Archives for the 'Physics' Category
MaxEnt 2007
Published on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:11 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Probability, Research.
Friday marked the closing session of the 27th International Workshop on Bayesian and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering (MaxEnt 2007). I had the great pleasure to host this year’s meeting in the lovely city of Saratoga Springs. We had approximately 100 participants from almost 25 countries spanning all six of the populated continents!
This year [...]
Building Lego Robots with Java Brains
Published on 18 May 2007 at 2:51 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under Exploration, Fun, Intelligent Systems, Lego, NXT, Physics, Research.
I finally received my long-awaited copy of Maximum Lego NXT: Building Robots with Java Brains by Brian Bagnall. I was pleased to see that in addition to the in-depth discussions regarding writing code for these robots in Java, that there were also some interesting projects.
My favorite was the Lego implementation of the Rocker-Bogie suspension, which [...]
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Plastic Sheet Delivers Power
Published on 1 May 2007 at 9:38 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under Energy, Entrepreneurship, Inventions, Nanoscience, Physics, Research.
Nature Materials annouced that Takao Someya’s research group at the University of Tokyo in Japan developed a plastic sheet that can deliver power by electromagnetic induction. This sheet utilizes an ingenious combination of solid state physics, organic chemistry, and nanoscience.
The plastic sheet, nearly a millimeter thick, can deliver up to 40 Watts of power to receivers that have [...]
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Burning Pieces of Space Junk Just Miss Airliner
Published on 28 Mar 2007 at 7:11 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Exploration, Physics, Space.
And now for the unforeseen…
A Russian satellite deorbited last night and narrowly missed a LanChile Airbus A340 travelling between Santiago, Chile and Aukland, New Zealand. The pilot radioed air traffic control at Auckland Oceanic Centre and reported flaming space junk re-entering both in front and behind his plane at a distance of five nautical miles. [...]
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Sonofusion
Published on 17 Mar 2007 at 1:13 am.
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Filed under Acoustics, Inventions, Physics, Research.
I am the chair of our physics department’s weekly colloquium, and this week our guest speaker was Dr. Richard T. Lahey Jr., the Edward Hood Jr. Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Lahey spoke to us about his recent successes in sonofusion. In short, sonofusion is the act of achieving nuclear fusion by [...]
