Improving the safety of driverless cars
At the dawn of the age of self driving s cars, drivers face up to ten new driving hazards created by the very technology that is supposed to make driving safer.
We will outline the ten hazards and then explain how a new British invention could reduce them to acceptable levels.
Latent Power Turbines
This strange looking device could deliver clean energy at a lower price than wind turbines or solar panels.
Heat is extracted from the laboratory air as electricity is generated. As a bonus, cooling the air provides free air conditioning.
The power generator is hidden inside the tube and runs at a lower temperature than the surrounding air. It does not rely on the wind blowing or the sun shining. So it can deliver a continuous output of electricity, day and night.
We offer you a range of articles covering different aspects of the technology.
How Latent Power Turbines work.
If you enjoy reading newspaper articles about science, you will be able to follow our explanation.
Latent Power Turbines and black swans.
Details of the many ways in which Latent Power Turbines could change our society.
If you are disillusioned by the extreme political solutions that have emerged since the 2008 financial crash, this page will give you hope.
Using Latent Power Turbines to solve water shortage problems.
How Latent Power Turbines could help to defeat terrorist. But without killing people or putting our uniformed services at risk.
How Latent Power Turbines could solve the British migration worries and other European concerns. But without Britain having to leave the EU. See Section 2.3 on this page.
Production line robots, driverless cars and globalisation are destroying semi-skilled jobs. They are also devastating traditional working class communities. But LP Turbines could go a long way to reversing this trend. We explain how on this page.
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BREXIT
If you are weary of the political cat fighting about Brexit, try a fresh approach, by seeing it through the eyes of science.
Britain’s political leaders got the country into a fine mess when they failed to plan for a vote in favour of Brexit.
We offer some science based suggestions for avoiding another fine mess if the mood of the country changes and Brexit collapses. Our scientific approach involves thinking up to 50 years into the future, not just winning the next general election.
- The three Brexit time bombs. Three long term consequences of Brexit that the politicians appear to have ignored.
- ‘Europe 2.0’. Ten suggestions that will enable Britain to return to the heart of the EU with its head held high.
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An alternative to the Grenfell Tower design
In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, society has a moral obligation to completely reassess how people are housed in our crowded cities.
Take a look at this webpage for an innovative design to get the debate moving.
We have added some nudge psychology to promote the mental and physical health of the residents.
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HS2
"Britain’s new high-speed rail line will be the most expensive railway in the world with costs per mile expected to reach £403m, according to Government calculations".
Sunday Times 16 July 2017
After years of austerity, voters don't want to be insulted by a political vanity project. We suggest a low cost alternative to help more travellers.
Politicians have failed to grasp the underlying engineering problem:
We are still using Victorian era train braking technology. This means braking distances for trains are about sixteen times the braking distance for a car. This limits the number of trains we can run on our existing tracks.
But this problem can be overcome by using anew invention.
This would allow us to ease our network capacity problems in five years, without building any new lines.
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House Prices
"Bricks and mortar" make a sound investment at a time of Brexit uncertainty. But young people are finding it difficult to enter the market.
We suggest a financial invention to prevent house price bubbles
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Flood reduction farming
Problem: Modern large field farming has reduced the water holding capacity of the land and accelerated soil erosion is silting up our rivers and land drains.
Solution: Return to the smaller, more sheltered farm fields of the early Victorian era, but use teams of robot tractors instead of labour intensive horse drawn ploughs, in order to keep food production costs down.
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Are you young and want to be the next Steve Jobs?
Watch out, the establishment is biased against you!
A cautionary tale for aspiring British inventors
(i) Click here and learn before you spend time and money on your great idea.
(ii) If you have a GCE A level knowledge of physics, this page will either amuse or appall you.
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The boat people
Our ambiguos relationship with refugees
Britain is in danger of becoming the envy of racists in Europe. We try to counter this, while still addressing genuine fears about high levels of refugee migration.
Can we save the boat people refugees AND preserve racial harmony within Europe?
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SMART CAR BUMPERS TO SAVE PEDESTRIAN LIVES
Smart car bumpers are soft if they hit pedestrian legs, but stiffen up to protect car bodywork in other types of collisions
Click here for the story about how they work but how research fraud at Manchester University is holding up progress.
Click here for the story of how the University wriggled out of holding an enquiry into the fraud when instructed to do so by the government backed funding body (EPSRC).
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CAR SUSPENSION UNITS
Was a British invention plagiarised by the Chinese?
Or were they innocents led astray by a disgruntled Manchester University researcher?
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How the UK Research Integrity Office is corrupting British science
If you thought that politicians and the social media could be creited with destroying trust in public life, then think again.
A tiny number of dodgy Manchester University academics and the UK Research Integrity Office got there first!
Deatils have been published in a peer reviewed journal paper:
Courtney, W, ‘A private researcher’s struggles against research fraud’, Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 16 (2016) 142–156.
We quote from the paper
"The UKRIO seems to have manoeuvred itself into a position similar to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. It may be the most powerful body in the UK for influencing standards of research integrity, but its status is such that it can ignore questions about integrity within its own ranks."
Ibid. Section 19.
We offer two articles on this problem that is harming British science.
(i) 'Why the UKRIO needs reform' A background article that covers the same ground as the journal paper, but in a more concise form.
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Graphene -Whoops we made a mistake!
Why a failure to understand the subtle power of patents means that most of the £50 million British government and one billion Euro European funding for graphene research is likely to be wasted. At a time when European funding for science is under threat we must spend our research funds wisely to protect our European research base.
The problem is critical but we suggest a solution.
Click for story
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Generating green power for Elon Musk's Hyperloop
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Tropical diseases
(i) Zika and malaria
(ii) Soap and the fight against Ebola
Ebola is killing people in Africa again. (The Congo, May, 2018.) Vaccines are part of the answer, but simple low cost practices should also be implemented.
A social innovation to encourage hand hygiene is proposed.
Bill Courtney is the principle inventor for all of the inventions described on the site. 1792 Technology is a joint invention with Richard Kle.
Enquiries from students looking for research topics are welcome.