only live on about 15 percent of our worlds total land area because of unsuitable climates, deserts and mountains and that amounts to only about 5 percent of the earth when you count the oceans. We can learn to produce the energy we need without damaging our environment as we do now. Practically everything the inhabitants of an island such as this could need exists on or in the oceans. We can produce the water we need by removing the salt from the limitless supplies that would lay beneath our feet. These things are already being done today so what I am talking about is not pie in the sky stuff. Growing food and even keeping livestock are very possible. Island fish farms, done in the right way would even reduce the depletion of our natural fish stocks because we would be feeding them as they grow. We presently take fish from the sea without feeding them. Whatever wasn’t produced on the island could be supplied by our non moving land based neighbors. Boats can be used for this just as trucks are used today for deliveries. Just as a city grows on regular land, sealand can be grown as needed. All you have to do is add some more modules produced by the module plant already in existence on the island. In the case of Islands built close to shore, roads can be built to the island by the use of the same basic modules.

Transportation on such an island can be accomplished rather easily since distances are not very great. Lightweight electric cars and other vehicles are suitable especially because there are so many energy modules strategically placed throughout the island that can be plugged into. Each home’s energy module could have a credit card device to sell some electricity to whoever needs it. Everybody could have a boat if they wanted one as the island would have docks and water roads built in simply by not putting modules wherever you wanted a water road. If you wonder how this is possible without affecting the integrity of the island, it can be done by simple underwater connection ties to take the place of a module that wasn’t there. As the island grew and things needed to be changed, moving roads or even houses can be easily accomplished by moving modules. Most of the island’s travel could be by small boat along with lightweight cars. There are really no limits to what can be done. Pretty much whatever you can think of can be built using some of the lightweight and simple methods described in this book. We already have the technology and know-how to do whatever we want to. All we lack is to want to.

OK, so we can build these islands that allow us to live safely on the oceans of the world but what is it going to cost? Well, let’s see, an island 2000 feet in diameter for example, has 3,170,000 square feet. Of that, 200 feet of the outer perimeter would be wave absorbing beach area, which would leave 2,028,800 square feet available for building and common area. First let’s take a look at the cost of the basic 10 foot by 1 foot thick hexagon modules to make the whole island. We would need 34,870 modules. The perimeter modules will require a little less material than the inner area but for purpose of cost estimate I will count them the same. Because of the large amounts of EPS involved and the molding method that would be used to create these modules, it would be worthwhile to blow your own foam, that is, expand the basic poly-styrene in the mold. This is very similar to how they make a typical inexpensive Styrofoam ice cooler that you buy to keep your soda or beer cool when you go to the beach. Some little pellets are pre-expanded with steam and then put in a mold and with steam, expanded again and out pops the cooler. It is a very clean process and no gasses are emitted or pollutants put into the atmosphere. This same process would apply to the modules except that there would be a ½ inch layer of fiber reinforced lightweight cement sprayed on the inside of the mold first along with the placement of the attachment devices. After a few minutes of cure time the module is “popped out” and stacked ready for joining to the rest of the island. It sounds simple because it is. Of course to produce 34,870 modules you would probably need more than one mold, depending on how fast you want to build the island.

Based on current prices at a wholesale level, it would cost between $2 and $3 dollars a square foot to produce the modules including labor if you had about 10 molds set up in a production line fashion. It would take less than six months to build the island. If you wanted it to go faster you would need more molds. The majority of the work would be done by production machinery. Attachment devices, properly designed, would only take a few minutes to attach each one to the others already in the water. This whole process would take place in a bay or other protected water until it was big enough to take offshore. At this time you would already have some infrastructure installed and production would be taking place on the island itself. Based on these figures and needing about 35,000 modules the cost of the island itself without any houses or infrastructure would be 12 million dollars. I have included the cost of the molds and production machinery such as cement and cement sprayers, conveyer belts, steam generators, etc! I then rounded off the number to keep it simple. So far we have, or better said need, about 12 million dollars.

Let’s see about how many houses can comfortably fit on such an island. We have 2,028,800 square feet to work with when we deduct the 200 foot beach. Let’s arbitrarily assign about 40% of this space to common areas for some streets, some business space, infrastructure and some administrative structures. That leaves us with 1,217,280 square feet of space for housing. Some of this space could be for condo type residences and some for detached homes. Some could be two stories and some one story. I cannot say how it would be, that would be up to professional city planners. For purposes of coming up with a figure to work with I will say that you can comfortably put 210 homes on this island. Each would have an average of about 5785 square feet of interior and exterior space and this is if all were built single story. If some were two stories then the number of homes you could fit would go up. Keep in mind that some folks would prefer larger and some smaller. I am using minimal numbers of homes so that I can show the financial viability of the project. In the following estimates I use United States numbers but keep in mind that if done in some other parts of the world the costs could be dramatically less.

I understand the average price of a home in the United States is at about $200,000 dollars. It seems fair to me that a home on the water would command this average price, but let’s just say $150,000 each in case the housing market drops by the time this island gets built. At $150,000 average each, this produces an income of $ 31,500,000 dollars. Deduct $12,000,000 dollars for the cost of the island itself and you have $19,500,000 dollars left. The homes and other structures will be constructed of the same type hexagons made from the same molds except that they don’t have to be a foot thick whereas 6 inches thick will suffice. The molds can be adapted with separators to form triangles for the geodesic dome construction. It will cost only about $30,000 dollars per average house with about 1000 square feet of living space. The cost of about 20 mold “pops,” which is enough to provide the basic dome parts for one house is about $5000 dollars; the rest of the $30,000 dollars is for the utilities, HVAC and labor to assemble and finish. Don’t forget, the foundation and floor is already there, This would also include the energy module for each house which would cost about $3000 dollars each or less because there would be so many of them. We now need about $6,300,000 to produce the houses, so that leaves $13,200,000 dollars. Take out about $5,000,000 dollars for some infrastructure and you have a profit of $8,200,000 dollars. Not too shabby, considering much of the work is in producing the same part.

These numbers are only intended to show that the cost of building in this fashion is very low and the project is a viable one. I haven’t even included the profit from the building of business structures or two story homes. Once production is set up on the island, there would be no reason why the island corporation or city state or whatever it would be called couldn’t continue selling the houses for use by landlubbers. For that matter, once the island was established and in production, other islands or even land to attach to regular land could be produced and sold. I am sure there is a market, especially worldwide.





Wrap up

This World is but one country and we are all citizens of that country. The boundary lines we have placed between nations cannot keep a citizen from the harmful effects caused by another fellow citizen in another nation. I have tried to create an awareness of what I see as existing problems as well as future problems with our world. The materialism that is the hallmark of our civilization needs to be tempered by spiritualism. I am not speaking about spiritualism in a religious sense; it is more in the sense that we are a small part of a perfect and wondrous universe, a universe that is beyond total human understanding. Look up at the night sky and see that only a fool could think he could understand it all. It is this kind of spiritualism that we need, the belief that there is someone or something directing and correcting us. We cannot afford to let our self importance continue changing the world as we do now. This planet that we occupy has a function as part of the larger whole and what we currently do does not fit the plan. The powers that be, the universe, just won’t allow that to happen. It has seen other errors made in the past and has always acted to correct them. We are the only beings on this planet that have the power to think and reason. Because of our reasoning powers we have the slight advantage of seeing an unseen danger as it comes toward us. This edge gives us the opportunity to be able to take action and avoid that danger. We can see into the future if we use the powers given to us. This is why we were made masters of our world. We need to take care not to become the destroyers of our world. We can understand not only the how of our world but the why and with a little bit of foresight, we can understand the plan of the world. When we can do that, we can follow the plan and lighten up.
[MSOffice1]




[MSOffice1]