TIE Fighter - short film

An Advance in Tractor-Beam Technology

http://www.newyorker.com/

July 30, 2014

By Laura Parker

Credit Photograph by iStock/360/Getty.

The term “tractor beam” is thought to have made its first appearance in “Spacehounds of IPC,” a sci-fi novel by Edward E. Smith published in 1947. Smith, whose work has been cited as an influence by the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, George Lucas, and J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the show “Babylon 5,” worked as the chief chemist for a Michigan flour mill (his specialty was doughnut mixes). His best-known works, the Lensman and Skylark series, are full of imagined technologies that, like the tractor beam, were far beyond the reaches of contemporary science but nevertheless based on seemingly sound principles.
Scientists first began working on making tractor beams a reality in the nineteen-nineties, after the Russian ceramics engineer Eugene Podkletnov reported that certain small objects, when placed above a superconducting disk supported on a rotating magnetic field, lost up to two per cent of their weight. His experiment—the results of which were met with widespread, albeit somewhat knee-jerk, skepticism in the physics community—seemed to indicate that it was possible to neutralize the force of gravity, at least in part. Further experiments followed; in 2001, Podkletnov and the Italian physicist Giovanni Modanese built what they called an impulse gravity generator, a device that emitted a beam of focussed radiation in a “short repulsive force.”
Until recently, no one had managed to move anything bigger than a particle. (There was brief excitement earlier this year, when researchers from Australia and Spain successfully moved a plastic sphere fifty nanometres across—around a thousand times thinner than a human hair—by splitting a beam of light in two and using it to press in on the sphere from each side, like a pair of tweezers.) Even NASA has tried to get in on the action, although their vision seems somewhat lacking when compared with the many tractor-beam scenarios already laid out in science fiction: the team of scientists tasked with the job are supposed to come up with more efficient ways of clearing “orbital debris,” i.e., space garbage. (And they don’t look happy about it.)
Now scientists from the University of Dundee, in Scotland, have created something with a bit more muscle. While most of the documented experiments with tractor-beam technology so far have involved light waves, the team from Dundee used sound waves to manipulate a half-inch triangular prism made of metal and rubber, successfully pulling the target toward the source of the acoustic beam. Half an inch may not sound like much, but it’s a vast improvement on fifty nanometres. The experiment was part of a larger project across four U.K. universities—Bristol, Southampton, Glasgow, and Dundee—and took nine months to complete. The results have been published in Physical Review Letters.
The Dundee tractor beam is not entirely dissimilar from those in “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” in that it draws an object toward it without making physical contact. The device works by taking advantage of an acoustic wave’s natural push effect, called radiation pressure. (Photons also exert radiation pressure, which is part of the reason comet tails always point away from the sun.) What the Dundee team was able to demonstrate was an example of negative radiation pressure, otherwise known as pull. According to Christine Démoré, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Medical Science and Technology, at Dundee, and a co-author of the paper, one of the team’s main reasons for staging the experiment was to show how easily it could be done. “It’s a relatively simple concept, but it’s just obscured by complex math,” she told me. “By shaping a beam of energy so that it goes around an object in some way, hitting it in the back, it’s possible to then pull the object instead of push it.”
To do this, the team used a commercial ultrasound-surgery machine to generate two Bessel beams, a type of acoustic radiation that remains focussed as it travels rather than spreading out. They fired these beams from either side of the target; when the beams hit the sloped sides of the prism, they were deflected up, like cue balls bouncing off the side of a billiards table. The sideways momentum of the beams transferred to the target, pushing it down, toward the energy source.
The immediate applications of the Dundee tractor beam are medical. Démoré and her colleagues hope to improve the efficacy of focussed ultrasound surgery, a noninvasive treatment for tumors that works by heating and destroying unwanted tissue. Another potential application is targeted drug delivery, achieved via tiny capsules in the bloodstream. “What we’ve shown in our tractor-beam experiment is that it may be possible to push, drag, or hold the drug capsules at a specific location in the body, improving the targeting of the released drugs,” Démoré told me. And if Dundee’s device could be made to work on larger objects, it could also prove useful for collecting geological samples from parts of the planet currently impossible to reach—volcanic vents, the deep sea, perhaps even space. “Some of this may be a fair way off,” Démoré said. “But we’ve demonstrated the physics that make it conceivable.”

10 Scary Sci-Fi Weapons That Could Theoretically Exist

 http://listverse.com/

Morgan Swank May 6, 2014

The science fiction genre has given us a plethora of terrifying technology throughout the years. How many of those terrifying weapons could actually exist, based on what we know about modern science? From Doctor Strangelove to Star Wars to the Marvel Universe, here are 10 scary sci-fi weapons that could theoretically exist.

10Lightsabers
Star Wars

Photo credit: DancingPhilosopher

We’ve all wanted a lightsaber at some point in our lives, right? Well, they may be a reality not too far off in the future. In September 2013, scientists from Harvard and MIT found a way to manipulate photons—particles that normally don’t interact with each other—into a photonic molecule. Until these scientists created the process of binding photons into molecules, it was only a theoretical possibility. They say that the closest example of what this new process creates is—you guessed it—a lightsaber!
To do this, the scientists pushed rubidium atoms into a vacuum chamber and allowed lasers to cool them at near-absolute zero. They then shot single photons into the atom cloud via laser pulses. This caused the photon to move into and through the cloud, passing energy to the atoms. One of the scientists claims that this process may one day be used to create 3D crystalline structures out of light alone. Granted, the science isn’t quite ready to create an arm-chopping, light-beam weapon just yet, but it does prove that such technology is at least theoretically possible.

9Cyborgs
Robocop

Cyborgs have been a terrifying feature of science fiction for as long as the genre has been around. But is it actually possible to create a “bionic man” with today’s technology? It’s definitely a possibility. Modern technology has already created bionic eyes and hearing aids. Now, Vanderbilt University has created a bionic exoskeleton for people with paralyzing spinal cord damage. The research is a breakthrough for medicine and science, and it also opens up for the possibility to create a walking, breathing, weaponizable bionic superhuman.
This Vanderbilt-developed lower limb exoskeleton works via force mechanisms at the hip and knee joints. Coupled with an application display, this allows complete control of the orthosis from above the waist. This exoskeleton was tested on a paraplegic patient, with positive results. The subject could walk at an average speed of 0.8 kilometers (0.5 mi) per hour with the assistance of parallel beams for support. If it’s possible to fix such traumas, who can say that an entirely bionic man is a crazy concept to conceive?

8Fusion Reactor
Marvel Universe

The idea of harnessing a super-powered energy source in a small, contained space isn’t impossible with today’s knowledge. The fusion reactor from Spider-Man’s world may not be real, but the idea behind it is based on real-life science. The scary thing is that we’re not that far off from understanding nuclear fusion through a deuterium-tritium reaction. A deuterium-tritium reaction is the most conceivable nuclear reaction to attempt, since both deuterium and tritium are abundant. The fusion process involves bringing the two atomic nuclei so close to each other that they fuse together, but it requires temperatures of around 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million °F).
In addition to the temperature, the process creates a highly electric plasma that must be contained in a magnetic field cage. The idea behind Doctor Octavius’s fusion reactor isn’t too far off from how we understand the deuterium-tritium reaction. However, containing the reaction and stabilizing it enough to attract metallic items from a distance is another matter. One thing is certain: If this reaction could be perfected and weaponized on a smaller scale, we would all be in trouble.

7Teleportation Device
Star Trek

“Beam me up, Scotty” may be the coolest catchphrase in the world of science fiction, and the teleportation device that allowed Captain Kirk to utter the words is one of the coolest sci-fi devices. Although most teleportation devices aren’t necessarily considered weapons, the technology could undoubtedly be used for both good and evil. The question remains as to whether teleportation is a possibility. The answer is a resounding “maybe.”
According to an essay published in Science, scientists from Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have been able to explore the feasibility of teleportation. The JQI team has shown that it’s possible to transfer information (but not the matter itself) between photons. To accomplish this task, they placed two ions in a vacuum surrounded by electric fields. Then they used a laser pulse to create a quantum state known as entanglement, which essentially lets two atoms displace properties from one to the other. In a sense, this allows information to be “teleported” between them. The next logical step for the JQI team is to improve the precision of the photons and create a quicker, more efficient communication between them. The answer as to whether or not we’ll ever perfect human teleportation is in the distant future, however.

6Time Machine
H.G. Wells

We probably won’t be reaching 88 miles per hour and jumping to a different century in a DeLorean. Neither will we be hopping into police boxes that take us to another galaxy 1,000 years in the future. However, that doesn’t mean that time travel devices may never exist. Albert Einstein was able to show that time is essentially elastic and capable of stretching or shrinking with motion. Time travel should actually be possible, considering that time can be accelerated by increasing speed. This can be observed with stars and planets light-years away. In addition, Einstein claimed that gravity is a factor of time as well. So, with time travel being theoretically possible, how about a time machine?
A time machine has been said to work by bending the space-time continuum so that time lines loop back on themselves to form a “closed time-like curve.” To create such a loop, the time machine would need an exotic matter with a negative energy density. This matter could potentially exist, but there’s not enough of it to build a time machine. There is research to suggest that a time machine could run without such exotic matter. This would require creating a vacuum of normal matter to shift through, allowing the space-time continuum to bend in on itself. This theory introduces complications and assumes a near-impossible manipulation of gravitational fields, but it does provide a theoretical basis for such a device.
Being able to master this science and build a proper time-traveling device would take a lot of trial and error, research, and luck. If a time machine were to exist in the future, it could be more disastrous than any weapon in our arsenal.

5EMP Blast
The Matrix

You might remember electromagnetic pulse (EMP) being used in The Matrix to stop the Machines and to bring down hovercraft. The idea of a weapon that can disable all electronic devices sounds like a terrifying creation of science fiction, but EMP does exist in real life, and it’s even more terrifying than we can imagine.
A moderate EMP blast would destroy any nearby electronic devices. A blast directly above the United States could send pulses throughout the entire North American continent. Even some smaller microwave EMP weapons could theoretically disable local banks, alarm and security systems, and institutions like the stock exchange. It was reported that North Koreans were experimenting with Russian technology to create EMP weapons capable of disabling electronic military equipment. It’s a terrifying prospect to consider, and not even Keanu Reeves could save us if EMP weapons become commonplace.

4Neuralyzer
Men In Black

The neuralyzer from Men in Black is quite possibly one of the coolest sci-fi weapons. Not much bigger than a pen and able to fit in a jacket pocket, the nerualyzer is capable of wiping a human memory for as long as the user intends—just by using a flash of light. While we haven’t been able to create such a device yet, scientists are experimenting with memory editing and are seeing some success. New York researchers have created a new experimental drug capable of blocking PKMzeta—a substance the brain needs to retain most learned information. After it is administered, the drug can reach areas of the brain that hold certain types of memory associated with emotions and motor skills. The research is in its infant stage, and the drug has only been tested on lab rats.
However, the scientists are quite confident that the same memory editing technique could be successfully applied to humans. Tapping into this science can be considered unethical. While it will most likely be used to treat dementia and other illnesses, we can’t entirely rule out its use as a building block for real-life weaponized neuralyzer in the distant future.

3Raygun
Flash Gordon

A raygun, or “death ray,” is a handheld weapon capable of shooting deadly particle beams. One of the first attempts to create a concentrated death ray was made by Nikola Tesla. His idea was to create a vacuum seal, then push a stream of air at a high velocity through the gun, creating so-called “high vacua.” The resulting particle beam could be projected in a straight line for up to 320 kilometers (200 mi). Tesla’s death ray was almost identical to the charged-particle weapon developed by both the US and Russia during the Cold War.
In more recent news, a man was able to use an old TV screen to construct a concentrated “death ray” that reaches 1,090 degrees Celsius (2,000 °F) and is capable of burning through metal. If producing a particle beam is this easy, could the same death ray exist in the form of a handgun? It seems like this possibility could turn into reality sometime in the future.

2Doomsday Machine
Doctor Srangelove

Doomsday machines have been terrifying the general public since the sci-fi genre was invented. However, the plot of Dr. Strangelove—where the Soviets blow up the world—may not have been entirely fictional. In 1984, the Soviet Union did in fact build a doomsday machine called “Perimeter.” It was operated by an elaborate system of triggers stationed around the country and designed to fire numerous missiles at the United States. It has been estimated that launching these missiles would have killed over 100 million people. The scarier part? Perimeter is still active, and nobody seems to want to bring it up (even though documents about the program have been published for the past 20 years). Whether a “doomsday machine” like Russia’s Perimeter exists elsewhere in the world is a mystery, but there’s no way to definitively rule out the terrifying possibility.

1Extremis Virus
Marvel Universe

In short, the Extremis virus from the Marvel Universe originated as a healing agent for regenerating amputated limbs before evolving to give superhuman abilities. The science of regenerating human limbs (the way a reptile does) or creating better limbs is on its way to being theoretically possible. This can easily be weaponized, since one could potentially create an almost-unstoppable human. Currently, science cannot regenerate limbs and appendages, but the key to doing so may lie in our fingernails.
Researchers at the NYU Langone Medical Center used genetically engineered mice to test the chain of events that occurs in fingertip regeneration. They hope that their findings can be used for limb regeneration in the future. The experiment focused on the stem cells from the nail bed, which stimulate self-renewal and growth. The researchers found that the cells rely on proteins called the “Wnt signaling network.” These proteins help the growth of hair follicles and fingernails. By manipulating the Wnt signal in mice with amputated fingertips, the researchers could trigger growth in areas where it wouldn’t normally occur. The next logical step is to focus on the molecular processes that control how the signal interacts with stem cells to produce this growth and regeneration. The ability to create an ever-regenerating super soldier may not be entirely possible just yet, but we could be closer to it than we think.

Morgan Swank is part professional joke writer, social media master, cat lady, and obsessor of all that’s historical and unsolved. Follow her on Twitter (@morganswank).

‘Star Wars’ Right About Habitable Moons?

By Matthew Francis May 3, 2014 9:54 PM The Daily Beast

‘Star Wars’ Right About Habitable Moons?

Much as I love them, the Star Wars films fail nearly every scientific test—even beyond the magical warriors in space motif. From faster-than-light travel to breathing in space with just a filtration mask to the sounds of explosions without air, they are unrealistic even by science fiction movie standards. But there are one or two places where they might be at least a little prophetic.

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In both the first Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, the heroes visit worlds of a type potentially interesting to researchers. Both the unnamed moon of Yavin hiding the secret Rebel base and the Ewok-plagued Endor are very Earth-like moons orbiting giant planets. While the strong resemblance to Earth is unlikely, astronomers are taking the idea of habitable exomoons—moons orbiting giant planets in other star systems—very seriously.

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The “habitable zone” is a region near a star that is warm enough for liquid water to exist on the surface, assuming the presence of a reasonable atmosphere. In our Solar System, only smaller, rocky planets orbit within the habitable zone. By contrast, most of the exoplanets in their host stars’ habitable zones are Neptune-size or bigger. That means they are composed of compressed gasses, with no solid surface.
While some researchers have speculated about life on gas giant planets, they aren’t promising. However, the giant planets in the Solar System are hosts to a flock of moons, many of which are planet-size. In particular, Saturn’s moon, Titan, is bigger than Mercury and has a nitrogen atmosphere thicker than Earth’s. Its surface is very cold: a lot of the “rocks” are actually boulders of water ice, and its lakes are composed of methane rather than water.
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Imagine, though, a Saturn-mass exoplanet with a Titan-sized moon orbiting its star within the habitable zone. That exomoon could have a sheltering atmosphere, sufficient to warm the surface to allow liquid water to form. Call the exoplanet “Yavin,” give the moon a few billion years for life to emerge and pump oxygen into the air, and we have a nice hiding place for a future Rebel Alliance.
So let’s assume we have a planet-like exomoon stably orbiting its planet, maybe in a system with a Sun-like star. How in the name of Yoda are we ever going to detect it? We have enough trouble finding small exoplanets; is there any hope of detecting a moon that would be as small or smaller? And how could we distinguish the small exomoon signal from that of its host planet?
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The only potential exomoon astronomers have identified so far orbits a “rogue planet.” Rather than orbiting a star, rogue planets drift through interstellar space. Whether they formed in a star system and were ejected afterward by some chance, or if they formed in a stellar creche but never had enough mass to be a star themselves, these vagabonds and any satellites are likely as uninhabitable as can be. However, a rogue planet happened to drift between us and a more distant star, creating a brief gravitational magnification of the background star’s light known as “microlensing,” which depends on how massive the planet is.

In this case, the magnification had a second, smaller burst, which might possibly, maybe, perhaps be the sign of an exomoon orbiting the rogue planet. The principle is sound, but the effect is small enough that another source entirely could be responsible for the extra flare-up.
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A more reliable method than microlensing, used to great effect by the Kepler mission, detects exoplanets when they transit—pass in front of their host star, blocking a small amount of light. In some cases, light shining through the outer layers of the exoplanet’s atmosphere has even allowed astronomers to determine some of its chemical composition.
With precision measurements, we might be able to find a secondary blip from an exomoon. It wouldn’t be a large effect, but by monitoring the same system over multiple orbits, we might have a chance. As with every exoplanet discovery, the chances are better for worlds orbiting very close to their host star, so habitable exomoons are still a lovely dream.
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However, there’s another disturbing possibility. If an Earth-like planet has a Titan-like moon with an atmosphere, it might be hard for us to tell which atmosphere is which. That’s a problem if we’re looking for the chemical signatures of life. Early Earth had a very different atmosphere; microorganisms known as cyanobacteria produced oxygen as a waste product, until the balance of the atmosphere changed into something like we have today. Hunting for life elsewhere could involve looking for similar chemical imbalances, but an exomoon might spoil it for us: we’d see the chemistry of both exoplanet and moon, but be unable to tell which was which.

That’s a fairly distant worry for us. We have yet to find more than a few Earth-size exoplanets, and haven’t measured an atmosphere on any; the only exomoon possibility could be something else entirely. We don’t know how common Earth-like exomoons are either, but we can’t know without looking. If we’ve learned anything, science fiction—even fanciful examples like Star Wars—doesn’t always prepare us for the wonderful things we’ve discovered in our beautiful Universe.

Related from The Daily Beast

Star Wars: What would hyperspace travel really look like?

http://phys.org/

Jan 14, 2013

What University of Leicester physics students suggest hyperspace travel would really look like. Credit: University of Leicester

The sight of the Millennium Falcon making the "jump to lightspeed" is one of the most iconic images from the Star Wars trilogy.

But University of Leicester students have calculated that – in reality – Han, Luke and Leia would not see the light from stars stretching past the ship as we are shown in the movies.
The group of fourth year MPhys students published the findings in this year's University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics. The journal is published every year, and features original short papers written by students in the final year of their four-year Master of Physics degree.
The students are encouraged to be imaginative with their topics, and the aim is for them to learn about aspects of publishing and peer review.
In the films, spacecraft are equipped with hyperdrives which allow them to approach the speed of light.
As the hyperdrive is engaged, every star in the sky is seen to stretch before the characters' eyes as the ship speeds through the galaxy.
The four students - Riley Connors, Katie Dexter, Joshua Argyle, and Cameron Scoular – have shown that this would not be the case.
They have shown that the crew would actually see a central disc of bright light.

An example of how the the films suggest hyperspace travel would look like. Credit: University of Leicester

There would be no sign of stars because of the Doppler effect - the same effect which causes the siren of an ambulance to become higher in pitch as it comes towards you.
Doppler blue shift is a phenomenon caused by a source of electromagnetic radiation – including visible light - moving towards an observer.
The effect means that the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation will be shortened.
From the Millennium Falcon crew's point of view, the wavelength of the light from stars will decrease and 'shift' out of the visible spectrum into the X-ray range.
They would simply see a central disc of bright light as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is shifted into the visible spectrum.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is radiation left behind from the Big Bang, and is spread across the universe fairly uniformly.
The group found after further investigation that the intense X-rays from stars would push the ship back, causing it to slow down. The pressure felt by the ship would be comparable to that felt at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Their calculations also show that Han would need to store extra amounts of energy on his ship to overcome this pressure in order to continue on his journeys.
Riley Connors, 21, from Milton Keynes, said: "If the Millennium Falcon existed and really could travel that fast, sunglasses would certainly be advisable. On top of this, the ship would need something to protect the crew from harmful X-ray radiation."
Joshua Argyle, 22, from Leicester, added: "The resultant effects we worked out were based on Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, so while we may not be used to them in our daily lives, Han Solo and his crew should certainly understand its implications."
Katie Dexter, 21, from Kettering, concluded: "Perhaps Disney should take the physical implications of such high speed travel into account in their forthcoming films."
Course leader Dr Mervyn Roy, a lecturer at the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, said: "A lot of the papers published in the Journal are on subjects that are amusing, topical, or a bit off-the-wall. Our fourth years are nothing if not creative! But, to be a research physicist - in industry or academia - you need to show some imagination, to think outside the box, and this is certainly something that the module allows our students to practice.
"Most of our masters students hope to go on to careers in research where a lot of their time will be taken up with scientific publishing - writing and submitting papers, and writing and responding to referee reports.
"This is another area where the module really helps. Because Physics Special Topics is run exactly like a professional journal, the students get the chance to develop all the skills they will need when dealing with high profile journals later on in life."

Physics students devise concept for Star Wars-style deflector shields

http://phys.org/

May 01, 2014

The Death Star, which protagonist Luke Skywalker successfully destroys in the Star Wars franchise while piloting an X-Wing fighter. Credit: Wikipedia;

If you have often imagined yourself piloting your X-Wing fighter on an attack run on the Death Star, you'll be reassured that University of Leicester students have demonstrated that your shields could take whatever the Imperial fleet can throw at you.

The only drawback is that you won't be able to see a thing outside of your starfighter.
In anticipation of Star Wars Day on 4 May, three fourth-year Physics students at the University have proven that shields, such as those seen protecting spaceships in the Star Wars film series, would not only be scientifically feasible, they have also shown that the science behind the principle is already used here on Earth.
They have published their findings in the Journal of Special Physics Topics, a peer-reviewed student journal run by the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.
In the Star Wars movies, the latest of which began filming in April, spaceships are protected by a shield defence system that deflects enemy laser fire. In order to recreate this type of shield, the students assumed that a surrounding field of super-hot plasma would be used, held in place by a magnetic field around the ship.
The denser the plasma, the higher the frequency of electromagnetic wave (or laser radiation) will be deflected.
The principle can already be seen, not in a galaxy far, far away, but in the atmosphere around our own planet. It is seen in 'over-the-horizon' radio communications, used for decades in early warning RADAR systems and for long distance communications where satellite communications are not feasible.

Student Alexander Toohie said: "The Earth's atmosphere is made up of several distinct layers, one of which is the ionosphere. The ionosphere is a plasma, and extends from roughly 50km above the surface of the Earth to the edge of space.
"Just like the plasma described in our paper, it reflects certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, in this case radio frequencies. Radio communications and RADAR can be beamed upwards toward the sky where it will be reflected back down toward the Earth. This method can be used to send communications over the horizon where radio transmissions would not normally be capable of reaching, much like using a mirror to look around a corner."

A strong magnetic field would be needed to create the required pressure to contain the plasma. The students calculated that the magnet strength required was definitely feasible, but would need a large power source that would restrict space in your ship.
Another major restriction would be that a shield designed to deflect light radiation would prevent any light reaching the pilot, leaving them effectively blind – unless, like Jedi pilot Luke Skywalker, they relied on the Force to guide them!
The students suggest that an Ultra-Violet camera would be a more readily available alternative, as UV radiation is beyond the frequency of light radiation.
While the technology might not be ready to protect your starfighter, there are more down-to-earth applications that we could see in the future.
Alexander explains: "Another possible application of this principle may be for trapping radiation inside a shell of plasma rather than excluding it. This may be useful for applications that require incredibly high temperature environments, such as experimental fusion reactors."
The students presented their findings in a paper for the Journal of Physics Special Topics, a peer-reviewed student journal run by the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy. The student-run journal is designed to give students practical experience of writing, editing, publishing and reviewing scientific papers.
Alexander said: "This module is very valuable to students who will be staying in academia after graduating as it gives a good insight into the publishing process for academic papers.
"But it is also valuable to students who do not intend to continue in research, as it allows us to investigate problems that we are interested in, and also gives us feedback from our peers on our writing style and the way in which we tackle problems."
Course tutor Dr Mervyn Roy, a lecturer in the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy, said: "The aim of the module is for the students to learn about peer review and scientific publishing.
"The students are encouraged to be imaginative with their topics, and find ways to apply basic physics to the weird, the wonderful and the everyday."

 

More information: Journal of Physics Special Topics, J. McGuire, A. Toohie and A. Pohl, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester. Leicester, LE1 7RH. Nov 20, 2013.

'Star Wars' at sea: Navy ready to deploy laser system this summer

US Navy ready to deploy laser system this summer; rail guns aren't far behind

By David Sharp, Associated Press February 17, 2014 2:52 PM

BATH, Maine (AP) -- Some of the Navy's futuristic weapons sound like something out of "Star Wars," with lasers designed to shoot down aerial drones and electric guns that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

That future is now.
The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years.
For the Navy, it's not so much about the whiz-bang technology as it is about the economics of such armaments. Both costs pennies on the dollar compared with missiles and smart bombs, and the weapons can be fired continuously, unlike missiles and bombs, which eventually run out.
"It fundamentally changes the way we fight," said Capt. Mike Ziv, program manager for directed energy and electric weapon systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Navy's laser technology has evolved to the point that a prototype to be deployed aboard the USS Ponce this summer can be operated by a single sailor, he said.

 

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey

 

The solid-state Laser Weapon System is designed to target what the Navy describes as "asymmetrical threats." Those include aerial drones, speed boats and swarm boats, all potential threats to warships in the Persian Gulf, where the Ponce, a floating staging base, is set to be deployed.
Rail guns, which have been tested on land in Virginia, fire a projectile at six or seven times the speed of sound — enough velocity to cause severe damage. The Navy sees them as replacing or supplementing old-school guns, firing lethal projectiles from long distances.
But both systems have shortcomings.

Lasers tend to loser their effectiveness if it's raining, if it's dusty, or if there's turbulence in the atmosphere, and the rail gun requires vast amount of electricity to launch the projectile, said Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.

"The Navy says it's found ways to deal with use of lasers in bad weather, but there's little doubt that the range of the weapon would be reduced by clouds, dust or precipitation," he said.

 

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey

 

Producing enough energy for a rail gun is another problem.

The Navy's new destroyer, the Zumwalt, under construction at Bath Iron Works in Maine, is the only ship with enough electric power to run a rail gun. The stealthy ship's gas turbine-powered generators can produce up to 78 megawatts of power. That's enough electricity for a medium-size city — and more than enough for a rail gun.

Technology from the three ships in that DDG-1000 series will likely trickle down into future warships, said Capt. James Downey, the program manager.
Engineers are also working on a battery system to store enough energy to allow a rail gun to be operated on warships currently in the fleet.

Both weapon systems are prized because they serve to "get ahead of the cost curve," Ziv said.

 

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey 

 

In other words, they're cheap.

 Each interceptor missile aboard a U.S. Navy warship costs at least $1 million apiece, making it cost-prohibitive to defend a ship in some hostile environments in which an enemy is using aircraft, drones, artillery, cruise missiles and artillery, Thompson said.

With a laser operating on about 30 kilowatts of electricity — and possibly three times that in the future — the cost amounts to a few dollars per shot, Thompson said.

The "Star Wars" analogy isn't a bad one.

Just like in the movies, the Navy's laser directs a beam of energy that can burn through a target or fry sensitive electronics. Unlike the movie, the laser beam is invisible to the human eye.

The targeting system locks onto the target, sending a beam of searing heat. "You see the effect on what you are targeting but you don't see the actual beam," Ziv said.

Other nations are developing their own lasers, but the Navy is more advanced at this point.

Most folks are stunned to learn the technology is ready for deployment, Ziv said.

"It's fair to say that there are other countries working on this technology. That's safe to say. But I would also say that a lot of what makes this successful came from the way in which we consolidated all of the complexity into something that can be operated by (a single sailor)," he said.

Why we should actually build the Death Star

By John Aziz 22 hours ago The Week

Also, it would look really cool.

In January of this year, the White House responded to a not-entirely-serious petition to build a Death Star, a huge moon-sized battle station armed with planet-destroying laser cannons depicted in the original Star Wars trilogy.
More than 34,000 people had signed the petition, claiming that the project would spur job creation and strengthen defense. They wanted the government to begin construction by 2016. The Obama administration jokingly responded that the cost — estimated to be $850 quadrillion — was far too high, and that the Obama administration "does not support blowing up planets."

The origin of the idea appears to be a rather amusing satirical post by the Glenn Beck-endorsed finance blog Zero Hedge from January 2012. Zero Hedge calculated that at current steel prices, the steel alone would cost $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the current level of global economic activity per year. And while there exists enough iron in the Earth’s crust to build two billion Death Stars, the steel itself would take 833,315 years to produce at current rates of production.
The point of all this was to make an attack on the concept of government being able to stimulate the economy by employing idle economic resources. While it may be possible to boost economic activity by any amount through government spending, there is no guarantee whatsoever that such government spending will do anything productive. Zero Hedge portrays Death Star-like projects as misallocations of capital, resources and labor since nobody in the market wants or needs them. This is a superficially impressive point. After all, didn’t the economies of communist countries like the Soviet Union collapse due to the failure of central economic planning, where the government and not the market decides how to allocate resources?

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I started to think that actually, building the Death Star would be a great idea. It would have massively beneficial economic effects for employment, output, science, technology and so forth. Any civilization that can build such a thing is both immensely powerful, and immensely skilled. More importantly, I think it is possible in the very, very long run for a government to build the Death Star or something similar of a smaller scale without misallocating any capital, labour, technology or resources whatsoever.
Let's start with Zero Hedge's presumptions. It’s cost estimate, for instance, is actually quite minimal, since it only includes the cost of the steel, and not the cost of getting the steel into space, constructing the steel into a Death Star, the development of laser cannon technology, a propulsion system, the feeding and housing of a large permanent crew (including oxygen and water recycling facilities), hydroponics and artificial food production technologies, a transport system to get people and things between the Earth and the Death Star, etc. Nor does it take into account the cost of the labor in employing scientists and technologists to develop and prototype the technologies, hiring engineers to deploy the technology, and producing components and parts. So I think the cost would far exceed even what Zero Hedge projects, possibly many times over.
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So why would I think that committing to spend vastly more than global GDP on a single project that nobody in the market is demanding is a good idea? Well, on a potentially infinite timeline, such a huge figure becomes more and more affordable as we go further and further into the future. While a Death Star may appear to be absurdly far beyond our present economic capabilities, the same was once true of things that are now within our capabilities like fighter jets or nuclear reactors. What made such things possible was time and scientific, technological and organizational development.
To build a Death Star, we would need to begin work on challenges far more modest and far closer to our present capabilities — sending a human to Mars, setting up a permanent base on the moon, setting up a permanent base on Mars, and developing technologies for those purposes. On the technology side, we would at least need multi-use lifters, a space elevator, improved solar energy collection and storage, improved nuclear batteries, improved 3D printing technologies, higher energy particle accelerators, space mining technologies, robots, machine learning, computing, life support systems and things as mundane as increased science and science education spending.

In order to avoid misallocating capital like the Soviet Union and other command economies, government’s capacity for extra stimulus is only the resources that the market has let sit idle. Idle resources can be estimated by the output gap — the difference between measured economic output, and the long term trend — which currently sits at around $856 billion, and by unemployment which currently sits at 7.2 percent. Both of these figures are very high by historical standards, suggesting that the economy is somewhat depressed, and that government still has significant capacity to engage in stimulus, especially in the current ultra-low interest rate environment. By those measures, building the Death Star today is not currently a suitable project, because its cost far exceeds the amount of idle resources in the economy.
But the United States could fund more modest missions to get us closer to that long-term goal. For instance, it could allocate money for a manned mission to Mars ($6 billion), build a new high energy particle accelerator ($12 billion), give out 10,000 million dollar research grants ($10 billion), build a base on the Moon ($35 billion), and invest $20 billion more in science education for, all for less than 10 percent of the current output gap. Better still, NASA and space-related spending historically has a relatively high multiplier of at least $2 (and possibly as much as $14 for certain projects, as well as a multiplier of 2.8 additional jobs for every job directly created) of extra economic activity generated per dollar spent. Given that space-spending yields new technologies like global positioning systems, satellite broadcasting, 3D printers, touch screens, and memory foam that lead to new products, these benefits are unsurprising. These projects woudl also help develop the private space industry, since existing private enterprise is piggybacking on technology and progress made 40 or 50 years ago in state-funded programs like the Apollo program.

If we started with these modest projects, the next time the economy has a bout of idle resources and unemployment, we could commence a new series of such large-scale projects. Eventually, projects on the scale of the Death Star may become not only economically viable but a valuable contribution to humanity.
Our civilization sits in dangerous territory right now. There are over seven billion of us, yet we are all concentrated on one ecosystem — the Earth, with one tiny totally-dependent off-planet colony, the International Space Station, which houses less than 10 people at a time. A single mass viral pandemic, asteroid strike or other cataclysm could completely wipe our species out. With humanity spread throughout the solar system — and preferably, the galaxy and the universe — our species is far less fragile to random extinction events. If we had access to the technology necessary to build a Death Star, we could easily begin to colonize space. And the Death Star itself — a giant space weapon — would be a safeguard against a particular kind of cataclysmic risk, that of hostile alien attack.

In conclusion, the Death Star today is far beyond current human capacities, and far beyond the capacity of the idle capital, labor and resources that any government has of deploying. This I must concede. But, as a super-long-term goal, the capacity to build such things is what our civilization ought to aspire to. And there are many projects that are within our capabilities that will take us closer to it.

Why Warp Drives Aren't Just Science Fiction

Jillian Scharr, TechNewsDaily Staff Writer

Date: 25 June 2013 Time: 09:26 PM ET

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The iconic starship from 'Star Trek,' the U.S.S. Enterprise. Depiction from the Star Trek: The Video Game. CREDIT: Namco Bandai View full size image

Astrophysicist Eric Davis is one of the leaders in the field of faster-than-light (FTL) space travel. But for Davis, humanity's potential to explore the vastness of space at warp speed is not science fiction.Davis' latest study, "Faster-Than-Light Space Warps, Status and Next Steps" won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) 2013 Best Paper Award for Nuclear and Future Flight Propulsion.
TechNewsDaily recently caught up with Davis to discuss his new paper, which appeared in the March/April volume of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and will form the basis of his upcoming address at Icarus Interstellar's 2013 Starship Congress in August. [Super-Fast Space Travel Propulsion Ideas (Images)]

"The proof of principle for FTL space warp propulsion was published decades ago," said Davis, referring to a 1994 paper by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. "All conventional advanced propulsion physics technologies are limited to speeds below the speed of light … Using an FTL space warp will drastically reduce the time and distances of interstellar flight."
Warp speed: a primer
Before delving into Davis' study, here's a quick review of faster-than-light space travel:
According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, an object with mass cannot go as fast or faster than the speed of light. However, some scientists believe that a loophole in this theory will someday allow humans to travel light-years in a matter of days.
In current FTL theories, it's not the ship that's moving — space itself moves. It's established that space is flexible; in fact, space has been steadily expanding since the Big Bang.
By distorting the space around the ship instead of accelerating the ship itself, these theoretical warp drives would never break Einstein's special relativity rules. The ship itself is never going faster than light with respect to the space immediately around it.
Davis's paper examines the two principle theories for how to achieve faster-than-light travel: warp drives and wormholes.
The difference between the two is the way in which space is manipulated. With a warp drive, space in front of the vessel is contracted while space behind it is expanded, creating a sort of wave that brings the vessel to its destination.
With a wormhole, the ship (or perhaps an exterior mechanism) would create a tunnel through spacetime, with a targeted entrance and exit. The ship would enter the wormhole at sublight speeds and reappear in a different location many light-years away.
In his paper, Davis describes a wormhole entrance as "a sphere that contained the mirror image of a whole other universe or remote region within our universe, incredibly shrunken and distorted."
Sci-fi fans, for warp drives, think "Star Trek" and "Futurama." For wormholes, think "Stargate."
[See also: Warp Drive and Transporters: How 'Star Trek' Technology Works (infographic)]
Mirror, mirror on the hull
The next question is: how to create these spacetime distortions that will allow vessels to travel faster than light? It's believed — and certain preliminary experiments seem to confirm — that producing targeted amounts of what's called "negative energy" would achieve the desired effect.
Negative energy has been produced in a lab via what's called the Casimir effect. This phenomenon revolves around the idea that vacuum, contrary to its portrayal in classical physics, isn't empty. According to quantum theory, vacuum is full of electromagnetic fluctuations. Distorting these fluctuations can create negative energy.
According to Davis, one of the most promising methods for creating negative energy is called the Ford-Svaiter mirror. This is a theoretical device that would focus all the quantum vacuum fluctuations onto the mirror's focal line.
"When those fluctuations are confined there, they have a negative energy," said Davis. "You could have types of negative energy that could make a wormhole that you could put a person through and, if you make a bigger mirror, put a starship through. The [mirror] is scalable … that's the beauty of it."
Davis described a theoretical configuration of Ford-Svaiter mirrors that could enable FTL spaceflight: "For a traversable wormhole, it'll have to be separate Ford-Svaiter mirrors [arranged] in an array to create the wormhole and then a ship with mirrors attached to it to extend the wormhole to the destination star."
The concern there is how to target the wormhole's exit.
"We don't know the answer to that question yet," said Davis. "Einstein's theory of general relativity doesn't answer it."
That's the difference between the fields of physics and engineering, Davis explained. According to our current understanding of physics, targeting the wormhole's exit is possible, but engineers have yet to figure out how to achieve it. [See also: NASA Turns to 3D Printing for Self-Building Spacecraft]
"On screen, Number One."
Another issue addressed in Davis' paper is how to navigate an FTL starship.
"If you're in a wormhole, you don't go faster than light — you're going at normal speeds, but your visualization and stellar navigations are all gone [because] … there are no stars to navigate by."
The iconic image of stars streaking by a spaceship viewscreen popularized by franchises like "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" simply isn't accurate, said Davis. "The light that goes through the wormhole gets distorted … you're going to have a very weird visual display."
This is because the negative energy necessary to create a wormhole or warp drive creates a repulsive gravity that distorts light around the ship.
So ships moving at faster-than-light speeds will not be able to observe their surroundings to calculate their location. Astronauts will have to rely on sophisticated computer programs to calculate their probable location. "You'll need something on the order of a supercomputer equipped with parallel processing," said Davis. "[The computer is] going to have to do all the figuring out  … [using] input data from the last position and estimating."
This is more of a concern with warp drives, which are actively reshaping space as they travel, but not as much with traversable wormholes, whose entrances and exits will probably be preset before flight. "You can only go one way through the wormhole, so it's not like you're going to get lost," said Davis
It's also important for the computer to be able to produce some kind of visual representation of its flight plan and spatial location. These images would then be rendered and displayed in the starship's cockpit or bridge for the crew to see and study. "It'll help the human psychological need for understanding, in real time, what the position changes of the stars are going to look like," said Davis.
Where no one has gone before
At the heart of Davis' paper is the principle — supported by rigorous scientific theory — that faster-than-light travel is a real and even tangible possibility. The last section of the paper proposes nine "next steps" that would push the field toward engineering prototypes and other practical tests of faster-than-light theories.
These steps include creating computer simulations to model the structure and effects of space warps. Davis also calls for more rigorous exploration of the Ford-Svaiter mirror, which is still a largely theoretical device. The mirror is just one possible way to generate negative energy; further study is needed to determine whether there are any other practical methods of achieving the same effect. [See also: Hypersonic 'SpaceLiner' Aims to Fly Passengers in 2050]
Davis describes the development and implementation of space-warp travel as "technically daunting" in his paper, but in conversation, he said he has no doubt that faster-than-light travel will someday be not only possible, but necessary.
"The Earth is subjected to natural and outer space and ecological disasters, so life is too fragile, while the planets in the solar system are not very hospitable to human life. So we need to explore extrasolar planets for alternative homes," Davis said.
"This is all part of the growth and evolution of the human race."