Our natural wizard without arms, without legs opens the gate, is strong, powerful, drives flocks of clouds. And these are just “flowers”! The flow of air, which is constantly moving parallel to the earth's surface, can do anything and more. It is very important that it is an inexhaustible source of energy. How does a person use the wind? Everyone has probably guessed that it was about him.
Brings some cool, some warm
Man appreciates the power of the wind since time immemorial. Even before the onset of our era, the natural assistant “drove” boats along the rivers and seas, pumped water to irrigate fields, and grinded grain. As a result, geographical discoveries were made, the ears were eared, filled with flour granaries.
Once a reasonable person came up with how to turn the wind into electrical energy, radically changing the conditions of his existence. Below we will talk in detail about how a person uses the wind, but for a start we will give due honors to the most “flying Dutchman”.
If there weren’t any air movement, hot countries would turn into a hellish pan, cold countries would freeze completely and irrevocably. But our glorious helper “dilutes” the extremes, bringing coolness and warmth to where they dream of them, like manna from heaven. The wind, like naughty lambs, drives eternal clouds across the sky. So precipitation is distributed throughout the globe - rain, snow.
Two way communication
How does the wind come about? The atmosphere surrounds the globe - a powerful life-giving gas layer (air), which has weight and presses on the surface of the planet and on all objects on it. This pressure is distributed unevenly, depending on the degree of warming of the earth by sunlight.
The “battery” of the lithosphere is somewhat reminiscent of an apartment (almost everyone will understand: the top is hot, the bottom is cold, and in the middle is “so-so”). In the global version, everything is much more complicated: the angle of inclination of heat fluxes from the luminary (whether they fall directly or touch the earth's surface in passing), as well as the nature of the underlying surface (land, sea, forest, field, plain, mountains) is important.
Under the influence of the two-way relationship “pressure-heating”, air acquires familiar features of inconstancy: warm moves up, cold moves down. At the same time, the “flying imp” shies right and left (from the area of high pressure to the area of low, the greater the difference, the stronger the wind). We will discuss how a person uses the wind, the movement of air.
Leap in the development of civilization
In scientific language, the processes of vertical and horizontal movement of air masses are continuously going on on Earth. Monsoons, trade winds, breezes (types of winds) conceal many opportunities. Man understood: it’s a sin not to use them. And he began to curb the rebellious gift of nature - he invented the sail.
Here is an example of how a person uses the wind, or rather used. The ancient Egyptians conducted active trade with neighboring states. Sailing ships loaded with goods and trophies, which included slaves, plowed the Nile. One can imagine the dreary glances of the slaves directed towards the sky. The huge, dense pieces of light fabric filled with the wind on the mast seemed black to them.
The inhabitants of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea used the sail by the Phoenicians. “With the breeze”, reaching the place where the Nile flows into the intercontinental water pearl, they discovered the “Egyptian market” for goods, found what to buy from partners. Later, the mighty "chaser of the clouds" helped the representatives of Phenicia to go around Africa. So the horizons of the development of civilization gradually expanded.
Everything will change
Seas and oceans are the main expanses of the habitat of the wind: the "reveler" has where to accelerate, where to turn. It’s a bit crowded on land. But this does not frighten a reasonable person: for millennia before the advent of a new era, there were wind wheels (the main part of the mill). On the globe there are aerodynamic mechanisms for grinding grain 3000 years old (Alexandria).
The rich flour-milling history of mankind tells how people use the power of the wind. Two hundred years BC. e. in Persia, windmills with a vertical axis of rotation worked (in China they appeared even earlier). We are used to images of a mill with wings in the form of a huge axial fan. The movement of the vertical blades resembled a whirling whirlpool.
They were made from reeds, which were fixed on the frame. The mill was surrounded by a wall: an atmospheric "tramp" hit it and "bounced" in the right direction. With the help of wind wheels, the Babylonians drained the swamps (pumped water). History stores information on the existence of creameries, sawmills, paper mills working with the help of wind. When studying facts, how a person uses the wind (air movement), the mill is far from being "lonely".
In a big balloon
We have already mentioned that heated air rushes up. Realizing this, people decided to use this property for their own purposes: a huge balloon was sewn from dense fabric with a hole at the bottom through which it was filled with hot air.
The experimenters the Montgolfier brothers did this in 1783. In a basket tied to a ball, they planted domestic animals. The first "Sharonauts" - a duck, a cockerel, a golden scallop and lambs, soared for some time in a heavenly blue, after which they landed safely. Soon, on a ball, they began to lift a person into the air. Speaking about how a person uses the wind (air movement), it is impossible to ignore a balloon.
To help observers
Unusual aircraft served people in many industries. Thanks to them, they were able to inspect the surrounding area from a bird's eye view (for military purposes this is especially important), draw up plans for the area. The first air travelers appeared.
In August 1887, a Russian chemical scientist Dmitry Mendeleev, studying the properties of gases and liquids, as well as the upper atmosphere, rose up on a balloon filled with hydrogen to observe a solar eclipse. It was 18 miles from Klin. The flight of the ball aroused great interest among contemporaries.
The 53-year-old star of science flew alone. The ball could not rise to the desired height, but soared by almost 4 kilometers (3.8). Clouds obscured the sun, but Mendeleev managed to partially study the solar corona.
Is it possible to control the wind?
The balloon does not obey human control, but is completely obedient to the wind. Scientists could not agree with this state of affairs. They invented control levers (steering wheel and propeller). So there were balloons. Only air is reluctant to give up its positions. So, after 100 kilometers, the atmospheric “minx” landed where Dmitry Ivanovich “sat down” and wondered: on the estate of the writer Saltykov – Shchedrin, between Kalyazin and Pereslavl-Zalessky.
When studying how a person uses the wind (air movement), the fan is mentioned in this context: will the boat move if the sail is filled with powerful artificial air flow? Some make this assumption: if the fan is installed at the bottom (that is, it fills the sail from below), the momentum of the air flow is directed at an angle to the horizon and, reflected from the sail, is also horizontal, it will float. Others say: an unequivocal answer to a question requires an experiment under ideal conditions.
The ideal “brother” does not need ideal conditions. He lives himself in the open, serves people, from time to time showing his rebellious disposition. Polemizing on the topic “How does a person use the wind?”, People increasingly say that this gift of nature is not widely used, and the range of applications will expand.