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Turns out the "veblen good" did quite well and didn't break.
And James Cameron got a limited edition Rolex Sea-Dweller deep sea model named after him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A gas provides a "bearing" for the heads to ride on as the disk spins below it.
Right you are, forgot about that completely! IIRC this is important to prevent a headcrash if the drive is jolted while in operation (of course within certain limits).
Fun fact: the Rolex "deep sea" sea-dweller contains Helium and an Helium valve. I'm not too sure how they keep the Helium from escaping. James Cameron (who made the movie The Titanic) actually strapped a Rolex sea-dweller "deep sea" to a little robot submarine and sent it to 10 000 meters deep to see if Rolex was full of shit or not. Turns out the "veblen good" did quite well and didn't break. And James Cameron got a…
The watch was designed for saturation diving - people essentially living at high pressure in a pressure cylinder, breathing a mixed gas which includes a high helium percentage (as nitrogen becomes narcotic). This saved them hours of decompression every dive - just do one decompression at the end of the job.
The problem was despite all of the seals to withstand seawater, the watches would let helium in & gradually equalise the internal & external pressures. All fine until they came up to the surface, when the watch would blow the crystal off, as the helium couldn't escape quickly enough to equalise. The Helium valve is there to release this pressure on ascent.
The sea dweller was designed as a highly specialised tool for a specialised industry, before becoming luxury item.
Fun fact: the Rolex "deep sea" sea-dweller contains Helium and an Helium valve. I'm not too sure how they keep the Helium from escaping. James Cameron (who made the movie The Titanic) actually strapped a Rolex sea-dweller "deep sea" to a little robot submarine and sent it to 10 000 meters deep to see if Rolex was full of shit or not. Turns out the "veblen good" did quite well and didn't break. And James Cameron got a…
What would happen if you had a rigid structure that helium could permeate, but nothing larger could, and then filled it up with helium and waited? Would most of the helium exit, until it was balanced with just the partial pressure of helium in the atmosphere? That would be nearly a vacuum, wouldn't it?
For what it's worth, this is done industrially to separate gasses using porous membranes.
What would happen if you had a rigid structure that helium could permeate, but nothing larger could, and then filled it up with helium and waited? Would most of the helium exit, until it was balanced with just the partial pressure of helium in the atmosphere? That would be nearly a vacuum, wouldn't it?
Pretty sure it would simply equalize to the external pressure. Consider it another way. If you have such a device with a vacuum inside, would it not pull in the external helium over time to reduce the vacuum?
Are HDD's a significant consumer of the world's helium, in the scheme of things? I had thought helium was used only in a few bleeding edge drives, and they went to normal air as the tech matured.
Even though He is constantly venting to space, alpha emitters keep replenishing it.
Cheap helium from 7% CH4 wells is not going to last. But we're not going to run out of He. Just the energy to extract it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure it would simply equalize to the external pressure. Consider it another way. If you have such a device with a vacuum inside, would it not pull in the external helium over time to reduce the vacuum?
> Pretty sure it would simply equalize to the external pressure. External partial pressure of helium which is extremely low. > Consider it another way. If you have such a device with a vacuum inside, would it not pull in the external helium over time to reduce the vacuum? It would, but only until the partial pressure of helium inside is equal to the partial pressure of helium outside (assuming the membrane is permeab…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe magnetism could work. HDD platters take very strong fields to change magnetization these days, so erasing the data with the positioning magnet(s) seems avoidable.
So write too many zeros to your drive, the disk becomes demagnetized, and the head will crash?
Fun fact: the Rolex "deep sea" sea-dweller contains Helium and an Helium valve. I'm not too sure how they keep the Helium from escaping. James Cameron (who made the movie The Titanic) actually strapped a Rolex sea-dweller "deep sea" to a little robot submarine and sent it to 10 000 meters deep to see if Rolex was full of shit or not. Turns out the "veblen good" did quite well and didn't break. And James Cameron got a…
I can't help but think of deep sea divers using helium as part of their mix, and talking in chipmunk high-pitched voices.