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Category: physics

For decades, we’ve dreamed of visiting other star systems. There’s just one problem – they’re so far away, with conventional spaceflight it would take tens of thousands of years to reach even the closest one.

Physicists are not the kind of people who give up easily, though. Give them an impossible dream, and they’ll give you an incredible, hypothetical way of making it a reality. Maybe.

In a new study by physicist Erik Lentz from Göttingen University in Germany, we may have a viable solution to the dilemma, and it’s one that could turn out to be more feasible than other would-be warp drives.

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Professor Hasselmann developed a method for satellite ocean wave measurements.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Klaus Hasselmann helped to shape a ground-breaking Earth-observation mission that paved the way for the modern study of our planet’s environment.

The German oceanographer and climate modeler was awarded the coveted prize for his contribution to the physical modeling of Earth’s climate that has enabled scientists to quantify the climate’s natural variability and better predict climate change. Hasselman won half of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics last week, with the other half shared by scientists Syukuro Manabe and Giorgio Parisi for their own research on disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.

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In a scene from season one, Jim Holden shows exquisite command of high school physics as he maneuvers himself onto a spaceship gangway.

As a fan of science fiction and science, I have to say that The Expanse has a bunch of great science. It’s not just the science in the show. The characters also seem to demonstrate an understanding of physics. One scene from the first season stands out in particular as a classic physics example.

I guess I should give a spoiler alert, but I’m not really giving away any major plot elements. But you have been warned.

OK, since you are still here let me describe the scene. Two main characters (Jim and Naomi) are running on a gangway connected to a spaceship. This gangway is inside a bigger ship that is accelerating (with the engines on) to produce artificial gravity. But wait! They are under fire. Some other dude wants to stop them from getting into the ship, so he fires his weapon. Eventually, someone shoots an important part of the bigger spaceship and its engines cut off. With no thrust, Jim and Naomi lose their artificial gravity and start floating off the gangway. They have magnetic boots, but the boots only work on the gangway. They are doomed.

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Would we act as naturally inside a spacecraft immobile in space as in the series?

Whenever I watch “The Expanse,” I pay attention to the physics. As the production is meticulous — if you notice the scenes where whiskey is served on the Moon this last season, you will see that the liquid falls according to lunar gravity’s acceleration — I always have some good surprises. Unfortunately, the series is taped on Earth, so some things would be too expensive to reproduce convincingly.

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Jeffrey Shainline is a physicist at NIST. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Note: Opinions expressed by Jeff do not represent NIST.

EPISODE LINKS:
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Jeff’s Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rnHpY3YAAAAJ
Jeff’s NIST Page: https://www.nist.gov/people/jeff-shainline.

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Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 — Introduction.
0:44 — How are processors made?
20:02 — Are engineers or physicists more important.
22:31 — Super-conductivity.
38:18 — Computation.
42:55 — Computation vs communication.
46:36 — Electrons for computation and light for communication.
57:19 — Neuromorphic computing.
1:22:11 — What is NIST?
1:25:28 — Implementing super-conductivity.
1:33:08 — The future of neuromorphic computing.
1:52:41 — Loop neurons.
1:58:57 — Machine learning.
2:13:23 — Cosmological evolution.
2:20:32 — Cosmological natural selection.
2:37:53 — Life in the universe.
2:45:40 — The rare Earth hypothesis.

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Circa 2018 o.o

Rockets with nuclear bombs for propulsion sounds like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, but it has been seriously considered as an option for the space program. Chemical rockets combust a fuel with an oxidizer within themselves and exhaust the result out the back, causing the rocket to move in the opposite direction. What if instead, you used the higher energy density of nuclear fission by detonating nuclear bombs?

Detonating the bombs within a combustion chamber would destroy the vehicle so instead you’d do so from outside and behind. Each bomb would include a little propellant which would be thrown as plasma against the back of the vehicle, giving it a brief, but powerful push.

That’s just what a group of top physicists and engineers at General Atomic worked on between 1958 and 1965 under the name, Project Orion. They came close to doing nuclear testing a few times and did have success with smaller tests, exploding a series of chemical bombs which pushed a 270-pound craft up 185 feet as you’ll see below.

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The Computational Cosmology group of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics (DAA) of Valencia University (UV) has published an article in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, one of the international journals with the greatest impact in Astrophysics, which shows, with complex theoretical-computational models, that cosmic voids are constantly replenished with external matter.

“This totally unexpected result can have transcendental implications, not only for our understanding of the large-scale structure of the , but on the settings for the creation and evolution of galaxies,” explains Vicente Quilis, director at the DAA and head researcher for the project.

“Cosmic voids are the largest structures in the cosmos, and knowledge on their creation and evolution is essential to understand the of the universe,” says Susana Planelles, co-director of the research. Studying them as a physical occurrence has always been extremely complex precisely due to being large volumes with very low material content. From an observational point of view, analyzing the few existing items inside them is very hard, and the theoretical modeling of these occurrences is no less complex, which is why highly simplified descriptions of these structures are used.

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A Type V civilization would be advanced enough to to escape their universe of origin and explore the multiverse. Such a civilization would have mastered technology to a point where they could simulate or build a custom universe. They will have mastered the new laws of physics and have almost complete control over the fabric of reality. Now, humanity is basically impossible to destroy by its own inhabitants, which has reached the decillions. The Q Continuum from Star Trek The Daleks and Time Lord.

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In order to explore the mysteries of our universe, we need to look at it in different ways. Astrophysics missions like SPHEREx and Euclid will use infrared astronomy to deepen our knowledge of unseen phenomena, such as inflation and dark matter. Join us as we explore how infrared observations are changing our understanding of the cosmos and its origins.

Speakers:
–Dida Markovic, Research Scientist, NASA/JPL
–Dr. Phil Korngut, Research Scientist at Caltech.
SPHEREx instrument scientist.

Host: marc razze, public services office, NASA/JPL

Co-host: kaitlyn soares, public outreach specialist, NASA/JPL

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