My Grandma believes with all her heart that the wind can't be rotating the blades of a windmill. She thinks there are motors in there doing it. Can I get you guys to back me up (and maybe give some other windmill info for her)?

she's too old, it doesnt matter.

Wicked-pedia.

Where all evil go for common knowledge.

Of course there are motors in them. It's the same with wind turbines. Haven't you ever wondered why windmills and wind turbines almost always face East or West? If you had counted them, you'd realized it's almost an exact 50/50 split. Why? Because that way, the momentum cancels out. But once they've established a large enough power base, the Illuminati will run them at full speed towards the East, slowing down the Earth's rotation until it stops completely. Only those at the two Chosen Meridians will have a chance of surviving; the remaining population will either burn or freeze to death, depending on which side of the terminator they end up on.

If she's that old and actually believes that than there is no point. Just turn her into cheese or glue.

The windmill farms they put up near my home town are used to generate wind. So those ones have motors, but most of them are powered by giant hamsters.

That's good x-g. Have you been saving that, or did you just come up with it on the spot?

No point arguing. Just say "yes Grandma" and enjoy her company while you still can.

I suppose, but what bugs me is that she's not THAT old.

Here's to hoping you didn't inherit too many of her genes!

yeah...

She's not old enough (to remember the 1930's)

http://www.windmills.net/

One way or the other I suppose.

Buy her a toy spinning flower? Followed by the line, "Deal with it."

Technically they do have motors in them. A generator is basically the same as a motor... It's just that the motor is being used to generate electricity by the turning of the blades and not the motor being used to spin the blades.

In some modern systems you can use the generator as a motor to spin the blades at low speed to position a blade or gear box for maintenance, but there are other ways to do that too...

"Motor" is short for motivator or something. The term you're looking for is "transducer".

@X-G:

No, no, no! Those facing to the West blow, but those facing to the East suck! They don't even any momentum. They keep the Earth rotating! Any talk about the Earth axis is just bull-shit. There's nothing from outside attached to the assumed axis ends at the poles.

That's right. That we used windmills to pump water out of the polders is a common misconception. The fact is that the water flowed uphill due to the tides (so you need to shut the sluices at the turn of the tide, or the water will flow back down hill) to power the windmills. These windmills then generated wind that would be used to blow away the clouds so we had less rain and generally better weather.

Of course, everyone knows that running water keeps things cool, so by reducing the amount of rain with our windmills, we actually caused the Earth to heat up, leading to global warming.

So when the Bible mentions the sun stopped in the sky, the windmills were undergoing maintainence or what?

No, they were turned around by enemy forces, and naturally, it caused the earth to stand still.

"Baby, I'd make the earth stand still for you. Hold that thought... Captain! Assemble the men. I want every windmill on the west coast turned 180 degrees!"

waldchr: I believe X-G thought up that link on the spot.

Windmills are used to generate electricity by means of air,the natural resource.Now why does anyone run the windmill with a motor inside it.Its nothing more than wastage of power.

In Soviet Russia...

Shravan: Tell that to her

Can you tell me how to contact her.

Um, kidding... cough creepy cough

It's like arguing with my mother. She'll say things such as

..and then she gets upset when I tell her that she's dogmatic and illogical.

Choose your battles, Don Quixote.

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edit: Weird, .gif didn't work.

If she isn't that old, you could take her on a holiday to some european country and have her see some windmills in the inside for herself.

Does she realize winmills where around long, LONG before even steam engines (of any useful capacity)...? YOU CAN NOT LET THIS TRAVESTY CONTINUE. Tell her that this is an obvious sign of dementia and that if she continues this behaviour, you will have no other option than to lock her up in a home.

You guys realize that I was talking about those things that generate electricity, right?

No, because you said a windmill. Most people associate the word Windmill with the older type of devices that were used to mill grain (hence the name) or pump water. The modern varieties that generate electricity are generally referred to as Wind Turbines.

So does she believe that the old pre-electric types were pwered by the wind, and not the modern ones?

Time to dig out the Exploding Turbine Clip again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

sorry about the mix up. That's just what we call them around here (mainly because we don't have any "real" windmills).

Yes

You could show her the wikipedia page on windmills? If she knows what wikipedia is.
If I were to see a modern windmill from the inside, I wouldn't be able to tell there wasn't a motor in there.
Wait; normal people know windmills only work when there is wind... So your grandma thinks...
BTW isn't she pulling your leg? They like to do that, old people.

So her theory is that these things are completely capable of being driven by the wind, but now we have electricity we don't allow that to happen?

I think these ones from Manchester are powered electrically:
{"name":"pd1792420.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/b\/3bfdabbbca8e986a4d09b0de627bae36.jpg","w":337,"h":500,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/b\/3bfdabbbca8e986a4d09b0de627bae36"}
For one thing, they go at a constant rate even in the absence of wind.

http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/592740/691037#target

Yeah, something like that.