Lifeboat Foundation

Interstellar is one of the best sci-fi movies of the last decade, imagining a post-apocalyptic human population that needs to be saved from a dying Earth. A nearby black hole has the answers to humanity’s problems, and the brilliant script tells us we can enter a black hole and then use it to transcend space and time. In the film, the black hole also leaks out information that can save us, and it is captured by a complex computer as it’s being entered. That might seem implausible, but since we don’t know a lot about how black holes work, we can certainly accept such an outlandish proposition in the context of the movie.

In real life, however, physicists are trying to figure out how to access the secrets of a black hole. And it looks like some researchers have a theory to retrieve information from it, though it’s not quite as exciting as the complex bookcase that Interstellar proposes.

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Continue reading “Researchers say retrieving information from a black hole might be possible” »

Physicists think they’ve come up with a way to learn a bit about the interior of a black hole — an impossible procedure that shows the insanity of studying the heart of a singularity.

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Old, but interesting……

In a neat demonstration of E=mc², physicists believe they can create electrons and positrons from colliding photons.

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“LISA Pathfinder (the acronym stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is intended to demonstrate the technology needed to detect waves of gravity, rather than light, X-rays or gamma rays.”

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The “Fermi Paradox” and “The Great Filter.”

Our universe is huge and some parts are very old and if we somehow happen to live on a planet that’s fairly young, aliens must also exist somewhere. But where the hell are they? Kurz Gesagt tries to find an answer in this beautiful animation explainer that traces on The Fermi Paradox and different kinds of potential civilizations.

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A researcher at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has developed a new technology that provides real-time detection, analysis, and optimization data that could potentially save a company 10 percent on its energy bill and lessen its carbon footprint. The technology is an algorithm that primarily relies on data from ubiquitous devices to better analyze energy use. The software uses data from computers, servers, air conditioners, and industrial machinery to monitor temperature, data traffic and the computer processing workload. Data from these already-present appliances are then combined with the information from externally placed sensors that primarily monitor ambient temperature to analyze energy consumption and then provide a more efficient way to save energy and cost.

The energy-saving computer algorithm was developed by NTU’s Wen Yonggang, an assistant professor at the School of Computer Engineering’s Division of Networks & Distributed Systems. Wen specializes in machine-to-machine communication and computer networking, including looking at social media networks, cloud-computing platforms, and big data systems.

Most data centers consume huge amount of electrical power, leading to high levels of energy waste, according to Wen’s website. Part of his research involves finding ways to reduce energy waste and stabilize power systems by scaling energy levels temporally and spatially.

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Testing of the Wendelstein 7-x stellarator has started with a bang, albeit a very very small one, with researchers switching on the experimental fusion reactor to produce its first helium plasma at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany. After almost a decade of construction work and more than a million assembly hours, the first tests have gone according to plan with the researchers to shift focus to producing hydrogen plasma after the new year.

Assembly of the Wendelstein 7-x stellarator was completed in April of last year, and after a period of careful testing of its various components, the science team finally flicked the switch on December 10. This saw around a single milligram of helium gas heated to one million degrees Celsius (1.8 million° F), with the flash observed on cameras and measuring devices for one tenth of a second.

Continue reading “First plasma from Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor” »

On Thursday, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics fired up a monster machine that it hopes will change the world.

The machine is called the Wendelstein 7-X, or W7-X for short. It’s a type of nuclear-fusion machine called a stellarator and is the largest, most sophisticated of its kind.

Continue reading “Germany just fired up a monster machine that could revolutionize the way we use energy” »

As excitement builds around the first plasma, scheduled for December, on the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) experiment in Greifswald, Germany, PPPL physicist Sam Lazerson can boast that he has already achieved results.

Lazerson, who has been working at the site since March, mapped the structure of the magnetic field, proving that the main magnet system is working as intended. This was achieved using the trim coils that PPPL designed and had built in the United States. He presented his research at the APS Division of Plasma Physics Conference in Savannah, Georgia, on Nov. 18.

PPPL leads U.S. laboratories that are collaborating with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in experiments on the W7-X, the largest and most advanced stellarator in the world. It will be the first optimzed stellarator fusion facility to confine a hot plasma in a steady state for up to 30 minutes. In doing so, it will demonstrate that an optimized stellarator could be a model for future fusion reactors.

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