Physics/Cosmology

What our civilization needs is a billion-year plan

Lt Col Garretson — one of the USAF’s most farsighted and original thinkers — has been at the forefront of USAF strategy on the long-term future in projects such as Blue Horizons (on KurzweilAI — see video), Energy Horizons, Space Solar Power, the AF Futures Game, the USAF Strategic Environmental Assessment, and the USAF RPA [...]

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book review | The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates

Howard Bloom‘s forthcoming book The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, is arguably his best book so far, a page-turner with deep thoughts and entertaining bits on every page. Is The God Problem a book on the history of science? No, more like a philosophical novel. Wait, perhaps an autobiography? Pop culture? All of the above, and none. The [...]

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1987 time-capsule predictions for 2012

Writers of the Future has released the 1987 time capsule predictions from science fiction writers for the year 2012. They ranged from wildly utopian to prescient. The utopian predictions included people living in space and on the Moon, an expedition to Mars, much industry located off-planet, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease effectively cured, a network of levitated superconducting [...]

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Looking to the future of A New Kind of Science

Today ten years have passed since A New Kind of Science (”the NKS book”) was published. But in many ways the development that started with the book is still only just beginning. And over the next several decades I think its effects will inexorably become ever more obvious and important. Indeed, even at an everyday level I [...]

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Cellphones that can see through walls and detect cancer

University of Texas at Dallas researchers have designed an imager chip that could one day turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects. The UT Dallas imager chip technology being explored by UT Dallas researchers is designed for imaging in the terahertz frequency range, specifically from 280 GHz (.28 [...]

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Will a Dutch discovery lead to understanding dark matter and a real quantum computer? UPDATE APR 17

UPDATE APR 17, 2012: “One, however, has to be cautious because while this experiment from Delft has provided the likely necessary evidence for the existence of the Majorana, the sufficient conditions are more difficult to achieve and may take more time.” — Sankar Das Sarma, University of Maryland (press release). Also see: “Zero bias conductance peak in Majorana [...]

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Crowdfunded science projects

Got a cool idea for a research project, but need funding? Check out Petridish.org, which has just launched crowdfunded science and research projects. I think this is a really great idea that could open up funding for some amazing research ideas. On Petridish.org, researchers post materials about themselves and their research, and the public can discover projects [...]

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How to see quantum images and survive (I hope)

Physicists have designed several wild experiments to see if humans can see quantum images. The latest, just described in the Physics arXiv Blog: Geraldo Barbosa at Northwestern University plans to use a laser beam shaped into an image, such as the letter A. This laser beam hits a non-linear crystal, generating entangled pairs of photons that retain this [...]

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random | Bots gone wild

Introducing random — a new, occasional blog category for stuff that’s way too weird for our regular weird posts. Like these wacky robot stories: Wanna take a ride on a 15-foot-long inflatable walking robot named Ant-Roach (as in anteater-cockroach)? Um, maybe not, but hey, “human safe” bots are not a bad idea, especially if you [...]

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A limitless power source for the indefinite future

On Monday, the National Space Society (NSS) will present findings from an eye-opening new report by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). You’re hearing about this here first. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the NSS board of directors.) Some background: By 2030–40, the projected annual electrical energy consumption will be a staggering 220 trillion [...]

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