Correcting article: There are several papers on cloaking buildings from earthquake waves. Thanks to Sebastien Guenneau for providing clarification. There is a paper by M. Farhat, S. Guenneau and S. Enoch, which has nothing to do with flexural waves. The paper shows that the design works for only 10 rings with 6 different elastic materials. …
Step-by-step rotation of a molecule-gear mounted on an atomic-scale axis. Gears are microfabricated down to diameters of a few micrometres. Natural macromolecular motors, of tens of nanometres in diameter, also show gear effects1. At a smaller scale, the random rotation of a single-molecule rotor encaged in a molecular stator has been observed, demonstrating that a …
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP’s) design team has now completed the six-month design phase of the project, finishing design work on the device, the shielding wall and the vacuum chamber. We are now into the fabrication and construction phase, which will last three months. LPP has submitted a concept paper to the new Advanced Research Projects …
Apparatus for generating a two-color optical lattice. Co-propagating beams at both wavelengths are incident on a diffractive optical element (DOE) shown in (a), formed by a photolithographed gold-coated fused silica surface consisting of a regular array of raised equilateral triangles. The image shown was obtained with an atomic force microscope. In (b), reflected light is …
Vistec’s Gaussian Beam systems which are characterized by a 3nm spot size at 100keV acceleration voltage are the system of choice for nanotechnology and most advanced research applications. Vistec’s Variable Shaped Beam systems are most advanced systems for electron-beam direct write in terms of throughput, accuracy and automation. Vistec has a range of systems. The …
The radical italian Kitegen wind power system appears to have funding of 15 million euro (announced not distributed). An interesting synergy is possible with large Kitegen systems and nuclear power plants. Kitegen systems could be co-located with nuclear power plants to help prevent any illegal airplanes from hitting the nuclear plant. (Kite flying would be …
1. DARPA has funded Rice University to develop platform-aware compilation environment”. Enable compilers which are the everywhere to be faster without needing highly skilled people spending a lot of time tuning each one. If they succeed all computers would become faster. “When a compiler translates human-written code into executable code, it makes myriad choices that …
The Texas Petawatt laser was completed March 31, 2008, allowing an immediate demonstration of its 1.1 petawatt power by producing, 200 J, 167 fs pulses. The US National Ignition Facility is to start firing in 2010 Zettawatt-Exawatt Lasers and Their Applications in Ultrastrong-Field Physics From 1992-2001, however, we have seen a surge in our ability …
Technology is unlocking the Bakken oilfield potential In Saskatchewan. As of mid-October, 2008, Saskatchewan had 1,050 wells capable of producing in the Bakken. Of these, the vast majority (979) have been drilled since October 2004. Over the first eight months of 2008, the Bakken accounted for about 8.6 million bbls (an average of 35,250 bbls …
The short and less technical version from Classical Values. 1. The machine is working way better than the usual theories predict2. No one knows why (lots of suspicions floating around)3. New instruments are being added 4. The current machine is called WB-7. WB 7.1 (no details) is in progress. The technical version mainly in Dr. …
As previously noted on this site Ray Kurzweil (inventor, author of the Singularity is Near) and Peter Diamandis (Xprize founder and co-founder of the International Space University) are starting up a Singularity University. This site has noted that the term “University” has some getting their expectations messed up. By examining the program and its stated …