SteamyTea

What do you use it for?

It is for people that have lost their intelligence. In the old days we called it 'Curve Fitting', now it is called machine learning.

How would they stand up to fire regulations when converted to a building?

Isn't this how the position of breaks, and shorts, in cable runs are detected? The time and magnitude of the reflected signal shows where, and what, the problem is.

Don't forget the energy retailers and heating companies. They get to sell more.

Mathematicians discover shape that can tile a wall and never repeat Aperiodic tiling, in which shapes can fit together to create infinite patterns that never repeat, has fascinated mathematicians for decades, but until now no one knew if it could be done with just one shape By Matthew Sparkes 21 March 2023 This single shape produces a pattern that never repeats David Smith, Joseph Myers, Chaim Goodman-Strauss and Craig S. Kaplan Mathematicians have discovered a single shape that can be used to cover a surface completely without ever creating a repeating pattern. The long-sought shape is surprisingly simple but has taken decades to uncover – and could find uses in everything from material science to decorating. Simple shapes such as squares and equilateral triangles can tile, or snugly cover a surface without gaps, in a repeating pattern that will be familiar to anyone who has stared at a bathroom wall. Mathematicians are interested in a more complex version of tiling, known as aperiodic tiling, which involves using shapes that don’t ever form a repeating pattern. The most famous aperiodic tiles were created by mathematician Roger Penrose, who in the 1970s discovered that two shapes could be combined to create an infinite, never-repeating tiling. Now, Chaim Goodman-Strauss at the University of Arkansas and his colleagues have found a single tile shape – which they have called “the hat” – that does the same job. Goodman-Strauss says that both finding and proving the tile to be aperiodic involved the use of powerful computers and human ingenuity. The team used computers to eliminate large numbers of options, then applied their experience to finding a shape and developing a proof. “You’re literally looking for like a one in a million thing. You filter out the 999,999 of the boring ones, then you’ve got something that’s weird, and then that’s worth further exploration,” he says Goodman-Strauss. “And then by hand you start examining them and try to understand them, and start to pull out the structure. That’s where a computer would be worthless as a human had to be involved in constructing a proof that a human could understand.” Until now, it wasn’t even clear whether such a single shape, known as an einstein (from the German “ein stein” or “one stone”), could even exist. Sarah Hart at Birkbeck, University of London, who wasn’t involved with the research, says that until now she thought it would be impossible. “There are infinitely many possible candidate tiles, and even the existence of a solution feels quite counterintuitive,” she says. Despite evading mathematicians for decades, the newly discovered einstein isn’t a convoluted or complex shape. It features just 13 sides. The shape also retains its aperiodic qualities when varying the lengths of the sides, meaning that the solution is actually a continuum of similar shapes. Much of the difficulty in finding an einstein is proving that it really can tile aperiodically, without throwing up unusual counterexamples. The team discovered two proofs for the tile, with one being based on computer code that has been publicly released. Hart says that knowledge of aperiodic tile shapes could help us design materials that are stronger or have other useful properties. Repeating patterns like tiles are also seen in crystal structures, where they can lead to fault lines along which material tends to break. Another example of “the hat” David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss “Certain strange and wonderful types of crystalline structures called quasicrystals exhibit aperiodicity,” she says. “It may be that this new tiling may have applications to our understanding of the possible structures in quasicrystals.” Colin Adams at Williams College in Massachusetts says he was shocked at the simplicity of the solution, and that this was a problem that “does not easily yield to brute force” computation. He is also keen to put it to practical use. “You’re going to see people putting these in a bathroom because it’s just cool. I would put it in my bathroom if I were tiling it right now,” he says.

Gwennap Head near me hit 118 MPH in 1979, think it is still the highest English gust speed. My house was not built then, but the ones opposite were.

Popular down here.

And useless in reality. You really want to get the U-Value down to about 0.2W/m2.K. And it is worth considering overheating problems in the summer.

Oh dear

Assuming you actually mean 5 kWh, then you get 13 kWh of thermal energy. How powerful is this shower?

Several weeks in the factory and probably 2 months for ground works. And then they are finished like the room in Midnight Express.

I think the general consensus on here is that making your own stick built outbuilding is easier and cheaper than converting a shipping container. Insulation can go on either side and sprayed on polyurethane foam is probably the easiest method to use (as someone else will be doing it). Either way you will need think how you are going to attach boarding/cladding to the container, so almost certainly some sort of timber framework will be needed.

Point out that we are heading to an EV future, so a lot of the primary reasons for car use i.e. pollution and noise, will vanish.

My EPC doubled the size of my house. The woman who did it was totally clueless. It is a shame as the idea is good, but when they still suggest GSHPs and wind turbines, you know the system has had its day.

I seem to remember that there is a strange methodology for testing hot water storage systems. Our old mate @Jeremy Harris highlighted it as the Sunamp did not score highly on the energy rating (at the time). As with all energy analysis, how you use it makes the biggest difference.

Welcome. Don't be put off by the anti-architect stance on here, it is a self build forum after all and a lot of the people feel the same about what is available on the housing market. As for cost, we'll not paying an architect/PM 20% is going to help. And you can be a rare architect/builder and exceed the building regs.

Because it has obliterated the pure species.

The sale and distribution of Gunnera tinctoria and the hybrid Gunnera x cryptica has been banned. There is plenty down here, not sure what they are going to do about it in Moron Gardens. Maybe the above is Gunnera manicata.

With a modern cylinder you just don't get that many losses these days.

My house has a total floor area of 48m2 over two floors, so stairs and landing take up 10m2 of that. I have a 200 lt water cylinder, had to change it a few years back. The previous one lasted 33 years I think. As much as I like the idea of phase change materials and vacuum panel insulation, for DHW it is just technical overkill.

That goes back to the old central heating method of always having the small bathroom radiator on, regardless of what the rest of the radiators were up to. Then put the thermostat in the coldest, unheated corridor. The problem with not zoning is that you can easily have uneven temperatures. Take my house, the rear is NE facing, so cold, front is SW facing, so warmer. Add in afternoon solar gain, even on a day like today, and the front can get quite comfortable while the rear is cold. That crossed my mind as well. Could do it on just times, say 40 minutes downstairs and 20 upstairs. Just a valve on a timer then.

The buffer/volumiser side is something that crossed my mind as well. How sensible is it to run a heat pump (or any 'boiler') very close to the minimum volume. My feeling is that it is a bit like running a car at the lowest oil, or coolant, levels. Possible, but probably not really the best thing to do if you can add a bit more easily.

I have been pondering that as well.