nawitus comments on The Correct Contrarian Cluster - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 December 2009 10:01PM

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Comment author: nawitus 24 December 2009 01:49:06PM 0 points [-]

That's a pretty good explanation. Another way to look at it is to think what would happen if the propeller was not connected to the wheels. In that situation, the cart would travel as fast as the wind, but the propeller would spin at high speed. If you connect the propeller to the wheels that energy is used to further increase velocity.

In fact, it would work if you place a radio controlled clutch between the propeller and the wheels. First wait for the cart to accelerate to wind speed, and the propeller to rotate faster than the wheels (if it's 1:1 ratio without gears), then engage the clutch. The end result would be that the wheels would rotate at a higher speed and thus the cart would travel faster than the wind.