Magnetic Fusion Plasma Machines

Florian Neukart, an Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute, has proposed the Magnetic Fusion Plasma Drive (MFPD) as a novel space propulsion method. This concept combines fusion propulsion, ionic propulsion, and more, promising high energy density and fuel efficiency.




Florian Neukart introduces the Magnetic Fusion Plasma Drive, a revolutionary propulsion method combining fusion and ionic techniques. Offering immense energy density and numerous advantages, it could redefine space exploration, although challenges in sustaining fusion reactions in space remain.

Missions to the Moon, missions to Mars, robotic explorers to the outer Solar System, a mission to the nearest star, and maybe even a spacecraft to catch up to interstellar objects passing through our system. If you think this sounds like a description of the coming age of space exploration, then you’d be correct! 

At this moment, there are multiple plans and proposals for missions that will send astronauts and/or probes to all of these destinations to conduct some of the most lucrative scientific research ever performed. Naturally, these mission profiles raise all kinds of challenges, not the least of which is propulsion.


Simply put, humanity is reaching the limits of what conventional (chemical) propulsion can do. To send missions to Mars and other deep space destinations, advanced propulsion technologies are required that offer high acceleration (delta-v), specific impulse (Isp), and fuel efficiency. 

In a recent paper, Leiden Professor Florian Neukart proposes how future missions could rely on a novel propulsion concept known as the Magnetic Fusion Plasma Drive (MFPD). This device combines aspects of different propulsion methods to create a system that offers high energy density and fuel efficiency significantly greater than conventional methods.   READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

World's Largest Underwater Telescope in China

Scientists in China are building the world's largest "ghost particle" detector 11,500 feet (3,500 meters) beneath the surface of the ocean.

The Tropical Deep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT) — called Hai ling or "Ocean Bell" in Chinese — will be anchored to the seabed of the Western Pacific Ocean. Upon completion in 2030, it will scan for rare flashes of light made by elusive particles as they briefly become tangible in the ocean depths.

Every second, about 100 billion ghost particles, called neutrinos, pass through each square centimeter of your body. And yet, true to their spooky nickname, neutrinos' nonexistent electrical charge and almost-zero mass mean they barely interact with other types of matter.

But by slowing neutrinos down, physicists can trace some of the particles' origins billions of light-years away to ancient, cataclysmic stellar explosions and galactic collisions.

That's where the ocean bell comes in.

"Using Earth as a shield, TRIDENT will detect neutrinos penetrating from the opposite side of the planet," Xu Donglian, the project's chief scientist, told journalists at a news conference Oct. 10. "As TRIDENT is near the equator, it can receive neutrinos coming from all directions with the rotation of the Earth, enabling all-sky observation without any blind spots."

Neutrinos are everywhere — they are second only to photons as the most abundant subatomic particles in the universe and are produced in the nuclear fire of stars, in enormous supernova explosions, in cosmic rays and radioactive decay, and in particle accelerators and nuclear reactors on Earth..

Despite their ubiquity, their minimal interactions with other matter make neutrinos incredibly difficult to detect. They were first discovered zipping out of a nuclear reactor in 1956, and many neutrino-detection experiments have spotted the steady bombardment of the particles sent to us from the sun; but this cascade masks rarer neutrinos produced when cosmic rays, whose sources remain mysterious, strike Earth's atmosphere.  READ MORE...

USA not America

Many of you have read my posts and wonder why I use the term USA instead of America, especially since almost everyone else does not do this.

I have a simple explanation to offer and it goes something like this.

North America includes: Canada, the USA, and Mexico

Then there is Central America

Then there is South America

Did you know that some of the people from Central America and South America also refer to themselves as Americans?

Granted some don't but that is not the point.

We are the United States of America part of North America.

I think it is important to be as accurate as we can when referring to citizens of the USA  as citizens from the USA and not citizens from America since I COULD BE talking about either Central or South Americans or both.

Perhaps you are thinking that making this distinction is me just being an asshole...  you might be right...  but, then again you might be wrong.  Who's to say?  I mean, really?

Being an American would you like for people to think you are from Central America, South America, or the United States of America?

IT'S YOUR CHOICE...

Flying

 

EIGHT-Billion-Year-Old Radio Signal Reaches Earth

Astronomers have detected a mysterious blast of radio waves that have taken 8 billion years to reach Earth. The fast radio burst is one of the most distant and energetic ever observed.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves with unknown origins. The first FRB was discovered in 2007, and since then, hundreds of these quick, cosmic flashes have been detected coming from distant points across the universe.


The burst, named FRB 20220610A, lasted less than a millisecond, but in that fraction of a moment, it released the equivalent of our sun’s energetic emissions over the course of 30 years, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

Many FRBs release super bright radio waves lasting only a few milliseconds at most before disappearing, which makes fast radio bursts difficult to observe.

Radio telescopes have helped astronomers trace these quick cosmic flashes, including the ASKAP array of radio telescopes, located on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia. Astronomers used ASKAP to detect the FRB in June 2022 and determine where it originated.

“Using ASKAP’s array of (radio) dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,” said study coauthor Dr. Stuart Ryder, astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia, in a statement. 

“Then we used (the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope) in Chile to search for the source galaxy, finding it to be older and (farther) away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.”  READ MORE...

Upset Over a New Rule

 

Statue of Man Holding His Penis

A photograph taken at the archaeological site of Karahantepe in Sanliurfa, southeastern Turkey 

on October 9, 2023, shows a newly found 2.3-meter high human statue.  OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images



A 7.5-foot-tall statue of a man clutching his penis with both hands was uncovered in an ancient site.

The statue could be about 11,000 years old, meaning it would be older than the pyramids and Stonehenge.

Some argue that the site is the oldest example of a Neolithic temple, although not everybody agrees.

Archaeologists have uncovered an 11,000-year-old statue of a man clutching his penis — a discovery that could shed new light on a mysterious Neolithic culture.

The statue was found in Karahan Tepe in the Taş Tepeler region of southeast Turkey. The 11,000-year-old site is believed by some to be the oldest Neolithic temple in the world, predating the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge by more than 6,000 years.

The statue represents a skeletal man with both hands placed near his phallus, sitting atop a bench adorned with a leopard, per France24.  READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

Quantum Entanglement & Teleportation

Quantum mechanics is full of weird phenomena, but perhaps none as weird as the role measurement plays in the theory. Since a measurement tends to destroy the "quantumness" of a system, it seems to be the mysterious link between the quantum and classical world. 

And in a large system of quantum bits of information, known as "qubits," the effect of measurements can induce dramatically new behavior, even driving the emergence of entirely new phases of quantum information.

This happens when two competing effects come to a head: interactions and measurement. In a quantum system, when the qubits interact with one another, their information becomes shared nonlocally in an "entangled state." 

But if you measure the system, the entanglement is destroyed. The battle between measurement and interactions leads to two distinct phases: one where interactions dominate and entanglement is widespread, and one where measurements dominate, and entanglement is suppressed.

As reported in the journal Nature, researchers at Google Quantum AI and Stanford University have observed the crossover between these two regimes—known as a "measurement-induced phase transition"—in a system of up to 70 qubits. This is by far the largest system in which measurement-induced effects have been explored.  READ MORE...

A Declining USA

The America of my youth is no longer the America of my dreams...

What a bold statement to make.

Let me explain.

One of the greatest freedoms that Americans at birth have, are the first and second amendments to the US Constitution.

African Americans or blacks do not feel this way because they believe the US Constitution was written for WHITE FOLKS ONLY.

And they do make a good argument if that is all they look at.  But the US Constitution was written for FREE PEOPLE who wanted to stay free and while blacks were not initially included they were included later as the whites realized their mistake.

So...  case closed!!!

My concern now is that my first amendment rights are being infringed upon because the liberals are trying to SILENCE all conservative voices.  And, while that is not as bad as slavery, there are millions of conservative blacks.

Many of my friends like the second amendment and have purchased all sorts of firearms.  Personally, I don't give a shit a owning firearms.  When it comes my time to die, I'm going to die whether I am holding a gun or not.

The other issue that bothers me about this new country of ours, is the fact that we are moving away from capitalism and into socialism.  IRONICALLY, it is capitalism that must be present to fund socialism, or it bankrupts the country.

Personally, I don't want the government owning everything and telling me what I can or cannot do, like abortion.  The government should not dictate to me or my wife whether or not we should have an abortion.  That is between my wife and I.

The government should not tell me how old I have to be to drive a car, join the military, and buy and consume an alcoholic drink.

I remember during the Vietnam War, several military personnel were sent over to Vietnam to kill the enemy and those that returned, could not order an alcoholic drink because they were under 21 in some states.  

They could KILL but not DRINK!!!

How absurd...

The more programs the government wants to provide the higher our taxes go and many of those programs DO NOT BENEFIT the people that are paying taxes.

This country used to be great, especially in education but now we are ranked number 15 when we used to be number 1.

Who is to blame?

• The parents
• The students
• The teachers
• The system

When the USA becomes no better than any other country in the world, do you think you will really want to continue to live here???

Funny

 

Alice Rings

Topological monopoles are a quantum physics phenomenon that can decay into what’s known as “Alice rings.”

Named after Lewis Carroll’s famous heroine, this vortex ring flips the magnetic charge of any monopole that passes through it, creating an anti-monopole.

Although these rings last only 80 or so milliseconds, they could have big implications in the study of cosmology and high-energy physics.

The literary works of Lewis Carroll and the complex machinations of quantum physics rarely cross paths—but when they do, it’s about as mind-bending as it sounds.

Last month, scientists from Aalto University in Finland and Amherst College in Massachusetts created a bizarre quantum object known as an ‘Alice ring.’ An homage to Carroll’s titular character in Alice in Wonderland, the name is an apt one. 

This decayed monopole—a particle with only one magnetic pole—opens a “vortex ring” that flips the magnetic charge of any other monopole passing through its center, creating an “anti-monopole.” The results of the study were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.     READ MORE...

The Iron Beam

 

Chevelle 2024

 

Before Homo Sapiens Existed

Archaeologists from Europe and Africa have uncovered the oldest wood structure ever discovered, dating back almost half a million years — meaning an unknown species of hominins, predating us homo sapiens, was presumably responsible for its creation.

The researchers laid out their findings in a recent paper in the science journal Nature, where they reported that they had found the wood structure of "two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch" at a site in Kalambo Falls, Zambia, and dated it to a distant 476,000 years ago. 

At the same location, which the scientists say was likely the foundation for a dwelling or platform, they also found four tools fashioned from wood: a digging stick, a cut log, a wedge, and notched branch, each also dating to before the time of modern humans.

"This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors," said University of Liverpool archaeology professor and the paper's lead author Larry Barham in a statement. "Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood. 

They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed."

Handy Man
The wood was preserved because Kalambo Falls kept the pieces permanently waterlogged, hence sealing them away from oxygen and oxygen-dependant bacteria that would degrade them. 

The finding is particularly significantbecause wood has rarely been preserved from the Early Stone Age — offering an ultra-rare peek into the lives of our distant ancestors.  READ MORE...

Mamma & Cub

 

Global Conflicts

 There is over a year long war in Ukraine due to Russia's invasion of that country under false pretenses.  

COMMENT:  If Putin's military cannot defeat an inferior country like the Ukraine, just what kind of threat does Putin present outside of nuclear bombs?

There is a war in Israel, between the Jews and the terrorist group Hamas, controlling the Gaza Strip.  Hezbollah threatens to join that war, if the Jews invade the Gaza strip.  Hamas and Hezbollah are funded by Iran.  Iran is supported by Russia, China, and North Korea.

COMMENT:  The USA sent two aircraft carrier groups into the Mediterranean and one of those ships has shot down several missiles meant to hit Israel.  Does that action bring the USA into this war?

China has been threatening to invade Taiwan for several months and there is a good possibility that this will happen before the 2024 presidential election here in the USA.

COMMENT:  If that happens, will the USA come to the military defense of Taiwan?

OBSERVATIONS

1.  The USA has the largest national debt in the history of the country

2.  The USA has the weakest military in the history of the country

3. It is doubtful that Joe Biden is a strong war time president at 80 years old

4.  The USA is experiencing a weak economy and persistent inflation

5. The USA is divided on several fronts, and it is not likely that compromise on any of these fronts will be reached anytime soon

6.  The USA has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons than any other country in the world

7.  The present administration has decided to kill fossil fuels and rapidly move towards green energy without the infrastructure to support such a move

8. Our petroleum oil reserves is at the lowest level it has ever been at since the oil reserves were started

IS THE USA READY TO SUPPORT AND/OR FIGHT WARS IN THREE DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS GIVEN OUR PRESENT ECONOMIC AND MILITARISTIC SITUATIONS???

Moons

 

The Physics of Immortality

From your own experiential perspective, the laws of physics are stacked against you if you ever hope to achieve immortality. From a thermodynamic perspective, every system tends toward increasing entropy-and-disorder, and the only way you can combat that is by constantly inputting an external source of energy; in other words, your body and mind will eventually break down. 

And although you might try to leverage the power of relativity to dilate time and slow its passage, that will never work from your individual perspective; time only dilates or slows relative to an observer in a different reference frame from your own.

While this may confine a human’s dream of immortality to solutions that rely on technological enhancements or science-fiction level technology that relies on novel physical laws and/or phenomena, there’s still plenty for relativity to say about living forever: at least, relative to the rest of the Universe. 

While nearly all of us living today will certainly be dead in another century, should we all remain on Earth, the lessons from both special and general relativity teach us that there are a few physical situations that we should strive for if we truly want to maximize the amount of time that we can spend as living creatures within our Universe. Here’s the key insight we all need to understand.

The foundation of relativity: spacetime

Even though we normally credit Einstein with overcoming the disparate ideas of space and time that had held sway since the time of Newton and coming up with the revolutionary concept of a four-dimensional fabric that weaves them both together — spacetime — it wasn’t Einstein at all that came up with that key insight. 

It’s true that 1905 was indeed a banner year for Einstein, with the two key insights that powered special relativity key among them:

1. That the laws of physics are invariant, or that they do not change, in all non-accelerating frames of reference.
2. And that the speed of light in a vacuum, c, is identical for all observers, regardless of their motion or of the motion of the light source in question.

READ MORE...