Despite carbon nanotubes suddenly making the space elevator more than a pipe dream, many still feel that it's still at least 50 years away. Not everyone though. In this article, physicist Bradley C. Edwards, who left the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory to work on the elevator design for a private company, Eureka Scientific, says that the elevator could be a reality in just 15 years. And once it's been running for a few years, a round ticket might cost as little as $20,000, thus enabling space tourism.
More importantly though, it would totally change the face of space exploration. Not only would it be cheaper to get vehicles into space (as well as not harming our upper atmosphere) but it would allow for the assembly of much larger space stations and spacecraft. And the huge centrifugal force at the end of the ribbon could be use to inexpensively fling spacecraft to planets such as Venus and Mars. And then we could build an elevator on Mars.
I find this endeavour to be incredibly exciting. It just feels achievable. And according to Edwards' estimates, it could be done for under $10 billion. Considering the potential return on investment for this project, and how feasible it's become, I'm very surprised that they've found it so difficult to find the funding. I expect that in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, that won't be the case.
This story was posted here on December 7, 2002. An interesting excerpt follows:
Science fiction has a long and distinguished history of anticipating the future and inspiring generations of scientists, who have in turn inspired sci-fi writers to extrapolate upon their research--the two professions enjoy a wonderfully symbiotic relationship, each having a profound respect for the other. In the area of space exploration, Jules Verne described the effects of weightlessness during mankind's first voyage to the moon in his 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon". Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was the first to describe a true space station, complete with a greenhouse, a laboratory, living quarters, a docking port for spacecraft and an international crew of six, in his 1920 novel "Beyond the Planet Earth". In 1895, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested a fanciful Celestial Castle in geosynchronous Earth orbit attached to a tower on the ground. The idea was picked up by Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov in 1960, American oceanographer John Isaacs in 1966, and Jerome Pearson of the Air Force Research Laboratory in 1975, before the space elevator was used in Arthur C. Clarke's 1976 novel "The Fountains of Paradise".
The facts behind the charges were pretty solid, as were the determinations. So why were they exonerated? As you can read here, less than a week before a 2-day congressional hearing was scheduled to review the allegations of scientific fraud, the National Institutes of Health reopened the inquiry and this time found "significant errors" in the paper, but "no evidence of fraud, conscious misrepresentations, or manipulation of data" by the authors. As you'll read in that article, the scientists basically thought that any government intrusion would be too much, and so the convictions were suddenly overturned. Ever since, this has been an example of how the scientific community was unable to police itself.
This research should be of interest to those developing the RoboFly, currently under development, with a grant from the US military, for reconnaissance missions. It weighs a tenth of a gram, is only slightly larger than a fly, has a tiny camera, and solar-panels that power two tiny motors, which in turn power razor-thin polyester wings that allow it to fly in relatively still air. A working model is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
As stated, the physics community has been scarred by two scandals recently. First the Berkeley scandal last July, in which scientists retracted their claim to have created element 118, after realizing that the crucial data analysis by Dr. Victor Ninov could not be confirmed. Then last September, nanotechnology superstar Dr. J. Hendrik Schön, of Bell Labs, was found guilty of falsifying data on the properties on superconductivity and organic electronics. He was fired and more than a dozen published papers were retracted).
So last month, the American Physical Society, representing some 40,000 physicists, expanded the ethical guidelines for researchers, in their Statements on Profession Conducts document. The new guidelines call for more ethics training in science and urge all research institutions to adopt the same set of misconduct procedures. The guidelines also clarify co-authors' roles and duties, making it clear that when you put your name on a paper, your reputation is on the line.
Biologists faced similar scandals during the Gallo and Imanishi-Kari cases in the 90's. Unlike Robert Gallo and David Baltimore, who survived the scandal virtually unscathed, the physicists involved in today's scandals are actually being held accountable.
The above info was compiled from an article that originally appeared here.
For anyone interested in more details, this story appeared here a week ago. An interesting comment pointed out that this theory has major implications in understanding the hundred or so "hot Jupiters" that have been found around other stars. Most have orbital periods of only a few days and orbit their star at a distance less than Mercury's. This new theory may suggest that hot Jupiters are actually newly-formed gas planets and perhaps even a transient phenomena.
Unfortunately, the US is not alone in this. According to this article, the US proposal for a treaty which bans all forms of cloning human cells has the backing of the Philippines, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Costa Rica. I'm a little confused about Italy though, since they seem to have no problem with reproductive human cloning--the first human clone due to be born next month. To my knowledge, France is still undecided as to whether it should follow suit or just ban reproductive human cloning. Research on embryonic stem cells was banned in Germany, though, until last January, when their parliament agreed to allow some stem cell imports, as detailed here South Africa's current draft of their National Health Bill, as detailed here, will outlaw any form of embryo stem cell research, making it "more conservative than even the legislation promulgated in the US and most European countries". "Most" may be exaggerating it a bit though--I know that Denmark, Spain and Sweden allow it, as detailed here.
I think that's about all the time I have to research this.
Yeah, he died last September. The SFWA wrote a nice little bio on him here, in which they said, "The science in his books has often been novel enough that many of his fiction books have been referenced in journal publications as 'prior art publications'." He was a very bright man. I remember writing a paper in university on zero-point energy fluctuations in a vacuum, which was based on an early paper or his.
Was that book any good? I've read Bob's previous novels and enjoyed them for their "hard science" aspect. But I didn't pick this one up yet because the reviews at Amazon.com were less than encouraging, saying that this time around, he tried for less science, more character and story, and failed miserably. Do you think that's an accurate or unfair assessment?
On the same day that Stanford announced their intention to clone human embryos for stem cell research, researchers in France announced that they can essentially cure sickle cell disease via stem cells. A great story was written about this here yesterday. Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that affects people of African, Mediterranean, Indian, and Middle Eastern heritage. In the United States, these disorders are most commonly observed in African Americans and Hispanics from the Caribbean, Central America, and parts of South America. To my knowledge, this is the first case in which researchers actually believe that a disease can be "cured" via stem cells. This should definitely put the pressure on governments to open the doors to stem cell research.
I ran this same story on my site today. More details are offered at the VPL website. They say that their models will be the first to combine the radiative fluxes, climate, chemistry, geology and biology of a terrestrial planet, to generate a wide range of plausible atmospheres for extrasolar planets, and for the atmospheres of early Earth.
The article also mentions another possibility--that our own biological science may improve our intellect. Although I think it's just a matter of time before either happens, A.I. has proven to be much more complicated than researchers originally thought. It may well be that we will learn how to create our own super-intelligent humans long before conscious machines.
I've often wondered what our world will be like then. No policy would stop it. What military wouldn't create super-intelligent beings, to design their new super-weapons? And if the technology got into the public domain, some scientists somewhere would use it. Then, just as in the movie Gattaga, parents would want their children to not go through life as second-class humans, fit only to mop floors, so everyone would jump into the act. Next thing you know, a new generation of advanced humans, who may have great difficulty interacting with the older generation (bringing their thoughts down to our plane) will be the norm.
Perhaps this will be the greatest achievement our species has ever known, and will help us to colonize new worlds and ensure the survival of our species. Or perhaps their emotional maturity will not match their intellectual maturity, leading us into warfare with such advanced weaponry that the total destruction of all life is assured. Or perhaps we meet the same end, but because we stay in control, and OUR emotional maturity does not match the power we've been given.
Regardless, it will be a century that most likely does not bode well for us "normals", as we are gradually phased out.
I'm glad to hear his latest is a good read. I was concerned by all the hype I've heard about how Crichton is "back to true form", using his familiar theme of science and scientists run amok. As long as he introduces an original spin on an old theme, there's nothing wrong with that. But if he just simply updates an old formula with more modern technology, I won't be interested. Glad to hear there's some twists and turns in the plot.
As another user mentioned, though, when I first heard of Prey, my first thought was Greg Bear's old novel "Blood Music", where nanotechnology evolves into an intelligent race and society, all within the body of a scientist, and eventually learns the true nature of their world, which they prepare to leave. I enjoy novels (and films and television shows, for that matter) that are not afraid to end the story on a note that promises imminent, radical change for the world. It sounds like Prey doesn't do that, which is unfortunate.
I wonder what the laws will say in the future, once we have 3G, about streaming our home cable shows wirelessly to our PDA's? If you're paying for the cable, and you're not sharing it with anyone, hopefully this would be legal. Imagine being able to watch PayTV on your PocketPC while waiting for your flight at the airport.
I saw this trailer on the Quicktime Movie Trailers website one or two months ago. Strange how it's just now news on Slashdot. Anyway, I'm really impressed. I've never seen such facial animation before. I wonder if they're actually modeling the muscles under the skin or if they've used motion capture technology. Usually the sensors are used to capture large body dynamics but I don't see why you couldn't put a lot of tiny sensors all over an actor's face.
Sigh. I submitted this story early this morning and it was promptly rejected. This seems to happen a lot. So forget it, I'm not submitting stories anymore. In fact, I think I'll make my OWN site to post my stories. Yeah, that's it...
Well...yeah. CorelDraw 9 for Linux will ship later this summer. And Draw has always been way better than Illustrator--Illustrator has been playing catchup for years.
Try out Designer F/X. It uses Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9 as its engine. You can upload your image (or use a sample), run a bunch of different effects, and then save it in your desired file format.
Also try out Text F/X which is also powered by Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9. This is really cool for web designers. Create your text, choose the font and size and run various effects on it. For awesome 3D results, click the Plastic checkbox.
I'm a huge Warcraft II and Starcraft fan. I think Blizzard is amazing for creating games which such incredibly well-thought-out, well-balanced gameplay. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't understand why so many people, my friends and colleagues included, liked Diablo so much. It seemed that all I could do was run around dungeons and madly click on the bad guys. If it had had various types of attacks which depended on what key I was pressing (while madly clicking), at least then there would have been some skill involved. As it was, I was bored to tears. Granted, playing as a sorceror was MUCH more interesting than playing as a warrior. But as far as skill requirements goes, it wasn't even close to W2 and SC. And its role playing aspects were far inferior to other fantasy games like the Ultima and Wizardry series.
So can someone please explain to me what exactly the appeal of Diablo is? What was the one thing that it did so incredibly well? And don't get mad--I'm by no means trying to ridicule those that liked Diablo, this is just the first game I've encountered in whicyh I genuinely can't understand the popularity.
I really wonder if it would have been so popular if it hadn't been for the loyalty that fans had for Blizzard as a result of the huge success of Warcraft II.
I don't remember the '92 paper that you're referring to, however experiments in 1992 in Finland by Podkletnov seemed to show a gravitational shielding effect due to a spinning, superconducting disc. His paper was written in 1996 though which is when it became such big news in mainstream media. Interestingly, two physicists Li and Torr published papers previously which predicted that rotating superconductors in an alternating magnetic field would generate gravity.
Most physicists haved scoffed at the idea because according to known physics, gravity cannot be shielded or amplified. That sort of ridicule strikes me as being terribly close-minded though--any physicist who believes with 100% certainly that everything we think we know about physics is true is a fool. I remember back in university, our final-year physics professor spent an entire class telling us how something that he and his colleagues were teaching us is fundamentally wrong because general relativity and quantum mechanics, both of which work beautifully within their own scope of the universe, simply do not mesh together.
Anyway, see here for all the info you could want on the subject of Podkletnov's experiments as well as papers written by other physicists to explain his results.
I am especially glad that The Matrix beat out The Phantom Menace for Best Visual Effects since it had such innovative special effects rather than just tons of special effects. I hope they can be just as innovative in the sequels. If the VFXPro interview from April 2, 1999 with John Gaeta (Visual Effects Supervisor for The Matrix) is any hint, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a virtual camera moving around real bullets and real explosions, essentially giving you billionth per second exposure time. Now that will be something to see.
The press release says, "Both the Standard and Deluxe Editions of WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux will also include the download version of Corel(r) LINUX(r) OS..." So you don't have to buy them separately.
Hmmm, I submitted this story on Wed., Feb. 16 and was surprised to see that it was rejected. Weird. I guess that's what can happen when a group of people go through the submissions, each with a different opinion of what's newsworthy.
Slashdot Mirror
Despite carbon nanotubes suddenly making the space elevator more than a pipe dream, many still feel that it's still at least 50 years away. Not everyone though. In this article, physicist Bradley C. Edwards, who left the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory to work on the elevator design for a private company, Eureka Scientific, says that the elevator could be a reality in just 15 years. And once it's been running for a few years, a round ticket might cost as little as $20,000, thus enabling space tourism.
More importantly though, it would totally change the face of space exploration. Not only would it be cheaper to get vehicles into space (as well as not harming our upper atmosphere) but it would allow for the assembly of much larger space stations and spacecraft. And the huge centrifugal force at the end of the ribbon could be use to inexpensively fling spacecraft to planets such as Venus and Mars. And then we could build an elevator on Mars.
I find this endeavour to be incredibly exciting. It just feels achievable. And according to Edwards' estimates, it could be done for under $10 billion. Considering the potential return on investment for this project, and how feasible it's become, I'm very surprised that they've found it so difficult to find the funding. I expect that in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, that won't be the case.
More info on space elevators can be found here.
Drog
Some past articles discussing the progress of a space elevator can also be found over at Sci-Fi Today:
The Aftermath of Another Shuttle Tragedy
The Business of Building a Space Elevator
Drog
Science fiction has a long and distinguished history of anticipating the future and inspiring generations of scientists, who have in turn inspired sci-fi writers to extrapolate upon their research--the two professions enjoy a wonderfully symbiotic relationship, each having a profound respect for the other. In the area of space exploration, Jules Verne described the effects of weightlessness during mankind's first voyage to the moon in his 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon". Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was the first to describe a true space station, complete with a greenhouse, a laboratory, living quarters, a docking port for spacecraft and an international crew of six, in his 1920 novel "Beyond the Planet Earth". In 1895, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested a fanciful Celestial Castle in geosynchronous Earth orbit attached to a tower on the ground. The idea was picked up by Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov in 1960, American oceanographer John Isaacs in 1966, and Jerome Pearson of the Air Force Research Laboratory in 1975, before the space elevator was used in Arthur C. Clarke's 1976 novel "The Fountains of Paradise".
The facts behind the charges were pretty solid, as were the determinations. So why were they exonerated? As you can read here, less than a week before a 2-day congressional hearing was scheduled to review the allegations of scientific fraud, the National Institutes of Health reopened the inquiry and this time found "significant errors" in the paper, but "no evidence of fraud, conscious misrepresentations, or manipulation of data" by the authors. As you'll read in that article, the scientists basically thought that any government intrusion would be too much, and so the convictions were suddenly overturned. Ever since, this has been an example of how the scientific community was unable to police itself.
This research should be of interest to those developing the RoboFly, currently under development, with a grant from the US military, for reconnaissance missions. It weighs a tenth of a gram, is only slightly larger than a fly, has a tiny camera, and solar-panels that power two tiny motors, which in turn power razor-thin polyester wings that allow it to fly in relatively still air. A working model is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
So last month, the American Physical Society, representing some 40,000 physicists, expanded the ethical guidelines for researchers, in their Statements on Profession Conducts document. The new guidelines call for more ethics training in science and urge all research institutions to adopt the same set of misconduct procedures. The guidelines also clarify co-authors' roles and duties, making it clear that when you put your name on a paper, your reputation is on the line.
Biologists faced similar scandals during the Gallo and Imanishi-Kari cases in the 90's. Unlike Robert Gallo and David Baltimore, who survived the scandal virtually unscathed, the physicists involved in today's scandals are actually being held accountable.
The above info was compiled from an article that originally appeared here.
For anyone interested in more details, this story appeared here a week ago. An interesting comment pointed out that this theory has major implications in understanding the hundred or so "hot Jupiters" that have been found around other stars. Most have orbital periods of only a few days and orbit their star at a distance less than Mercury's. This new theory may suggest that hot Jupiters are actually newly-formed gas planets and perhaps even a transient phenomena.
I think that's about all the time I have to research this.
Yeah, he died last September. The SFWA wrote a nice little bio on him here, in which they said, "The science in his books has often been novel enough that many of his fiction books have been referenced in journal publications as 'prior art publications'." He was a very bright man. I remember writing a paper in university on zero-point energy fluctuations in a vacuum, which was based on an early paper or his.
Was that book any good? I've read Bob's previous novels and enjoyed them for their "hard science" aspect. But I didn't pick this one up yet because the reviews at Amazon.com were less than encouraging, saying that this time around, he tried for less science, more character and story, and failed miserably. Do you think that's an accurate or unfair assessment?
On the same day that Stanford announced their intention to clone human embryos for stem cell research, researchers in France announced that they can essentially cure sickle cell disease via stem cells. A great story was written about this here yesterday. Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that affects people of African, Mediterranean, Indian, and Middle Eastern heritage. In the United States, these disorders are most commonly observed in African Americans and Hispanics from the Caribbean, Central America, and parts of South America. To my knowledge, this is the first case in which researchers actually believe that a disease can be "cured" via stem cells. This should definitely put the pressure on governments to open the doors to stem cell research.
I ran this same story on my site today. More details are offered at the VPL website. They say that their models will be the first to combine the radiative fluxes, climate, chemistry, geology and biology of a terrestrial planet, to generate a wide range of plausible atmospheres for extrasolar planets, and for the atmospheres of early Earth.
I've often wondered what our world will be like then. No policy would stop it. What military wouldn't create super-intelligent beings, to design their new super-weapons? And if the technology got into the public domain, some scientists somewhere would use it. Then, just as in the movie Gattaga, parents would want their children to not go through life as second-class humans, fit only to mop floors, so everyone would jump into the act. Next thing you know, a new generation of advanced humans, who may have great difficulty interacting with the older generation (bringing their thoughts down to our plane) will be the norm.
Perhaps this will be the greatest achievement our species has ever known, and will help us to colonize new worlds and ensure the survival of our species. Or perhaps their emotional maturity will not match their intellectual maturity, leading us into warfare with such advanced weaponry that the total destruction of all life is assured. Or perhaps we meet the same end, but because we stay in control, and OUR emotional maturity does not match the power we've been given.
Regardless, it will be a century that most likely does not bode well for us "normals", as we are gradually phased out.
As another user mentioned, though, when I first heard of Prey, my first thought was Greg Bear's old novel "Blood Music", where nanotechnology evolves into an intelligent race and society, all within the body of a scientist, and eventually learns the true nature of their world, which they prepare to leave. I enjoy novels (and films and television shows, for that matter) that are not afraid to end the story on a note that promises imminent, radical change for the world. It sounds like Prey doesn't do that, which is unfortunate.
Ha! I was wondering how many people would get that reference. I love George Carlin...
I wonder what the laws will say in the future, once we have 3G, about streaming our home cable shows wirelessly to our PDA's? If you're paying for the cable, and you're not sharing it with anyone, hopefully this would be legal. Imagine being able to watch PayTV on your PocketPC while waiting for your flight at the airport.
Drog
I saw this trailer on the Quicktime Movie Trailers website one or two months ago. Strange how it's just now news on Slashdot. Anyway, I'm really impressed. I've never seen such facial animation before. I wonder if they're actually modeling the muscles under the skin or if they've used motion capture technology. Usually the sensors are used to capture large body dynamics but I don't see why you couldn't put a lot of tiny sensors all over an actor's face.
Sigh. I submitted this story early this morning and it was promptly rejected. This seems to happen a lot. So forget it, I'm not submitting stories anymore. In fact, I think I'll make my OWN site to post my stories. Yeah, that's it...
Well...yeah. CorelDraw 9 for Linux will ship later this summer. And Draw has always been way better than Illustrator--Illustrator has been playing catchup for years.
Also try out Text F/X which is also powered by Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9. This is really cool for web designers. Create your text, choose the font and size and run various effects on it. For awesome 3D results, click the Plastic checkbox.
So can someone please explain to me what exactly the appeal of Diablo is? What was the one thing that it did so incredibly well? And don't get mad--I'm by no means trying to ridicule those that liked Diablo, this is just the first game I've encountered in whicyh I genuinely can't understand the popularity.
I really wonder if it would have been so popular if it hadn't been for the loyalty that fans had for Blizzard as a result of the huge success of Warcraft II.
Most physicists haved scoffed at the idea because according to known physics, gravity cannot be shielded or amplified. That sort of ridicule strikes me as being terribly close-minded though--any physicist who believes with 100% certainly that everything we think we know about physics is true is a fool. I remember back in university, our final-year physics professor spent an entire class telling us how something that he and his colleagues were teaching us is fundamentally wrong because general relativity and quantum mechanics, both of which work beautifully within their own scope of the universe, simply do not mesh together.
Anyway, see here for all the info you could want on the subject of Podkletnov's experiments as well as papers written by other physicists to explain his results.
I am especially glad that The Matrix beat out The Phantom Menace for Best Visual Effects since it had such innovative special effects rather than just tons of special effects. I hope they can be just as innovative in the sequels. If the VFXPro interview from April 2, 1999 with John Gaeta (Visual Effects Supervisor for The Matrix) is any hint, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a virtual camera moving around real bullets and real explosions, essentially giving you billionth per second exposure time. Now that will be something to see.
The press release says, "Both the Standard and Deluxe Editions of WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux will also include the download version of Corel(r) LINUX(r) OS..." So you don't have to buy them separately.
Hmmm, I submitted this story on Wed., Feb. 16 and was surprised to see that it was rejected. Weird. I guess that's what can happen when a group of people go through the submissions, each with a different opinion of what's newsworthy.