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Archive for the ‘science’ category: Page 133

Jun 23, 2015

Honda’s Gravity Modification Research

Posted by in categories: anti-gravity, business, cosmology, defense, disruptive technology, engineering, general relativity, gravity, innovation, particle physics, physics, quantum physics, science, space travel

Gravity modification, the scientific term for antigravity, is the ability to modify the gravitational field without the use of mass. Thus legacy physics, the RSQ (Relativity, String & Quantum) theories, cannot deliver either the physics or technology as these require mass as their field origin.

Ron Kita who recently received the first US patent (8901943) related to gravity modification, in recent history, introduced me to Dr. Takaaki Musha some years ago. Dr. Musha has a distinguished history researching Biefeld-Brown in Japan, going back to the late 1980s, and worked for the Ministry of Defense and Honda R&D.

Dr. Musha is currently editing New Frontiers in Space Propulsion (Nova Publishers) expected later this year. He is one of the founders of the International Society for Space Science whose aim is to develop new propulsion systems for interstellar travel.

Wait. What? Honda? Yes. For us Americans, it is unthinkable for General Motors to investigate gravity modification, and here was Honda in the 1990s, at that, researching this topic.

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Jun 23, 2015

Is Photon Based Propulsion, the Future?

Posted by in categories: anti-gravity, defense, general relativity, gravity, innovation, particle physics, physics, quantum physics, science, space travel

I first met Dr. Young Bae, NIAC Fellow, at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored 2011, 100 Year Starship Study (100YSS) at Orlando, Fla. Many of us who were there had responded to the NASA/DARPA Tactical Technology Office’s RFP to set up an organization “… to develop a viable and sustainable non-governmental organization for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel viable …”

Yes, both DARPA and NASA are at some level interested in interstellar propulsion. Mine was one of approximately 35 (rumored number) teams from around the world vying for this DARPA grant, and Dr. Bae was with a competing team. I presented the paper “Non-Gaussian Photon Probability Distributions”, and Dr. Bae presented “A Sustainable Developmental Pathway of Photon Propulsion towards Interstellar Flight”. These were early days, the ground zero of interstellar propulsion, if you would.

Dr. Bae has been researching Photon Laser Thrust (PLT) for many years. A video of his latest experiment is available at the NASA website or on YouTube. This PLT uses light photons to move an object by colliding with (i.e. transferring momentum to) the object. The expectation is that this technology will eventually be used to propel space crafts. His most recent experiments demonstrate the horizontal movement of a 1-pound weight. This is impressive. I expect to see much more progress in the coming years.

At one level, Dr. Bae’s experiments are confirmation that Bill Nye’s Light Sail (which very unfortunately lost communications with Earth) will work.

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Jun 23, 2015

Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction | Science Advances

Posted by in categories: education, environmental, ethics, governance, law enforcement, science, security

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“The evidence is incontrovertible that recent extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in Earth’s history. Our analysis emphasizes that our global society has started to destroy species of other organisms at an accelerating rate, initiating a mass extinction episode unparalleled for 65 million years. If the currently elevated extinction pace is allowed to continue, humans will soon (in as little as three human lifetimes) be deprived of many biodiversity benefits.”

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Jun 22, 2015

Unveiling the ancient climate of Mars By Larry O’Hanlon | Harvard Gazette

Posted by in categories: astronomy, science, space travel

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“The high seas of Mars may never have existed. According to a new study that looks at two opposite climate scenarios of early Mars, a cold and icy planet billions of years ago better explains the water drainage and erosion features seen today.”

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Jun 17, 2015

New Milky Way Galaxy Map Is The Most Accurate Ever Created By Jacqueline Howard | Huffington Post

Posted by in categories: astronomy, science, space

Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant sp


“[W]ith the help of a new mapping method, scientists have created what they’re calling the most accurate map of the Milky Way. It confirms our galaxy is a four-armed spiral and shows in unprecedented detail a series of star clusters at the galaxy’s edge.”

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Jun 15, 2015

Smart urban planning in Amsterdam — Feargus O’Sullivan | CityLab

Posted by in categories: architecture, economics, energy, engineering, environmental, government, materials, policy, science, sustainability

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“Instead of treating Amsterdam as complete and starting again elsewhere, the IJburg plan has managed to find more space in a city that thought it had no more left.”

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Jun 11, 2015

United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space: 2015

Posted by in categories: governance, policy, science, space, treaties

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“The fifty-eighth session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will be held from 10–19 June 2015 at the United Nations Office at Vienna, Vienna International Center, Vienna, Austria.”

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Jun 11, 2015

Stanford engineers develop a computer that operates on water droplets — By Bjorn Carey | Stanford News

Posted by in categories: computing, hardware, nanotechnology, physics, science, water

” “Following these rules, we’ve demonstrated that we can make all the universal logic gates used in electronics, simply by changing the layout of the bars on the chip,” said Katsikis. “The actual design space in our platform is incredibly rich. Give us any Boolean logic circuit in the world, and we can build it with these little magnetic droplets moving around.”

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Jun 8, 2015

NASA is investing in eco-friendly supersonic airplane travel — By Mike Murphy | Quartz

Posted by in categories: business, environmental, government, science, sustainability

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NASA said that if all goes to plan with these studies, it sees the first business-jet-sized supersonic planes going into production by 2025, and commercial planes by 2030.

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Jun 3, 2015

Quantum Entanglement: EPR Paradox

Posted by in categories: encryption, general relativity, physics, quantum physics, science

When I was a freshman at Cornell University some decades ago, I had a memorable teaching assistant for CS100, the entry level computer programming course taken by nearly every student in Engineering or Arts & Sciences. Gilles Brassard, a French Canadian, is now a chaired math professor at Université de Montréal and a preeminent cryptographer. He has also been inducted into the Royal Order of Canada. I am told that this is a bit like being knighted. In fact, this highest of civilian honors was established by Queen Elizabeth.

The author with Gilles Brassard in 2014

The author with Gilles Brassard in 2014

Gilles was a graduate student at Cornell in the mid ’70s. Back then, public key encryption was a radical concept. Named for three MIT professors who described it, RSA is now it is at the heart of every secure Internet transaction. Yet, the new generation of cryptographers refers to RSA as “classical cryptography”. The radicals have moved on to Quantum Cryptography. Gilles and his collaborator, Charles Bennett, are the pioneers and leaders in this burgeoning field. No one else is even pretender to the throne.

In its simplest terms, quantum cryptography achieves a secure communication channel because it relies on a stream of individual particles or “quanta” to convey information. If information is sent without any fat at all—just the minimum physics that can support the entropy—then any eavesdropping or rerouting of a message can be detected by the recipient. Voila! Perfect authentication, fidelity and security. Communication is secure because any attack can be detected.

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