HackingTheUniverse

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In our popular literature genre of Science Fiction, we love to experience space drama that involves extrapolations of our past social conflicts. Some of the most dramatic moments in our historical wartime conflicts have involved mighty ships and fast fighter craft. Based on this, our Sci-Fi presents us with great ships in space and dogfight […]

Understanding time is important because it’s a fundamental building block of the Universe. Most think the Universe is composed of matter, energy, space, and time. It also seems somewhat obvious that energy and matter are directly related, with matter seeming like slow energy or vice versa, energy is fast matter. String theory proposes that rolled […]

Ethics is the consideration of what action is the best. This can be fairly straightforward when we only consider ourselves and there aren’t any significant unknown factors. But even under these restrictions, an ethical analysis can become complex. Consider this scenario: We can travel for one day to a location where there is one gallon […]

Ballistic conduction is when electrons move through a medium with minimal scattering and resistance. This happens in nanowires and nanotubes because of their small diameter. Experiments confirm theory of “superballistic” electron flow – [mit.edu] The idea behind superballistic flow is that interactions among electrons make them move in a highly coordinated manner, mimicking the behavior […]

The simplest example of the “triboelectric effect” is rubbing a balloon against hair or scuffing shoes across a carpet to produce static electricity. When this is combined with induction, it becomes possible to harvest electric power using charge transfer between two thin films that have different tribo-electric polarities. As we learn to integrate this process […]

When the isotopes Helium-3 and Helium-4 are cooled to extremely low temperatures, they become liquid and exhibit superfluid properties. This means they have a viscosity near zero and can flow without losing kinetic energy. A vortex created while a fluid is in this state will continue to rotate without dissipating. Under low temperatures and pressures, […]

Hydrogen is the simplest atom, composed of a single proton in the center and a single electron around the edge. We think of it in a natural form as a gas, but at low temperatures (-423 F) it will liquefy. Once it’s in liquid form, adding a lot of pressure (5 million atm) can force […]

Implementing this idea will be subject to political winds. But it raises the concept of using other pieces of infrastructure to collect solar power. Roads, railroad tracks, power lines, pipelines, and more structures in our society negotiate “right of way” contracts to use the land. We could be using all of these to both collect […]

Graphene is an arrangement of carbon atoms into a thin flat sheet that has extraordinary strength as well as being flexible and a conductor of electric current. This would seem to make it an ideal medium for electronic components. Researchers are now working to add superconductivity to the list of attributes associated with graphene. Graphene’s […]

Before our universe was created, there was nothing and there was everything, because they were the same thing and there was no way to distinguish between everything and nothing. In a place of singularity, all time and space, and all energy and matter, exist together and simultaneously. In order to create something new and different, […]