Category: Science

Cosmos 1 Set to Test Solar Sail

Solar Sail

I remember reading about the failure of the first solar sail tests, I hope this one will be better.
I find it amazing that somthing that was a concept only found in science fiction books is now being tested for real.

The keys to Cosmos 1’s innovative propulsion system are its eight triangular sails, made from highly reflective, 50-foot-tall Mylar sheets. Mylar is the material commonly used for novelty helium-filled balloons. Once the sails are unfurled in orbit at an altitude of about 500 miles, photons streaming away from the sun will bounce off them, giving the spacecraft a little push as they go. Though these tiny pushes won’t amount to much at first, they are expected to add up over time, propelling Cosmos 1 faster and faster. With each day that passes, the spacecraft is expected to gain another 100 mph in speed. Eventually, it will be able to fight Earth’s gravitational pull and move into a higher orbit

Cosmos 1 set to test Solar Sail

space, Russia, solar sail, Cosmos

Holographic Movies?

Holo-Chopper

I see video games in the future being a whole lot cooler than anyone can imagine.

The system is based on regular digital light processing (DLP) micro-mirror chips, but there is a twist. Instead of using regular lights, the researchers are using laser lights, which are using a unique wavelength. And they feed the chip with interferograms coming from regular 3-D imaging applications. This unique combination leads the micro-mirrors to project a 3-D moving image that appears suspended in air, like a 3-D hologram.

Holographic Movies For Your TV
There is a web version of the PDF here.
(Thank you agent Greg for this. I’ll return your anaglyph glasses soon)
3D, holographic, Texas, optics, science

Robot Prototypes At Expo 05

expo

Loads of photos and video from the big robot demo at the 2005 Expo in Japan. The site is all in Japanese but don’t let that scare you, just click on the links and be amazed…
Walking robots, drum playing robots, robots that climb trees, robots that swim, robots that fly. Could this be the future? I hope so.

“Love terrestrial Hiroshi (Aichi international exposition)” on the 9th, displays the robot of 65 types “prototype robot spreading/displaying”

Love and earth Expo “Prototype robot exhibition” holding

Translated if you want to read the text. (Good chance that the links worn’t work.)

technology, robots, Japan,

GFX Cards As A Super Computer?

POP!

Cool! I remember when there was an Internet hoax running around about a dedicated SETI at home crunching card. Everyone was all excited about the idea of pumping out gobs of work units day ana night with them. I wonder if the low cost (video card = cheap, super computer = not cheap) video card could be used to do this. There may be life yet for last years craphics card, you know, the one that it will only display a bazillion textures and a million FPS… 😛

The Scout programming language, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, US, lets scientists run complex calculations on a computer’s graphics processing unit (GPU) instead of its central processing unit (CPU).
In tests, the graphics processor was able to perform certain types of calculation 12 times faster than a single CPU.
Graphics processors generate smooth and realistic three-dimensional imagery by performing rapid calculations on visual data. And the latest graphics chips rival CPUs for raw processing power, thanks to consumer demand for hardware powerful enough to support the latest 3D computer games.
“These chips normally sit idle when scientists work,” says Patrick McCormick, a LANL researcher. “They have all this processing power but it’s just not being used.”

Computer graphics card reveals supernova collapse
(Thank you agent Greg for this info)
computers, inventive, science, space