A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: physics

Dec 01 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside

Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside

Jason Major, Universe Today:

While many factors involving FTL travel are purely theoretical — and may remain in the realm of imagination for a very long time, if not ever — there are some concepts that play well with currently-accepted physics. The Alcubierre warp drive is one of those concepts.

Proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the drive would propel a ship at superluminal speeds by creating a bubble of negative energy around it, expanding space (and time) behind the ship while compressing space in front of it. In much the same way that a surfer rides a wave, the bubble of space containing the ship and its passengers would be pushed at velocities not limited to the speed of light toward a destination.

Of course, when the ship reaches its destination it has to stop. And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

Click the link to read the horrifying consequences.

Tagged , ,
Oct 31 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific

Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific

From the abstract of the paper “Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific” by Benjamin K. Tippett:

In 1928, the late Francis Wayland Thurston published a scandalous manuscript in purport of warning the world of a global conspiracy of occultists. Among the documents he gathered to support his thesis was the personal account of a sailor by the name of Gustaf Johansen, describing an encounter with an extraordinary island. Johansen’s descriptions of his adventures upon the island are fantastic, and are often considered the most enigmatic (and therefore the highlight) of Thurston’s collection of documents.

We contend that all of the credible phenomena which Johansen described may be explained as being the observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature. Many of his most incomprehensible statements (involving the geometry of the architecture, and variability of the location of the horizon) can therefore be said to have a unified underlying cause.

Yup. That’s right. H.P. Lovecraft’s 1928 story “The Call of Cthulu” analyzed with general relativity. Click through to read Tippett’s blog post about the paper. Happy halloween, folks.

Tagged , , ,
Oct 05 2012
Mark Twain, probably

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQ7qGilqZE

I have discovered the purpose of the International Space Station. It exists so that we can do silly things in zero gravity, as shown in this NASA video.

Surface tension is awesome.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Tagged , , ,
Aug 19 2012
Mark Twain, probably

First full colour images at 100,000 dpi resolution with help of nanotechnology

First full colour images at 100,000 dpi resolution with help of nanotechnology

Phys.Org summary of some research out of Singapore:

Researchers from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) have developed an innovative method for creating sharp, full-spectrum colour images at 100,000 dots per inch (dpi), using metal-laced nanometer-sized structures, without the need for inks or dyes. In comparison, current industrial printers such as inkjet and laserjet printers can only achieve up to 10,000 dpi while research grade methods are able to dispense dyes for only single colour images.

I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that a huge chunk of the reason I’m linking this is because the folks are from a place called A*STAR.

Tagged ,
Jun 23 2012
Mark Twain, probably

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC7Sg41Bp-U

Some time between 1932 and his death in 1955, someone recorded Albert Einstein briefly explaining the principle of mass-energy equivalence, described by the equation E = mc².

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Tagged , ,
Aug 02 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Very impressive teaser video for Lagoa Multiphysics, a particle physics framework for Autodesk Softimage / ICE. I really don’t know anything about 3D graphics software, but this stuff looks super awesome.

(Source: http://vimeo.com/)
Tagged ,
Jul 31 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Here’s a video titled “A Journey into a Black Hole,” animated by Dr. Andrew Hamilton of the University of Colorado and written/narrated by Tony Darnell.

Astrophysics is a scary mofo.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Tagged , ,