Comments

Mashehou

Science

Funding The Machine That "Might Save The World"

By Posted on 6.23.2009 9 Comments
General Fusion, the Canadian duo who hope to produce a cold fusion power plant for perhaps a tenth the cost of other such promised projects, just got a $12 million shot in the arm.

7.8.2009 at 01:27am - Comment by Mashehou

"hehe, thanks but no, skillet. sunshine was an awesome movie. I was thinking that if there is a way to save the earth from an exploding sun, I'm sure MB has an idea for an SFX-loaded, mind-blowing movie on how humanity would survive (see Transformers and Armegeddon)" Clarke's Sunstorm involves an immense coronal mass ejection, I guess it is not really the Sun blowing up, but it might make for nice special effects anyway. Come to think of it, I don't think humanity post-Sun would be a great movie ending, as it would be much darker, colder, and generally harder to survive (it would be like ending the movie in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.) Unless, of course, humanity migrated to a different planetary system.
PPX

PPX: The Final Countdown

By PopSci Staff Posted on 5.8.2009 70 Comments
The PopSci Predictions Exchange will come to an end on May 31. It’s been an amazing two years, with 33,339 registered users betting on the future of our scientific and technological world. We extend our appreciation to all of the dedicated traders who have made this game what it is. It’s been a great run!

7.8.2009 at 01:18am - Comment by Mashehou

I knew those long-term stocks weren't worth it, but I wasn't expecting PPX to close so soon. It occurs to me that it hadn't quite been 2 years (a month or so short.) An email about the shutdown would have been nice.
Science

This Machine Might* Save the World

By Posted on 1.5.2009 39 Comments
The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian.

1.31.2009 at 03:03am - Comment by Mashehou

Quote: occfan001 Article Rating: 0 01/06/09 at 11:03 am that maybe the mass required for stars but this is smaller so are you sure there isnt a risk for like a "mininova" or something???? p.s what about the risk of nuclear fallout or something of that sort???? End of Quote In a sense, a mini-nova is precisely what is wanted. Unlike a supernova, a nova usually involves the detonation of a layer of mostly hydrogen that has been acquired by a white dwarf from a companion star. Since, as far as I know, the method these guys are experimenting with does not involve a continuous fusion reaction, they intend on detonating a small amount of hydrogen (like a hydrogen bomb) every time they need more energy. The US and Russia both tested Hydrogen Bombs that fused more hydrogen than this process will (per cycle.) Thus, there is no reasonable chance of a gigantic explosion. As for nuclear fallout, I don't know the specific radioactive isotopes (radioisotopes) that would be formed in the process, but Tritium and most Lead radioisotopes have a shorter half-life than many of the ones produced in fission (thus they are more dangerous immediately after they are produced, but go away faster.) In order to function, the vessel containing the Lead-Lithium liquid would have to be able to contain the energy released by the detonation of the hydrogen. With reasonable safety measures, the process would be extremely safe (a chain reaction, such as the controlled one in a fission reactor, cannot occur using this process, since hydrogen only fuses at extremely high temperatures and/or pressures (in the process reported in the article above) and both temperature and, more importantly, pressure would decrease exponentially if something were to happen to the vessel containing the reaction.)
Science

A Real Cloaking Device

By Catherine Schwanke Posted on 1.26.2009 32 Comments
It's like something out of a science fiction novel or a Harry Potter book. Engineers from Duke University have constructed a device that can "cloak" items placed on a mirror surface.

First designed in 2006, the new version of the device is a more sophisticated and complicated design that can cloak a wider variety of waves.

1.31.2009 at 02:04am - Comment by Mashehou

As far as I know, these meta-material cloaking schemes are done passively (i.e. with no energy supplied to the cloak.) If they cloak passively and completely, one can no more see out of the cloak than one can see into it. The cloak cannot make up for the energy absorbed by whatever is observing light from the outside. It will be interesting to see if anyone decides to couple this type of cloaking with an active type (e.g. involving video cameras or light sensitive materials) to make an even better "cloaking device." It seems to me that, unless the cloak is perfect, this technology will act a lot like a generalized version of currently existing stealth technologies as far as direct militaristic applications go. As has been alluded to in previous posts, the more interesting, practical, and potentially lucrative applications of this technology may be to more common things, anywhere you need to remove an object from view (especially if it is stationary and only needs to be cloaked over a narrow band of relatively low frequencies.) Additionally, there are practical limits on the extendability of cloaks like this to high frequencies. In order to work, the meta-materials must contain features significantly smaller than the smallest wavelength they cloak. Since stable structures cannot be made arbitrarily small, I would think it would be nearly impossible to cloak with this technique at anything beyond far-UV frequencies.
Science

This Machine Might* Save the World

By Posted on 1.5.2009 39 Comments
The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian.

1.1.2009 at 05:01am - Comment by Mashehou

Quote: "michael taylor Article Rating: 0 12/24/08 at 1:10 pm One thing Ive been wondering, they have built fusion bombs havnt they, These bombs release a hell of a lot more energy then is put in them to make them go off so we know it can work. How hard could it be to create little mini fusion bombs and set them off in a controlled explosion kinda like how a car engine is powered." In the Hydrogen Bombs created and tested by the US and Russia (and assumedly in all H-bombs) the fusion stage is detonated using a fission reaction. That is, a fission bomb is used to compress and heat the hydrogen sufficiently for fusion. Though more energy is liberated by the fusion reaction than is input by the fission reaction (in the tests that were successful), it would obviously not be acceptable to use fission reactions (especially extremely high power chain reactions such as those in an atomic bomb) to produce fusion in a power plant.