Posts by Pooua 27 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2011
I only dabble in this subject, but my understanding is that the primary limitation of optical computers is fan-out. Optical switches require relatively significant power to function. After about three levels, the power levels are too low to activate the switches reliably. None of this was mentioned in the OP.
Supernova were picked as the source of cosmic dust quite some time ago, though the process described in this article may be a new discovery. The first photos of cosmic dust creation were captured in January of this year:
https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/alma-images-supernova-dust-factory
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25633545
I watched the 1968 movie, "Charly," in my 11th Grade Enriched English class. The movie is based on the book, "Flowers for Algernon." Sometimes called an un-SciFi, because the world is not so alien to our own, "Charly" questions what makes a man as science elevates a mentally retarded man into super-genius, only for him to lose it.
My understanding is the 1968 version is superior to the later versions.
My guess is that the damaged chip uses less power because it has fewer components to consume power than an undamaged chip does. Of course, this also means the chip is less powerful. That should be expected; all those parts are there for a reason, one would think, so destroying a few must result in a performance trade-off somewhere.
I was extremely saddened when I heard that SSC had been cancelled. ISS was about to fall under the axe, too, but a public outcry saved it. I think it is obvious that SSC would have accomplished more than ISS ever will, but it is difficult to fight a mass public outcry. That's why NASA flies so many purple pigeons, instead of doing the best science.
One of my first goals after I began exploring Texas was visiting the SSC site. With the help of locals, I eventually found it. The door to the main control building was open, so I went inside, where I found it had been converted into a make-shift warehouse. It appeared that its main use at the time was storing styrofoam food containers. I found no one in the building. Outside, all the tunnels were filled in with rocks before I arrived. I walked out to a mound behind the building and shot photos of white rocks sticking out of the Texas prairie. After I drove around the site, I continued on my way. As I went to the next town, I heard on the radio that police had caught someone trespassing at the site and detained him. I sure was glad they didn't catch me!
I deeply regret that my nation has forfeited its leadership in science. They don't even know what they have done to themselves.
First, I want to say that this is the first I've heard of this discovery, so "The Register" scooped everyone from my perspective.
As for which rover will last longer, I expect Curiosity could well last a decade, assuming it doesn't suffer mechanical failure. After all, the Viking landers did. Curiosity is quite the robust machine; large, with several radioactive heaters (even Opportunity has those), much more massive and better to withstand harsh conditions. Opportunity can last only as long as its battery can hold out, which probably isn't as long as a thermonuclear power source. The reason that Opportunity's electronics haven't frozen solid, yet, is exactly because of its plutonium heaters (and excellent insulation, with some help from whatever sunlight it can get).
"Sound could deliver the power right to the user's pocket, and so negate the need to take out the card, with the added advantage that the user could hear when their card was being powered - making life much harder for the electronic pick-pocket."
Unless the pick-pocket is using ultrasound...
Regardless, I'm not keen on the idea that people could activate my card at will, even when it is in my pocket. I'd prefer to give explicit permission for an interaction. Otherwise, why not just use facial recognition (or, voice recognition, since this is a sound-powered article) to access my account? Who needs a card?
I'm old enough to remember a show called, "Connections," about the path of discovery and invention that led to our modern technology. This new discovery might be another step in that path.
Several years ago, I read about a proposed spacecraft engine based on this same principle. You may recall that light imparts momentum to an object when the light reflects off it. If you could bounce a laser beam off an object in space, you could impart acceleration on the object, or, if you could shoot light or lasers from an object in space, you could use them for (very weak) thrust of the object. Over a long period of time, the acceleration would build up, but no power supply would last long enough for it to make a difference. This new engine, though, uses Casimir plates on springs to form terahertz oscillators, generating light, and from that, propulsion. The power supply problem would be eliminated, because the device is powered by quantum fluctuations from the quantum vacuum. Now that scientists have made the equivalent in a lab, though undoubtedly with a conventional power supply to the oscillating circuit, perhaps we are that much closer to making the Casimir spacecraft engine.
It's about time! I attended a lecture circa 1983 at the University of New Mexico discussing lasers and laser applications. The presenters said that a 5 W argon ion laser would be capable of communicating to Earth from the nearest stars. NASA successfully transmitted a laser beam that the Galileo space probe received from 6 million km distant in 1992, in its GOPEX experiment. So, progress has been slow.
Many space probes have redundant communication features. Galileo suffered a fatal and permanent malfunction of its primary, high gain communication antenna when the HGA failed to deploy as the probe was en route to Jupiter. For the duration of the Jupiter mission, NASA had to rely on the much slower low gain antenna, which reduced the data received by 30%.
You make good points about atmospheric interference. I'm wondering how NASA intends to deal with that issue? They have several options, including using an orbiting satellite to conduct the optical communications, while communicating by radio with ground stations. The receiver/transmitter need not be physically large nor consume inordinate amounts of power.
As an amateur photographer/videographer, I have become aware of how much society hates and fears cameramen. This angst even shows in popular media; the cameraman is always some creepy villain. "Road to Perdition" is one example. People in Texas fear other people's cameras in a way similar their fear of guns, and the rules for operation and possession are becoming similar.
I think a useful game would be a simulator of several models of cameras, then putting the player in a simulated environment to learn how to operate the camera in that environment. You could have deep jungle, shooting photos of wildlife, or underwater, or sports photography of various sorts. I mention this, because there is little likelihood that I would ever actually develop such a simulator myself.
The idea of using a fleet of monkeys to produce the works of Shakespeare did not begin with "The Simpsons." The idea stretches back to ancient times. In modern context, it is most often used as an argument against evolutionary common descent by random forces and chance events. Producing the genetic code of even the simplest organisms by random sequences would require several times over more time than the universe is expected to exist.
Davydov's comments are nothing new. I first learned of this plan maybe 5 years ago, but I recall that we were going to get even less time. It left me aghast, because it meant that we would spend a decade putting ISS in orbit, then crash it into the ocean only 5 years later. So, now we get 10 years. I'm not real happy with it, but ISS isn't meant to be permanent.
We've never moved something as large as ISS with ion thrusters as main propulsion. As ISS isn't equipped to raise its orbit to GEO w/ anything, much less ion thrusters, it would have to have a rapid redesign and retrofit before that could happen. Then, when it got there, what would we do? No one has a way to get a man to GEO right now, much less a team of men. Equipping and maintaining it would become much more expensive. Whatever is aboard would be exposed to higher radiation levels than where it is now. All that for a station that probably hasn't gone a day in its life without equipment failures, even when it was new. What do you hope to get out of doing this?
From what I can tell, ISS was never designed to be permanent, despite what some politicians have stated. It was designed to be assembled in orbit for use as a test-bed. It is large, complex and expensive to maintain, for very little benefit. The few experiments that run on it are of trivial significance. It was a proof-of-concept that did not pan out.
I'm hoping we get a lot of use out of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. That looks to me like the only piece of equipment that might at all justify this whole fiasco.
