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Rice Contracted to Provide NASA's Quantum Wire
geekman writes "NASA is paying Rice University $11 million to build a prototype quantum wire that can conduct electricity 10 times better than traditional copper cables at one-sixth the weight. Rice has four years to build a one-meter-long quantum wire, which will be made out of carbon nanotubes. Seems like a lot of money for a little wire, but then again, all the rocket scientists at Los Alamos have only ever been able to put together a four-centimeter nanotube."
Is that they never seem to be where you left them. Although on a good day you'll end up with more than you started with depending on what universe you're in.
Seems like a lot of money for a little wire,
;^)
Yeah, but it's still cheaper than Monster Cable.
Wild or white?
How long until some eccentric billionaire pays Rice to wire his entire house with that stuff?
"My house is iced out with quantam wiring, biatch. Or something. Bling bling."
At least they know what they want and are able to produce it in small quantities. I have no doubt that this will revolutionize the world in less than 20 years just as did research in nuclear fission.
NASA is paying Rice University $11 million
Rice has four years to build a one-meter-long quantum wire,
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to put out a bounty on this wire? Instead of the four year plan, you get the "everyone scrambling to complete it first" plan, and as a bonus, even when someone collects the bounty, all the research done by other institutions still stands.
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how are they supposed to land on quantum power lines!!
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Would it completely cover the surface area of the needle with room to spare?
Condi Rice can build anything, she is one of the jewels in Bush's hat.
Don't tell me you didn't misread the title at first either!
Are nanotubes really quantum? They're very small, but I don't think they're actually at the quantum level of physics.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
... everything is at the quantum level of physics.
Would it still be a meter after I observed it?
carbon nanotubes...that's awfully similar to the Inanimate Carbon Rod.
They're nuclear scientists, not rocket scientists, dammit. Give'em a break!
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
I believe this refers to the ballistic conduction that takes place in carbon nano-tubes and is a quantum phenomenon. Basically electrons experience a small resistance entering and leaving a nano-tube, but then near zero resistance travelling along them.
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But then again, that's because the title didn't involve any outlandish or false claims against anybody.
Crap...
I thought NASA had contracted Condolezza Rice to build a quantum wire for a top secret mission or something like that...
For those who didn't read the past article on quantum wires, here it is.
And for those who don't know what an armchair nanotube is, here are some images (The armchair nanotube is the one in the middle).
What happens if you leave them in the box with Schrödinger's cat..
These things could be the next revolution after fiber optics for network communication, so there is reason to be excited. I wonder if there would be too much interference to run these things in a twisted pair configuration.
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-- W.C. Fields
If a paradox where toooo real then where would it fit?
that size does matter afterall.
I'm sitting about three blocks from the Rice Campus & I'm a Rice grad, so pardon me for cheering 'em on.
This actually makes (some) sense - Dick Smalley & Robert Curl on the Rice faculty (and a 3rd guy in England) won that trivial little prize - the Nobel in Chemistry for basically inventing/discovering the buckyball and related carbon nano stuff - or something like that. I also seem to recall that Smalley also has done pretty well in acually being able to manufacture buckyballs.
Also, there is a long history of collaberation between NASA and Rice. Starting before the Apollo program. I had a professor at Rice who designed experiment packages that went to the moon in the Apollo program.
So, if NASA was going to award a contract or grant to somebody for this, Rice does make some sense.
Also, kind of interesting that President Kennedy gave the famous speech "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." on the Rice campus.
Carbon nanotubules, when properly, manufactured could also have very high tensile strength. Many times stronger than stranded steel cable and weighing less as well. This is the technology people what it use to build the space elevator.
Of course, after proof of concept there are still many challenges to cost effective manufacturing.
There are a dozen revolutionary uses for super wires. But first we need a proof of concept. FYI - I'm looking for a job at a well-funded nanotech startup. Many qualificiations, inquire within!
Let's just hope the kids at Rice don't get confused and wind up making a ridiculously large model of a quantum wire instead.
____
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Who would've ever thought she was THAT smart? Holy cow!
I'm sure there's some outfit in Audiophile magazine that will sell you "quantum wire".
I hear it gives you really crisp trebles.
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maybe that's why it's taking so long
It's NUKULAR, not nuclear!
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Ok, space elevator enthusiasts! Tell us all again how a space elevator is so easy to build, and how it'd be soooo easy to have one operational in just 5 or 10 years if only people would listen. Please, I could use a good laugh, and you guys always make me crack up.
isn't rice too big for quantum wires? and last time I checked it wasn't that expensive to buy rice. NASAs budget is kinda funky.
You have been warned.
If NASA is throwing $11 million behind this project, is it safe to assume it'll be around before the end of the century? How soon can we expect it to be implemented more practically, such as making spacecraft lighter and increasing the speed of computers, as the linked article suggests?
I'm a bit surprised that NASA didn't ask Zyvex to work on this for them... I have friends who work there, and they do some really neat stuff. (Including working on those crazy quantum nano-tubes).
Contrary to popular belief, their office is actually quite large.
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My basic reaction is that superconducting approaches make much more sense. Weight is pretty much not a factor for normal usages. When the quantity of electricity involved is large enough that the weight does become a factor, then you're probably thinking of power transmission lines, and in that scenario you can consider the tradeoff for seriously large amounts of power. I can imagine a small refrigerated tunnel containing a high-temperature ceramic semiconductor and carrying extremely large amounts of electricity with very little lossage. I don't have the numbers at hand, but I feel like this approach is already pretty close to economic viability. (But maybe that's why they don't feel the need to put any additional government money behind it?)
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...in that I'm always picking on a buddy who works for LANL.
Now I can say (already have actually):
"you're a few nanotubes short of a meter!"
FLR
If Condoleezza Rice spends all her time with the wire, she won't have time to mess with our foreign policy!
I wonder if there might be any help to be had with the seeding or growing process using properties involving electrical charge, magnetic fields, or some combination of the two to assist with selection and alignment...
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Lemme see $11M/m x 15000km x 50 strands... Vokkov Bill Gates go stand in the poor people's line.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
A University is even worse than NASA and other govt institutions when it comes to delivering. Give the job to to the private sector.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You could use such a wire to suspend a system of plates that would counter-revolve within your gigantic ring-shaped world to provide changing day and night zones.
A small ball on the tip of a strand repelled with a magnetic field would make a great sword/cutting tool.
Warnings for experimenters: Don't try to pick them up with your bare hands and watch out for sunflowers.
As far as I know conductivty is a function of the cross section of a wire, which scales linearly with weight.
So 10 times better at 1/6th the weight should be the same as 60 time better as copper, or that it conducts the same as copper but at 1/60th the weight. Or 20 times better at 1/3rd the weight. Who's deciding this? I feel like I'm reading an article on futuristic wiring technology, but can't be trusted to deal with any number or fraction that involves a number larger than 10. Fuckers.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Seems like a lot of money for a little wire
:-)
You've obviously never priced oscilloscope probe wires before.
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Don't forget about the Condi Supertanker!
If you can get a charge running forever around a ring of quantum wire, could this mean room temperature 10T magnets?
No more liquid helium!
Or is there something I'm missing here?
is that they will finally be able to build a MS based system, with 1 million CPU, that can compete in the top500.org from last year.
Hello? Rice University. Secretary of State Rice. Can you say kickback?
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I think that this type of research would be better funded through the Department of Energy or the National Science Foundation or DARPA. Certainly quantum wire would be useful in construction of spacecraft, but I think NASA should be focused more on space exploration. In other words, building spacecraft with existing technologies or tech that is likely to be feasible in the near term.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Maybe next year they'll have more beer at beer bike
So what happens if they fail to make it? Do they give the money back? Are they brought before Lord Vader? -- IV
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it's right here:
- see it?
You can't handle the truth.
I'm a current Rice student, and one of the running jokes about all this nanotech stuff here on campus came from our student newspaper writers. Take two bucky balls, and one long nanotube, and fuse them together with a few bonds and you get: PHUCTANE All the students in orgo were completely phuc'ed after that.
You know, NASA? The organization that shoots things into SPACE?
But seriously, there are lots of useful applications for this where using superconducting materials instead would be inconvenient.
I can buy 10 meters of 12 awg copper primary for $2.07 USD (rate >= 4000ft).
They are spending just over 5.32E+6 fold what that jumper cable is worth.
Brown.
Hell, even the theory of how they conduct electricity is younger that superconductors, and just see how many of those we have around.
Hell, even the theory of how they conduct electricity is younger that superconductors, and just see how many of those we have around.
As an aside, superconductivity is now very well understood. It's just that the race for a room-temperature superconductor has stalled out. In those fields where they can afford to keep the superconductors below critical temperature (e.g. NMR/MRI machines), superconductors are very widely used.
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It was a sad day to be orange blooded.
"all the rocket scientists at Los Alamos have only ever been able to put together a four-centimeter nanotube"
They were distracted looking for smilar lines of code in Linux and SCO Unix!
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It sounds a bit hollow ;)
Bill Gates will have his heated driveway recabled with this stuff.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
So let me get this right..it goes from God, to NASA, to Rice, to nanotubes?
And the weight of copper is rarely a problem.
Sorry to bring facts into this...
The best part of this news is that, someday, kids will pull these wires out of their toys. I can almost see them ridiculing teachers who claim that, a long time ago, some of the top organisations on the planet took years and millions to build just one of these.
Hey everyone, let's tease him!
Admit it, (to ring around the rosey) you haaave Rice envy! (everyone join in, repeat 3 times then laugh). Watch him get red.
Has anyone else here noticed if her shoes match? I couldn't tell you. Sounds like you watch her a lot. Most people only notice things like that if they are really attracted to them. Were you watching Colon Powell or Madiline Albright like this too?
Go ahead, blow up with a nasty response or mod me down, it will only serve to confirm it more. Bla ha ha ha hah
Hey, you deserved this. Stick to the subject next time instead of a political propaganda piece. There will be opportunities for that later.
As an aside, superconductivity is now very well understood.
Not according to the April 2005 issue of Scientific American. In an article entitled Low-Temperature Superconductivity Is Warming Up, it says that magnesium diboride defies traditional theories about superconductivity. From reading the article, it seems that superconductivity isn't really well understood at all.
If Rice suceeds at building this wire then it could revolutionize computers and other electronic devices as we know it today. We have just about pushed copper to it's limits as far as capabilities of sending electrical signals through it. Imagine integrated circuit boards being built with quantum wire instead of copper. We could get 30Ghz PC's instead of 3Ghz PC's. This could possibly the next big step in building electronics.
And the weight of copper is rarely a problem.
Unless you're sending stuff into space.
I can't think of anyone who might want to do that offhand but... wait, who was funding that again?
Sorry to bring the full set of facts into this.
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... But only confined in 2 dimensions instead of 3? I've seem patterned semiconductors with a width on the order of the Bohr exciton radius that have discrete conduction and valence bands described as "quantum wires"... Is this the same thing with nanotubes or a different sort of animal.
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I think you've made a very good point here. Moores Law is not about increase in size, it is really about decreasing the size of the transistors. The first transistors were huge things and it's all about preserving the physics while making things smaller.
This is a fundamentally different thing to using Moores Law as a prediction on scaling up something that only happens on a very small scale (eg. nano tubes or fusion or whatever).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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