Re: [LAD] OT: alternative fuel for cars

On Tue, Aug 05, 2008 at 05:16:18PM +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote: Petrol is considered a fuel because you can burn it, and then it delivers thermal energy. In the same way you can burn hydrogen, so it's a fuel. What remains in that case is water. That doesn't make water any more a fuel than the waste products of burning petrol. Being catchy is no virtue. On the contrary, the 'catchy' way science is presented in the popular media is doing more harm than anything else. It creates the false illusion that the current state of science can be understood in intuitive ways, which is simply not the case. That goes not only for e.g. physics which we are discussing in this thread, but also for 'human' sciences such as psychology. Just ask around: most people are convinced they has some insight in the psychology of e.g. persons of some public interest, e.g. noted criminals, by using terms as 'the human mind', 'passions', 'the unconscious', etc. etc. while scientific psychology has discredited and dropped these useless inexact terms for at leas the last forty years. Ciao, -- FA Laboratorio di Acustica ed Elettroacustica Parma, Italia O tu, che porte, correndo si ? E guerra e morte !