New Understandings of our Reality

Gaining an understanding of physics is paramount to pushing the boundaries of current reality. The articles in this section explain how scientists are using this knowledge.

A Wirelessly Powered Light Bulb – (MIT Technology Review – June 8, 2007)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18836/
It's possible to wirelessly power a 60-watt light bulb sitting about two meters away from a power source. Using a remarkably simple setup - basically consisting of two metal coils - they have demonstrated, for the first time, that it is feasible to efficiently send that much power over such a distance. The experiment paves the way for wirelessly charging batteries in laptops, mobile phones, and music players, as well as cutting the electric cords on household appliances

Live Fuels – (Company website – no date)
http://www.livefuels.com/
Live Fuels is a national alliance of labs and scientists dedicated to transforming algae into biocrude by the year 2010. Theoretically, algae can yield 1,000 to 20,000 gallons of oil per acre. Theoretically, the U.S. could grow enough algae on 20 million acres to replace imported oil. LiveFuels is working to make this a reality.

Solar Silicon Solution Wins MIT Energy Plan Contest – (PES Network – May 02, 2007)
http://pesn.com/2007/05/02/9500469_RSI_Silicon_wins_MIT_contest/
Reaction Sciences, Inc (RSI) won the "People's Choice" award and first place in MIT's energy business plan contest for its ultra-disruptive process which provides solar grade Silicon at a fraction of the cost of current Silicon process plants, with only 10% of the capital cost. Once RSI is in high-volume production, the price of photovoltaic solar products will be able to drop significantly, making solar energy 35-60% cheaper than at present.

Birth of a New Wedge – (TruthOut – May 3, 2007)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050307R.shtml
Agrichar is the term for what is left over after the energy is removed from biomass: a charcoal-based soil amendment. The agrichar process takes dry biomass of any kind and bakes it in a kiln to produce charcoal. Various gases and bio-oils are driven off the material and collected to use in heat or power generation. The charcoal is then buried in the ground, sequestering the carbon that the plants had pulled out of the atmosphere. The end result is increased soil fertility and an energy source with negative carbon emissions.

One Biofuel Fails -- (AP -- April 2, 2007)
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070402_ap_palm_oil.html
Palm oil derivatives caught on about five years ago as a source of renewable energy. It is relatively abundant, cheap at about $550 per ton, and requires few or no modifications to existing power stations. Unlike carbon-rich fossil fuels, palm oil is considered carbon-neutral, meaning the carbon emitted from burning it is the same as what is absorbed during growth. But the result of intensified farming has been to unleash far more greenhouse gases than will be saved at power stations.

BP's Bet on Butanol -- (MIT Technology Review -- March 27, 2007)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18443/
Currently ethanol, a biofuel, makes up only a small fraction of fuel use it can't be transported in the same pipelines used to distribute gasoline. What's more, ethanol delivers far less energy than gasoline does on a gallon-for-gallon basis. However, butanol, another alternative fuel, can be made from corn starch or sugar beets, and it can be shipped in existing gasoline pipelines. It also contains more energy than ethanol, which will improve mileage per gallon.

Engineers Create 'Optical Cloaking' Design -- (Physorg -- April 2, 2007)
http://www.physorg.com/news94744716.html
Researchers using nanotechnology have taken a step toward creating an "optical cloaking" device that could render objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside this "cloak." The current design does, however, have a major limitation: It works only for any single wavelength, and not for the entire frequency range of the visible spectrum.

Invisible Revolution -- (MIT Technology Review -- March 12, 2007)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/18292/
Using rings of printed circuit boards, researchers managed to divert microwaves around a kind of "hole in space." Even when a metal cylinder was placed at the center of the hole, the microwaves behaved as though nothing were there. It was arguably the most dramatic demonstration so far of what can be achieved with metamaterials, composites made up of precisely arranged patterns of two or more distinct materials.

Wild Grass Could Hold Key to Clean Fuels -- (AFP -- February 17, 2007)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070217/ts_alt_afp/usscienceenvironment
Miscanthus, a perennial grass native to subtropical and tropical regions of Africa and southern Asia, may be an ideal plant for producing ethanol at a lower cost than corn, currently the most widespread source of the fuel. The grass, which is used as an ornamental plant in the United States, had produced yields between five and 10 times greater than corn, experts said.

A Portable Refinery Powered by Garbage -- (MIT Technology Review -- February 14, 2007)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18183/
Scientists have developed a portable machine that turns a variety of food waste and inorganic trash into electricity. Despite being small enough to transport in a 20-foot shipping container, the "tactical refinery" is three technologies in one: a bioreactor that uses enzymes and micro-organisms to turn food waste into ethanol; a gasification unit that turns plastics, paper, and other residual waste into methane and low-grade propane; and a modified diesel engine that can burn gas, ethanol, and diesel fuel in variable proportions.

Theory Stretches the Limits of Composite Materials -- (SPX -- February 1, 2007)
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Theory
_Stretches_The_Limits_Of_Composite_Materials_999.html
In an advance that could lead to composite materials with virtually limitless performance capabilities, a scientist has dispelled a 50-year-old theoretical notion that composite materials must be made only of "stable" individual materials to be stable overall.

New Magnets Attract International Attention -- (University of Victoria -- January 17, 2007)
http://communications.uvic.ca/releases/release.php?display=release&id=785
Pure metal or metal alloy magnets are heavy, inflexible and can only be produced under high temperatures. Researchers have now discovered new lightweight magnets that could be used in making everything from extra-thin magnetic computer memory to ultra-light spacecraft parts. The discovery is the first step in designing the next generation of magnets which could, in theory, be easily manipulated at room temperature.

'Mach c'? Sound Traveling Faster than the Speed of Light -- (Physorg -- January 17, 2007)
http://www.physorg.com/news88249076.html
Past experiments have demonstrated that the group velocities of other materials’ components—such as optical, microwave, and electrical pulses—can exceed the speed of light. But while the individual spectral components of these pulses have velocities very close to c, the components of ordinary sound waves are almost six orders of magnitude slower than light (compare 340 m/s to 300,000,000 m/s). However, these are no ordinary sound waves....

Experts Home in on 'God Particle' -- (BBC -- January 9, 2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6244899.stm
Scientists may be closing in on the most sought-after particle in physics. The hypothetical Higgs boson, often dubbed the "God particle", is fundamental to our understanding of the Universe but has yet to be detected. Now, data from the Tevatron particle collider has enabled the most precise calculation yet to be made for its predicted mass, narrowing the window in which to locate the elusive particle.

India's Big Plans for Biodiesel -- (MIT Technology Review -- December 27, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17940/
India has launched an initiative aimed at eventually producing more than 2.3 million barrels of bio-diesel annually. The initiative is focused around commercial production and synthesis of the jatropha plant. The plant can grow in wastelands, and it yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean and more than ten times that of corn.

Solar Cell Breakthrough Claimed -- (Information Week -- December 6, 2006)
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196602149
Most of today's solar cells are between 12% and 18% efficient. Some of the ones used to power satellites are around 28% efficient. In 1954, 4% efficiency was state of the art. Researchers have now managed to create a solar cell with 40.7% sunlight-to-energy conversion efficiency

Physics Promises Wireless Power -- (BBC -- November 15, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6129460.stm
Researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires. The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many meters.

Building a Better Battery -- (Wired -- November, 2006)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/battery.html
Lithium-ion technology may be approaching its limits. Batteries conform to technical restrictions set by nature and don't obey Moore's law like most of the digital world. In the last 150 years, battery performance has improved only about eightfold - and the hunt is on for a better battery.

Biofuels Discovery May End Dependence on Natural Gas -- (Scientific American -- November 3, 2006)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=AEF23E63-E7F2-99DF-31C96E17711372DA&chanId=sa026
Researchers have developed a new, carbon-neutral way to convert vegetable-based fuels to syngas, a breakthrough that could allow producers to power hydrogen fuel cells or create a replacement for America's dwindling supplies of natural gas, all without relying on fossil fuels.

Cheap, Super-Efficient Solar -- (MIT Technology Review -- November 9, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17774&ch=energy
Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaics are starting to enjoy their day in the sun, thanks to advances in solar cells, which absorb light and convert it into electricity, and the mirror- or lens-based concentrator systems that focus light on them. The technology could soon make solar power as cheap as electricity from the grid.

A Practical Fuel-Cell Power Plant -- (MIT Technology Review -- October 23, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17644&ch=energy
New fuel-cell plants could be built for about $800 a kilowatt, which starts to approach the $500-to-$550-per-kilowatt cost of building a conventional gas-fired power plant. A six-kilowatt prototype has achieved 49 percent efficiency in converting fuel into electricity, which compares favorably with the 35 percent efficiency of conventional coal-burning power plant.

The Cost of Lighting the World -- (BBC -- October 23, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6067900.stm
A major advance in light technology is not far away. The latest advances have been light-emitting diodes - LEDs - and are developing at a very fast rate. Because the individual LEDs are so small, they can be put into highly efficient optical systems.

Tiny Fuel Cell Might Replace Batteries in Laptop Computers, Portable Electronics -- (Physorg -- September, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news77300946.html
Chemists have created a tiny hydrogen-gas generator that they say can be developed into a compact fuel cell package that can power computers and other electronic devices -- from three to five times longer than conventional batteries of the same size and weight.

Ultrasound Scans for Hidden Oil -- (Wired-- September 28, 2006)
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71773-0.html?tw=wn_index_4
The technology resembles the ultrasounds used by doctors to inspect a woman's womb. But a team of scientists are using it to map rocks deep below the Earth's surface to hunt for oil and gas. The potential payoff is huge. The United States has an estimated 254 trillion cubic feet of gas from these formations, enough to satisfy U.S. demand for 11 years.

Powering Up -- (Economist -- September 29, 2006)
https://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7905292
Solar cells remain prohibitively expensive, in part, due to their reliance on the relatively expensive silicone. Non-silicone cells traditionally had less than 20% of the efficiency of the metal solar cells, rendering them unmarketable. A new generation of plastic cells may revolutionize the playing field, increasing the efficiency of the new cells by up to 400%.

Biofuels Look to the Next Generation -- (BBC -- September 18, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5353118.stm
Biofuels are being hailed by politicians around the globe as a salvation from the twin evils of high oil prices and climate change. The boom in biofuels in the US stems from President Bush's drive to reduce dependence on imports of foreign oil; in Europe it has a more environmental dimension.

Top Prize for Light Inventor -- (BBC -- September 8, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5328446.stm
A Japanese scientist who invented environmentally-friendly sources of light has been awarded this year's Millennium Technology Prize. The award recognised his inventions of blue, green and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and the blue laser diode. White LEDs could provide a sustainable, low-cost alternative to lightbulbs, especially in developing countries.

Physicists Trap, Map Tiny Magnetic Vortex -- (Rice University -- September 7, 2006)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/ru-ptm090706.php
Physicists have decoded the three-dimensional structure of a tornado-like magnetic vortex no larger than a red blood cell. This could also allow breakthroughs in the design of nanostructures for ultra-high-density hard disk media, non-volatile magnetic random access memory and novel magnetic logic gates that could replace volatile semiconductor logic. The magnetic devices would be faster, smaller, use less power, create less heat and they wouldn't lose information when power was turned off.

Irish Company Challenges Scientists to Test 'Free Energy' Technology -- (Yahoo News -- August 18, 2006)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060818/sc_afp/irelandscienceenergy_060818141011
An Irish company has thrown down the gauntlet to the worldwide scientific community to test a technology it has developed that it claims produces free energy. The company, Steorn, says its discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy -- a concept that challenges one of the basic rules of physics. It claims the technology can be used to supply energy for virtually all devices, from mobile phones to cars.

Nuclear Reactors Evolve Inside Supercomputers -- (New Scientist -- June 9, 2006)
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn9302&feedId=online-news_rss20
Nuclear reactors could be built more efficiently using supercomputers to artificially "evolve" designs, say engineers. They have found they can speed up the extremely complex process of designing a reactor and generate novel designs from scratch by simulating natural selection.

Chocolate-Munching Bugs Provide Fuel of the Future -- (PhysOrg -- June 1, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news68364644.html
Chocoholic germs can reportedly provide hydrogen, the clean-burning energy of the future. The hydrogen was used to power a fuel cell, generating enough electricity to drive a small fan. The experiment has applications far beyond the lab. Waste chocolate, instead of being thrown away by confectionary companies, could be turned into hydrogen and used to help power their factories or sold to energy companies.

Satellite Could Open Door on Extra Dimension (see Space page)

Freezing Water at Room Temperature -- (New Scientist -- May 8, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2006/05/freezing-water-at-room-temperature.html
It turns out that water can freeze at room temperature in response to atomic-scale friction. Researchers used an instrument called a friction force microscope to create nano-friction by dragging a tungsten wire over a graphite surface. They wanted to test the theory that water vapor in the air might condense and become ice. And it did.

Cloaking Breakthrough -- (Technology Review -- May 26, 2006)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16930&ch=infotech
The prospect of invisibility - or cloaking - has been a mainstay of science fiction. But now physicists say they have finally figured out how to make objects invisible, and what's more, they are just months away from putting this theory into practice. The trick is to find a way to guide light and other types of electromagnetic radiation around an object so that it casts no shadow and produces no reflection.

So Fast it Goes ... Backwards? -- (PhysOrg -- May 11, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news66582110.html
In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. Confused? You're not alone.

Tiny Generators Could Power Implants Some Day -- (CBC News -- April 13, 2006)
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/04/13/nano-generator-20060413.html
Researchers have developed tiny electrical generators that could one day power medical implants without using batteries. The generators use millions of tiny zinc oxide wires, each only 500 billionths of a meter long, to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The mechanical energy, the researchers say, could come from body movement, muscle stretching or even water flow.

Forget Computers. Here Comes the Sun. -- (New York Times -- April 14, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/business/14solar.html?ex=1302
667200&en=75fc5adb571c4968&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Silicon chips, not the kind used for high-speed computing power, but rather for soaking up the sun's rays, are finding a niche in the market these days. The contrast between the two uses of silicon could not be more pronounced. As it turns out, the fledgling solar-cell industry uses just about as many silicon wafers as the chip industry does, but the resemblance ends there.

Three Cosmic Enigmas, One Audacious Answer -- (New Scientist -- April 6, 2006)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925423.600.html
Dark energy and dark matter, two of the greatest mysteries confronting physicists, may be two sides of the same coin. A new and as yet undiscovered kind of star could explain both phenomena and, in turn, remove black holes from the lexicon of cosmology.

Chaos = Order: Physicists Make Baffling Discovery -- (Washington University in St. Louis -- April 3, 2006)
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/6845.html
According to a computational study, one may create order by introducing disorder. While working on a model - a network of interconnected pendulums, or "oscillators" -researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. But when they introduced disorder -forces were applied at random to each oscillator - the system became ordered and synchronized.

Professor Predicts Human Time Travel This Century -- (PhysOrg -- April 4, 2006)
http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html
With a brilliant idea and equations based on Einstein's relativity theories, Ronald Mallett from the University of Connecticut has devised an experiment to observe a time traveling neutron in a circulating light beam. While his team still needs funding for the project, Mallett calculates that the possibility of time travel using this method could be verified within a decade.

New State of Matter -- (EurekAlert -- March 15, 2006)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uoc-ain031506.php
An international team of physicists has converted three normal atoms into a special new state of matter whose existence was proposed by Russian scientist Vitaly Efimov in 1970. In this new state of matter, any two of the three atoms--in this case cesium atoms-- repel one another in close proximity. But when you put three of them together, it turns out that they attract and form a new state.

Fastest View of Molecular Motion -- (BBC -- March 4, 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4766842.stm
Scientists have made the fastest ever observations of motion in a molecule. They "watched" parts of a molecule moving on an attosecond timescale - where one attosecond equals one billion-billionth of a second. The researchers say the study gives a new in-depth understanding of chemical processes and could be used in future technologies such as quantum computing.

Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth -- (Live Science -- March 8, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say. They don't know how they did it.

South African Solar Research Eclipses Rest of the World -- (Independent Online -- February 11, 2006)
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=116&art_id=vn20060211110132138C184427
In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun. This means high electricity bills and frequent power failures could soon be a thing of the past. The unique South African-developed solar panels will make it possible for houses to become completely self-sufficient for energy supplies.

Mysterious Ball Lightning Created in the Lab -- (Live Science -- February 23, 2006)
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060223_ball_lightning.html
Ball lightning is one of the most mysterious phenomena in nature. Now scientists have created a laboratory version of the eerie floating orbs using technology taken from a common microwave oven. The work could help scientists figure out how the lightning forms in nature and lead to practical applications that harness its power.

Scotland is The Center of a Gravity Revolution -- (Scotsman News -- February 18, 2006)
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=253972006
A shockwave tore through the space-time continuum that is the global astronomical community with the news that researchers at St Andrews University have apparently rewritten the laws of physics. One of the basic tenets of astronomy - the universal force of gravity - is now under serious challenge from a radical, competing theory.

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough -- (National Geographic -- January 14, 2006)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0114_050114_solarplastic.html
Scientists have invented a plastic solar cell that can turn the sun's power into electrical energy, even on a cloudy day. The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun's invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology.

China to Build World's First "Artificial Sun" Device -- (People's Daily Online -- January 24, 2006)
http://english.people.com.cn/200601/21/eng20060121_237208.html
A full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, which aims to generate infinite, clean nuclear-fusion-based energy, will be built in March or April in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province. Experiments with the advanced new device will start in July or August. If the experiments prove successful, China will become the first country in the world to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun", experts said.

The Hydrogen Gold Rush is On -- (Wired -- December 28, 2005)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69709,00.html?tw=rss.TOP
Todd Livingstone has a plan to solve the energy crisis by capturing huge amounts of energy from lightning. The idea itself is not new. But Livingstone has added a unique twist. Using lasers to capture lightning bolts, he wants to channel them through a large tank of water, producing near-limitless amounts of hydrogen. The implications, says Livingstone, are "mind-boggling." Put up a network of lasers in a lightning-prone area like Florida, he says, convert that energy into hydrogen, "and we could create more energy than the world needs."

LIGHT SPEED -- (Science Daily -- August 22, 2005)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050821225731.htm
A team of researchers has successfully demonstrated, for the first time, that it is possible to control the speed of light both slowing it down and speeding it up in an optical fiber, using off-the-shelf instrumentation in normal environmental conditions. Their results could have implications that range from optical computing to the fiber-optic telecommunications industry.

NUCLEAR FUSION

Expected between 2046-2050 

The idea is to recreate the nuclear reactions which take place at the heart of the sun. Last month the EU, America, Japan, Russia, China and South Korea agreed to build an experimental £6.6billion nuclear fusion reactor in France.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_objectid=15779660%26method=full%26siteid=94762-name_page.html