My two favorite stories of the last week (one is old, but I just found out about it, so it’s new to me!).

• Last week the MIT Technology Review had this article about new battery architectures that use nanotechnology. Not only do they think they can reduce the size and improve the power density both by several times, but they’ll probably even find new physics as they go along. That’s what happened a few weeks ago on another nanotech research project related to desalinization with nanotubes:

Indeed, the LLNL team measures water flow
rates up to 10,000 times faster than would be predicted by classical
equations, which suggest that flow rates through a pore will slow to a
crawl as the diameter drops. “It’s something that is quite
counter-intuitive,” says LLNL chemical engineer Jason Holt, whose
findings appeared in the 19 May issue of Science. “As you shrink the pore size, there is a huge enhancement in flow rate.”

The
surprising results might be due to the smooth interior of the
nanotubes, or to physics at this small scale [my italics - ed.] — more research is needed
to understand the mechanisms involved. “In some physical systems the
underlying assumptions are not valid at these smaller length scales,”
says Rod Ruoff, a physical chemist and professor of mechanical
engineering at Northwestern University (who was not involved with the
work).

• Then the other day I listened to an old podcast from New Scientist magazine about a group of physicists that think they’ve discovered a way to get a hyperdrive (ala Star Trek) out of the existing real laws of physics, based on a theory created by Bernhard Heim in the 1950s, but only recently rediscovered (he didn’t publish).

EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference.
Last year’s winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a
paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of
engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a
craft through another dimension at enormous speeds.

I just hope those goofballs at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics aren’t wrong!

Science is so cool!

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