Drive by science

[Janet]

I feel like I shouldn't have really thanked that post since it was missing and

[JoeP]

Since we aren't talking about the discovery of gravitational waves I'll have to post this here

[SR71]

Dirac semi-metals. Chiral effect moves out of the theoretical and into the observed column. This is of special interest to me because I have some weird obsession with ambient temperature superconductivity happening in my lifetime. This is not to imply that I will have anything to do with it other than bystanding, of course. It's just a thing I would like to see.

BNL Newsroom | Chiral Magnetic Effect Generates Quantum Current

The material the scientists worked with, zirconium pentatelluride, has a surprising trait: When placed in parallel electric and magnetic fields, it responds with an imbalance in the number of right- and left-handed particles—a chiral imbalance. That imbalance pushes oppositely charged particles in opposite directions to create a powerful electric current.

This "chiral magnetic effect" had long been predicted theoretically, but never observed definitively in a materials science laboratory at the time this work was done.

[JoeP]

zirconium pentatelluride

negative magnetoresistance

quantum electricity generators

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from 1950s science fiction.

[Zehava]

Or Star Trek technobabble.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Zehava

Or Star Trek technobabble.
Look on the bright side, you haven't let your DNS hosting lapse, then disregarded all the emails from your DNS host telling you that they are going to sell your domain, then came in to work today to have your customers tell you that your domain now reroutes them to a porn site.

Wouldn't that be an upgrade?

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Wouldn't that be an upgrade?

Financial planner --> porn site. Upgrade? I guess that depends on whether or not you like your financial planner.

[Sock Puppet]

You might end up with more realistic scenarios that way ...

[But]

Originally Posted by Zehava

Or Star Trek technobabble.

I think they have to align the singularities in the quantum matrix subroutines.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Originally Posted by But

I think they have to align the singularities in the quantum matrix subroutines.

They should reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

Or, try this.

[Kael]

This one is my favorite. You may have to select Star Trek and technobabble manually from the drop-downs…

[JoeP]

Damn that's good.

[Angakuk]

I did a perfunctory search and didn't find this posted anywhere, so here it is.

Plastic eating bacteria

[mickthinks]

OMG WE'RE DOOMED!

Plastic-eating microbes were the basis of the first episode of Auntie's 1970's environment-focussed sci-fi series Doomwatch.

This is the best ewechoob clip I could find (sorry):

DOOMWATCH COMEDY - THE PLASTIC EATERS ORIGINAL...

A glowing review of the franchise and an impressively detailed synopsis of the episode here.

[BrotherMan]

MAGNETS!? HOW DO THEY WORK, MOTHER FUCKER?

Mind-Blowing Magic Magnets - Smarter Every Day...

[thedoc]

Does anyone remember "Neptune all Night"? I stayed up all night to record it, off air, on VHS. I had watched those tapes a few times since. But the tapes are gone now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G84w-z6LkDo

I think there were about 8 or 10 hours of program and I recorded it in the 2 hr mode, so I was changing tapes a lot.

I also recorded the PBS specials that were based on this program.

It's interesting to note that the images broadcast showed every other pixel from every other line that was broadcast from voyager. So the images shown were 25% of the resolution of the images that NASA received.

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Is lightspeed really a limit? • The Register

Always wondered about that, but never been very good with the Math.
I mean, after all, velocity is always relative, right? And, then there is the whole Time Dilation thing.
I reckon it will be a few more years before we can get any meaningful data on all that.
Suppose I won't get to see it.
Now, I'm REALLY bummed.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by LarsMac

Always wondered about that, but never been very good with the Math.
I mean, after all, velocity is always relative, right? And, then there is the whole Time Dilation thing.
I reckon it will be a few more years before we can get any meaningful data on all that.
Suppose I won't get to see it.
Now, I'm REALLY bummed.

Wow, that's a link to a 4 year old post (did that FTL neutrino thing really happen that long ago?), but I still has questions for the physicists.

FTA:

Outside the box: Einstein's Special Relativity works inside the smallest square.
The University of Adelaide researchers have extended the mathematics
to a world beyond Einstein's limit. Image provided by Professor Jim Hill

...

4. To clear up a confusion regarding the labelling of the image. One velocity v refers to the velocity of the first observer; u refers to the velocity of the second observer.

Okay, but that doesn't clear up my confusion regarding what the capital U represents. I'm assuming it is the difference in velocities, v minus u, or I suppose that's called the relative velocity.

Since the values are scalar, does it suggest the observers are moving directly toward or away from each other along the same vector? If so, is that a simplifying assumption? Does it matter for our purposes? (Or am I totally missing some essential aspect of relativity where the direction is relative too?)

Okay, so looking at the the center square in isolation, the purple part is where v > -u (positive U implies observers are moving away from each other?), and the green part is where v < -u (negative U implies observers are moving toward each other?). Looking at my drawings, that only works about half the time and it depends on where they "start" "relative" (teehee) to each other. Two objects that start moving toward each other will switch to moving away from each other when they pass each other (assuming no collision, obviously) with no change to their individual or relative velocities. So what's the point of positive and negative U in this chart? What is a negative relative velocity? Would absolute values work as well? Isn't the sign on U completely arbitrary, depending on which observer you pick to be u vs. v?

That wasn't even my original question!

Okay, so. Looking at the purple half of the center square in isolation. I get it. If both observers are moving at almost c, in opposite directions, their relative velocity will still max out at c. No problem, that's special relativity.

Then, according this cool chart, if u is moving at almost c and v is moving at greater than c (the orange bits), then their relative velocity will be greater than c. Okay, sure, why not.

But! We have another purple square at the top right. If both observers are moving at greater than c, in opposite directions, their relative velocity is once again constrained to be less than c? What in the fuck is up with that?

I'm not even going to try to parse the rest of this graph, with its cool curves (even tho I rly rly want to!) until I can understand the purple and green parts first.

[Corona688]

I don't think that's plotting values of these variables, I think it's plotting areas where there's mathematically valid solutions to the equation. The purple values would use solution, the green ones another, etc -- like how there's several possible results to the Quadratic Equation whenever its valid at all.

I think U is the total, relative velocity. You can see in red, the areas wherever that's > C.

[Ensign Steve]

Well, yeah, they're inequalities. I took it to mean that in the purple areas, the relative velocity has to be positive, but less than c. Which is to say, if v and u are both greater than c, or if v + u is greater than 0 and less than c, then 0 < U < c.

[Corona688]

I think the purple square in the upper right is where they're both travelling the same direction. They may both be faster than c, but the relative velocity is < c. So you're right, it looks like a scalar.

Except... on the upper left... WTF. Why would that be < c? Now you're getting me confused.

[JoeP]

Anyway, .

[JoeP]

Meaning U is a simple function of u and v, and the coloured regions are just what they say.

The first thing to notice is that if |u|,|v|>c, then |U|<c, which is also the case when |u|,|v|<c. In other words, if the second frame is moving with a velocity greater than c, and the second observer measures a particle travelling faster than light, then relative to the first observer this particle is seen to be travelling less than the speed of light.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Corona688

I think the purple square in the upper right is where they're both travelling the same direction. They may both be faster than c, but the relative velocity is < c. So you're right, it looks like a scalar.

Okay, thanks, yeah that makes a lot more sense. I'll give it another look with that in mind.

Except... on the upper left... WTF. Why would that be < c? Now you're getting me confused.

Sorry! (not sorry)

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Meaning U is a simple function of u and v, and the coloured regions are just what they say.

Even if they're going opposite directions? Like if v > c and -u > c?

I want to take the absolute value of U, cuz I think of it like a difference (although of course with the full function it's more than that), but for the same reason, I don't get why it makes sense to take the absolute value of u or v. Two things moving in the same direction really fast is way different than 2 things moving in opposite directions really fast (hence my last moment).