Future
Technology and Science of the Future The Future of Supersonic Travel. Circumvent the globe in mere hours
future of space fuel is here Nanotech: Little bots doing big things
Physics:
Fiber ops:
What particle physics will do for your future
Internet at the speed of light
What You Will Find INSIDE . . . Features and Alternative Stories
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Image courtesy of www.flickr.com Image courtesy of zaol.hu Image courtesy of wikipedia.org Image courtesy of phandroid.com
Particle Physics: The Power of the Particle
Ramjet vs. Scramjet: Maching History
Nanotech: Small Bots Doing Big Things
Fiber Optics: Internet at the Speed of Light
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Letter From The EDITORS Image courtesy of Robert Ramos
This magazine just started out with four guys who wanted to tell the world about technology and science. More specifically the technology and science the world didn’t fully know about. We cover many areas of science and technology going from the food industry to aerospace engineering. We hope to inform you of the possible future innovations that will take place within the next century, and to inform of you of the grand devices that are in use today. We wrote this magazine to fit any reader, so that you don’t need a vast knowledge in science to understand what we’re talking about. We hope you enjoy yourself when reading this magazine and have comments to help us with future issues. -Theo, Yash, Corey and Ian
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Theo LAVIER
Image courtesy of Corey
Theo has a profound interest in the mechanical workings of the physical world which lead rise to his feature story, the power of the particle. Beyond fancying dreams of being a physicist, biologist and chemist, Theo loves playing video games, they include World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and Dota 2. Aside from the menial tasks of playing video games he enjoys riding horses and specializes in dressage. He also enjoys to read fantasy books and is the biggest Lord of the Rings nerd you will ever meet. In his free time he learns elvish and studies world history. Theo also plays guitar and has worked on medieval and baroque music and music from all over the world.
Yash SARDA
Image courtesy of Theo
Yash, 15, is an avid fan of airplanes. He moved to Austin when he was 6 and enjoys watching anything that flies, as well as flying things himself. He enjoys first person shooters, like Call of Duty: Ghosts, and simulators, like Star Conflict, and plans on becoming an aerospace engineer when he grows up. He also enjoys playing soccer with friends and is a follower of the Barclays Premier League. His favorite soccer teams are Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Inter Milan. In his free time you can find him playing soccer, building things in his garage, or listening to music.
Corey COCHRAN-LÉPIZ
Image courtesy of Theo
Corey, 15 and born in Austin, Texas, got into technology at the age of 6 through his uncle who worked with computers for years. He spends much of his free time fixing things, taking things apart, and reading. He is an avid fan of sci-fi novels, TV shows, and Role Playing Games. He is a big fan of Ender’s Game, Stargate, and Star Wars. Some of his favorite RPG series are the FALLOUT series also the Elder Scrolls. He is interested in becoming a computer engineer or a theoretical physicist. He is really interested in theater and has been performing only for a couple of years. Image courtesy of Theo
Ian SMITH Ian Smith, 14, was born in Denver, Colorado, and has lived in Wales, England; Brittany, France; Wichita, Kansas; and Wellsworth, Ireland. And Austin, TX, of course. He has an obsessive love of literature, and a passion for mechanical and electrical engineering. He also has a brown belt 3rd degree in kempo karate. When he graduates high school, he would like to move to Massachusetts and attend MIT. When he is an adult he would like to be a full-time inventor and architect. He is a programmer on the LASA Robotics Team. Page 5
Stop, No Bottlenecking! Story By: Corey COCHRAN-LÉPIZ
B
urning a hole in your wallet won’t make your computer any faster. One of the many problems people encounter when building a computer, Having a budget when building a computer is one of the most important things. The difference between a $350 build and a $750 build is huge, although spending $2500 rather than $1000 does not mean getting twice as much power. I chose these price ranges to prevent bottelnecking of the performance.
This line graph shows the performance of each CPU for each build. The dats is from SysMark benchmark which tests the CPU on how it handles task, although the test does not utilize the GPU. The higher the better. This graph is here to show the difference in the prices of the build along with the difference in how it handles tasks. The difference between the $350 build and the $750 build is 50 units in the benchmark for the CPU while the price difference is $400. Wheras the difference in power on the given benchmark between the $1,000 build and $2,500 is 45, when the price difference is $1,500.
SysMark Benchmark 250
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This bar graph shows the expenditure for each part on each build relative to the others. From left to right; the Central Proccessing Unit (CPU), the Graphics Proccessing Unit or graphics card (GPU), the Power Supply Unit(PSU), the case, the Hard Drive (HD), the Motherbaord (Mobo), the Random Access Memory (RAM), the cooling for the CPU (if needed), and the Solid
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GPU('s)
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Living in an augmented reality your reality Develpor edition shipping January For more information, visit https://www.spaceglasses.com
Picture Credit: http://fiberoptic101.blogspot. com/2010/11/making-of-fiber-optic-cable.html
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Speed of LIGHT Ian SMITH
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T
he Digital Age is in full swing, and the competitive stakes have never been higher. Every extra megabyte, every few bits per second, counts to consumers and the companies who provide their digital necessities. But the fiber optic cable will turn the industry on its head. Fiber Optic Cables, or FOC, are a type of internet communicator that communicate through light, the fastest signal in the known universe. Without the inhibitors of speed, FOC connection can out pace Wireless connection by a whopping 400%. A Fiber Optic Cable is a signal transfer wire made from glass “fibers” that are wrapped in a synthetic skin that reflects completely. To be more technical: “It carries electromagnetic optical wave in IR domain by total internal reflection inside the fiber. This reduces loss of transmission and as a result, optical fiber can carry the optical signal to a very large distance. With the advent of optical amplifier like EDFA, now it is possible to transmit optical signal over 40,000 miles without regeneration.” Fiber Optics Phd, Dr. Biplab Pal explained.
To the average person, the concept of Fiber Optics seems like something from a science fiction novel, without practical properties. Others may argue that communicating with light is possible, but that wireless connection renders it obsolete. However, fiber optics have been intertwined with digital devices from the start; “There is nothing called traditional internet without Fiber,” as Dr.Pal said, “Since 1985, when Internet was born, from the date of birth, it is highly dependent on Fiber Optical cable for backbone communication. Even today, Satellite internet does not constitute even 1% of the total internet bandwidth or revenue.” The “regular” internet we use today is only a fraction of the entire network that ties together the digital world people around the planet enjoy daily.
T
he metal core in the middle conducts electricity down the circuit, while the glass fibers transfer information between devices. Picture Credit: http://gizmorati.com/2012/11/reasonswhy-fiber-optic-cable-are-gainingpopularity/
In 1970, the modern version of the fiber optic cable was produced to provide light within the body cavities of surgical patients. Three years later, FOC were used to connect computer banks in the military computer NORAD, a predecessor to the personal computer. Shortly after came the rise of the PC, and with it, an exponentially larger demand for data transfer. Fiber Optic was the road of choice for massive data packets, and so mile long Data Highways of FOC were employed for transnational, and then transcontinental, signals. Today, fiber optics are as prevalent as ever, taking up over 80 percent of global data transfer. However, these are mostly between corporate and bureaucratic structures, as well as other stable entities. In the home and office, wireless still dominates. This raises the question as to why wireless is used at all? Fiber Optics are much more efficient than Wi-Fi, due to, as Dr.Pal says; “...the frequency of communication. Optical data transmit at 1550 nm or 193 THz. Whereas in Microwave or in Satellite communication career frequency is less than 10 GHz. Therefore, in simple form, Optical fiber can carry data over 80nm band or over 5 THz as compared to only 10 GHz capacity of Microwave. This gives roughly 500 times more capacity as of today. In future, this will even be more as optical fiber will be able to carry band larger than 80nm.” And FOC can transmit multiple signals at a time along the multiple fibers. Overall, Wireless seems to wither in the shadow of FOC.
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The reason for the stranglehold Wireless has on the public is quite simple; convenience. It is much easier to use a weak but versatile signal to get to your every individual device and modem than to wire up a bulky and limited FOC physically. And so, fiber optics have settled into the obscurity of corporate bulk- traffic while wireless has captured the public stage. Until now. On April 17, Google Fiber, a branch of Google, announced the implementation of fiber optic cables in the homes of three select cities. The lucky cities were, and are; Kansas City, Ks., Austin Tx., and Provo, Utah. These three communities have been given the opportunity to accept a plan from Google in which Google will install an internet “Hub” that will be connected to a FOC landline. The said landlines will be put in during the duration of the Google Fiber “experiment”, and will stay there indefinitely. The project is taking FOC out of obscurities by using its publicity to broadcast the benefits of the cables. “Optical fiber has [1] highest capacity, at least 1000x times more than any competitive means [2] highest reliability against faults, disruption etc. [3] most developed technology or the only technology exists that transmit data beyond 1 Gbps per line. Copper, microwave, satellite can do up to 1 Gbps per line but for Fiber it can take it to furthest distance. [4] It can take the data to furthest distance like 40,000 miles without any regeneration. [5] It adds least amount of delay in communication..” Dr. Biplab Pal stated.
In other words, fiber optics outruns the competition by a landslide. It is fast, dependable, and multitasking. However, there are still some disadvantages to the cable. The most obvious would be the physical nature of the cable that forces you to use a connector, but then again, Google Fiber is intended for fixed devices. The largest problem is the limit of connectivity. Fiber Optics are forced to be installed as an separate infrastructure, and this is fine when connecting to a cable or internet provider, but the sheer power of the FOC will only be of use between those in the select cities. In order to see the full potential it would take a global movement to install optical cables across the planet. But, If this was achieved, then it would be a paradigm shift in global connectivity. The internet would be brought to an entirely new level, with near-instant connection being the norm. School could be attended from anywhere in the world, let alone the office. It truly would be a new digital age.
T
he diagram on the right is an example of how a signal travels through a fiber optic cable ; light is projected on one end of the cable, and it is at a certain frequency that the recieving end can translate . However, it does not matter what angle the signal is put into the cable, becuase the material surrounding the glass core is completely surrounded by a total reflection surface. the light will bounce off in any which angle, but will still reach the end of the cable no matter what its form.
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/ORNL_EVEREST_visualization.jpg
Top 7 Most Costly Supercomputers Story By: Corey COCHRAN-LÉPIZ Image courtesy of www.wikipedia.com
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he Tainhe-2, currently the fastest computer in the world and one of its tasks is to control traffic lights-Really. Nowadays a supercomputer is used to calculate highly complex equations which would take years, if not decades for humans. But spending billions of dollars on creating a computer that would be outdated in five years, is it worth it? Supercomputer are build for programs that require a high proccessing power yet a normal computer can do the simplest jobs a lot faster. The Tianhe-2 is roughly a billion times faster than an Iphone5 Image courtesy of Jack Dongarra
Image courtesy of Hirschfeld/LLNL
Tianhe-2 Cost- $380 million Speed- 33.86 pFLOPS Location- China Purpose- Business, analysis, and simulation Sequoia Speed- 17.17 pFLOPS Location- United States Purpose- Nuclear weapons simulation
Image courtesy of www.Wikipedia.com
Image courtesy of www,wikipedia.com
Image courtesy of Scientific Computing
Mira Cost- $50 million Speed- 8.59 pFLOPS Location- United States Purpose- Scientific research in fields ranging from material science to computational chemistry
Image courtesy of www.Wikipedia.com
Tianhe-1A Cost- $88 million Speed- 2.57 pFLOPS Location- China Purpose- Process seismic data for oil exploration, and help design aerospace vehicles.
Image courtesy of www.Wikipedia.com
Titan Cost- $97 million Speed- 17.59 pFLOPS Location- United States Purpose- Graphic render, and simulation projects K computer Cost- $1.25 billion Speed- 10.51 pFLOPS Location- Japan Purpose- Weather predictions, and mathematical pattern simulation Stampede Cost- $27.5 million Speed- 5.18 pFLOPS Location- United States Purpose- Scientific research in various fields
Supercomputers are generally used for tasks that require a large amount of processing power. Tasks ranging from weather forecasting, to molecular dynamics simulation. Countries spend millions of to build these powerful machines. Each one built for a certain tasks that can sometime only be completed by that machine. Never laying dormant, always having a task at hand. Page 13
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT A
nd when what the average American ate today was 2,500 calories, that food will become a big factor in their make-up. Communities recognized the importance of controlling food intake from the start, and the marketers of these communities have flourished over the centuries into a rich and complex industry. The Food Industry has come from a small beginning, but in recent years it has taken leaps and strides in technology and health study. And more importantly, that growth has an exponential rate; the future has much to show. Formation of First Farmer’s Market
Introduction of the Tavern
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Image courtesy of Mark Gee
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Small Bots doing
BIG THINGS Story By: Corey COCHRAN-LÉPIZ
C
hris Phoenix didn’t know what to expect when he entered Eric Dexler’s class of molecular Nanotechnology at Stanford. That day changed his life. Since that class in 1988 he has moved on to do research in the field of molecular nanotechnology. Phoenix is now Director of Research for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. Before he committed his life to research he worked on various other projects, such as; Complex Systems studies, Open Source Software, and helping on Social problems. According to Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced. Molecular manufacturing is described as miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products. Some of the things that make up the field of nanotechnology is reducing manufacturing to the microscopic level, medicine that can cure you of diseases long before symptoms take place, and energy efficient Page 17
Image courtesy of MIchael Anissimov
Image courtesy of T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)
First conference of Center for Responsible Nanotechnology in Tucson.
“
Sufficiently advanced nanotechnology will be able to treat or cure any medical condition I can think of. It will also be able to augment our biology in a number of powerful and interesting ways. -- Phoenix.
”
light sources that could be use at home. Already happening today, thanks to nanotechnology. The important role of nanotechnology has yet to be taken notice by many in the everyday world. Further research within the next ten years may lead to medical advances such as the ones previously mentioned. Work is being done today on augmentations that could be added to the human body to enhance performance. Also on small medical devices that would be able to be implanted permanently. These devices would come of great use to many people who have to constantly get surgeries to repair or replace the device that was attached. These augmentations could range anywhere from a heart monitor to a new limb. Also curing medical conditions that doctors today cannot fully keep under control. Cancer, for one, could be eradicated from any human being with treatment. “We don’t yet have a full set of tools to give us direct access to the molecular scale,”
Phoenix said. “But the tools are getting better every year, both for building stuff and for studying what we have built.” The tools necessary to work with nanotechnology have yet to reach their full potential. Right now the tools aren’t practical and need a lot of improvement before we start to make miniature factories.
will involve a whole bunch of engineering, based on a few beautiful insights: that smaller things work faster and more powerfully; that atomic bonds can be formed by machine, and will be more precise than the machine that created them; that machines on the scale of a single nanometer (about the distance your fingernails grow in 1 second)
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com
An example of a molecular factory.
Molecular manufacturing will allow us to make a variety of products, as long as we know what exactly we’re making. As soon as are we able to develop the tools to make factories on a smaller scale, then we’ll be able to do molecular manufacturing. Building complex machine designed for a specific task. “Molecular manufacturing
can be designed and analyzed with well-established engineering methods,” Phoenix said. Once we reach the ability to efficiently manufacture products we will have a wide range “Today it is routine for
doctors to bring people back from conditions that would have been considered ‘dead’ 100 years ago,” said Phoenix. “I don’t think being frozen solid will turn out to be permanently and inevitably fatal, if it is done carefully enough. So, with sufficiently advanced technology on both the cooling and warming side, cryonics should work just fine.” Cryonics is the practice or
procedure of freezing a persons body after death for preservation so that in the future when we have the technology we can restore them back to full health. Very few people have resorted to cryonics after death so that hopefully one day we’ll be able to bring them back. Much dispute over if this is right or not have been going on for decades. The people who embark on this fateful journey are fully aware about the possibility that it might work, although it is not guaranteed. Advances in the medical field will allow doctors to bring back the patients who have been frozen. The way this could be done is by injecting millions of nanobots into their bloodstream to repair any damage that may have been done during the warming or freezing process. “Long-term, it will be as important as electricity or antibiotics - maybe as important as computers,” Phoenix said. The importance of nanotechnology in the near future will be substantial, the amount of things we can do will only be limited to how far our imaginations expand, and restricted only to how far we allow ourselves to go.
Nanotechnology is found all around us. It will become more prominent as more things around discovered about nanoscience. It is a field that has many potential outcomes. One of the many hopes in it is that it won’t be used against humans, only to aid them. “Scientists talk about the ‘beauty’ of an especially elegant or useful theory or phenomenon. There are a lot of beautiful phenomena at the nanoscale, and most of them have not been discovered yet.”
Sources: CRNano.org, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com
Pumping of water by the hydrophobic surface molecular propeller. Image courtesy of Michigan Center for Biologic Nanotechnology
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com
A DNA helix breaking trough a nucleus.
Dendrimer complex docking on cellular folate receptors.
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Image courtesy of flickr.com
An Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde, one of the 2 SST’s (Supersonic Transports), during takeoff
Maching HISTORY
S
upersonic
Faster than sound A dream for thousands of travelers, having the power to traverse the world in a few hours. A dream, however, that would not last. After the Anglo-French Concorde crash in 2000, commercial supersonic flight looked to be, as many thought, gone for good. The future of transport looked bleak. Now, after ten years, NASA has commissioned Boeing and Lockheed Martin to design the next supersonic commercial jet, and revolutionize travel. However, this will require quite a bit of extra technology. After all, you can’t simply reach Mach 1 in any airliner. You’ll need special types of engines. Let’s take a closer look at the two most viable supersonic alternatives, the Ramjet and the Scramjet.
Ramjet An air breathing engine which uses the forward motion of the engine to compress and decelerate incoming air to subsonic speeds, without a turbine. This makes it unable to move an aircraft from standstill, therefore requiring some sort of propulsion to accelerate it to a speed where it begins to produce thrust. Image courtesy of es.wikipedia.org
Minimum Speed:
Mach 0.5 Maximum Speed:
Mach 6 A decomissioned NASA missile using a Ramjet propulsion system
Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds, which makes them most useful in missiles or on high speed aircraft. Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
A X-15 using the Ramjet engine after release
Scramjet Image courtesy of flightglobal.com
A simulated prototype of the X-51 waverider using Scramjet engines
Minimum Speed:
Mach 5 Maximum Speed:
Mach 20
A deviation of the Ramjet air breathing engine which uses the speed of the aircraft to compress and combust incoming air at supersonic speeds, without decelerating the air to subsonic speeds. Like a Ramjet, it is unable to move an aircraft from standstill, therefore requiring some sort of propulsion to accelerate it to supersonic speeds, where it can begin to produce thrust.
Scramjets work most efficiently at high supersonic speeds, which makes them most useful in high speed missiles or on air-to-spacecraft. Image courtesy of foundwall.com
The X-43A using Scramjet engines to reach Mach 10
Image courtesy of www.flickr.com
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the power of
the PARTICLE Story By: Theo LAVIER
T
he particles of the universe, in all their unknown interactions, are just now being uncovered. With the discovery of more and more subatomic particles and mathematical structures to understand them, there are many things that attract people to the field. Arno Bohm, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin, wakes up every day and starts his work bright and early. He studies subatomic particles in the fields of theoretical and quantum physics at UT Austin. “It was probably the beauty in the mathematical structures, which describe the quantum systems in these different energy ranges, that attracted me to quantum theory,� Bohm said. Now, as this field of science explodes, the stories of the researchers will reveal the interactions of the particles and the science of today will tell us what we may learn tomorrow. It is time to learn what particle physics truly is.
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First off, physics. All particle physicists start here and this ground zero of their adventure is the place to begin their story, from mechanics all the way to particles. Luc Lavier is a geophysicist at UT Austin and works with many other physicists everyday, solving models defined by mathematical structures and equations. “Physics is the field that tries to decipher the laws that are hidden behind all natural phenomena,” Lavier said. “It is what curious people do every day.” Lavier started his journey into physics back in France. “I was just very curious. When I was a child I was fascinated by how the world works,” Lavier said. “I was asking questions about everything, every little event that occurred around me. When I realized that the grown ups around me did not have answers or sometime made up answers, I started to investigate myself. I studied geology, how TV and radio work, what is electricity, how cars work, how trees grow. The more I was looking around, the more I was brought back to the structure of matter and physics.” The release of high power computers was underway while Lavier was growing up. “I bought one of the first personal computer and programmed it myself and became very good at it as a teenager,” Lavier said. “I also heard about Albert Einstein and Marie Curie and was driven to study physics in High School and College still following my passion for computer sciences as a tool to do very large calculations very fast.” While all of this was happening in France, another student began his adventure into physics. “At the very early stages of my life I realized that I very
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image courtesy of www.simonsfoundation.org
much prefered math and science
Berkeley and I was accepted
This is the Amplituhedron a mathematical structure that helps quantum physicists do calculations. It is viewed through a spctrometer.
“
At the very early stages of my life I realized that I very much prefered math and science versus literature, thats a very strong indicative evidence. I thought I was doing better in the fields of math and science and thats why I decided to pursue those topics. -- Charles Chiu
”
versus literature, thats a very strong indicative evidence. I thought I was doing better in the fields of math and science and thats why I decided to pursue those topics,” said Charles Chiu. Charles Chiu, now a particle physicist at UT Austin, started his journey at Berkeley Calif. “In my undergraduate work I double majored in math and in physics and, clearly physics was my interest, so as a result I took what ever physics class were available,” Chiu said. “Then I applied to graduate school at
and was offered a teaching assistantship. So therefore, when I started my career at Berkeley I taught physics as a teaching assistant.” Then after hours of teaching and working on his graduate studies Chiu finally got to focus his studies. “The particular area of physics that I wanted to study was particle physics, so then I became a particle physics researcher in a group working on experimental physics instead of doing theoretical work. Our group mainly focused on experimental high energy physics,” Chiu said. After time working in a lab Chiu realized that experimental physics was not what he really wanted to do. “My main interest was in the direction of the theoretical analysis of the data rather than building apparatus,” Chiu said. Soon after getting his degree Mr Chiu tried to switch focuses. “I told my advisor I would like to work in an area where there is more analysis of the data than building of the equipment, so my advisor suggested that I be transferred into a theoretical group in Berkeley. So I stayed with that theoretical group for two years,” Chiu said. While in this theoretical
group Mr Chiu worked on the basic models that still affect current and future research. “I worked on a topic that was very important for high energy physics and it’s called the Regge Pole theory, and so then I got interested in doing that kind of Regge Pole related work,” Chiu said. Regge Pole describes the analytic properties of scattering as a function of angular momentum, where the angular momentum is not restricted to be an integer but is allowed to take any complex value. While working on Regge Poles at Berkeley. “They [The Berkeley Physics Department] had an international conference in Berkeley, and so I was one of the scientific secretaries assisting with recording the day’s activities in the field,” Chiu said. “Immediately after that the director of CERN asked me if I wanted to work there, and actually at the conference I was working for him, so I said that’s delightful and I really got into theoretical physics and continued my work with a more prominent institution in Geneva.” After time working in CERN Chiu was offered more positions. “Then someone in Cambridge, England, wanted me to visit so I spent a year there and then a professor I worked with said, ‘would you like to come to Caltech as a research fellow,’ so I spent a couple of years there and then I figured it was about time that I started to settle down, I can’t be post docking all the time,” Chiu said. “So at that time, when I was in Caltech I applied to various universities to see what kinds of openings were available.” After applying to UT Austin, Columbia, N.Y. and the University of Maryland Chiu made his decision.
Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
A physics building at the University of Cambridge, England. This is where Chiu worked for the duration of his stay at the University of Cambridge.
“In the case of Columbia there was no tenure position, you just keep on going and it was the same situation at the University of Maryland, they offered me an associate professor position but again there was no tenure track, and here [UT Austin] it’s a tenure track and I thought let’s just play it safe and so I took the position here,” Chiu said. Through the adventures of these two physicists one can see how they became interested in physics early in life and how they were propelled into complex research through many conferences, collaborations and personal discoveries. Now that we understand the basic physics and where particle physicsts come from we can begin to discus what happens in the big leagues, particle physics - a field that encompasses a number of smaller fields that deal with the different particles and interactions in atoms. Now tha Particle physics includes quantum physics, based on the Quantum Field Theory. “Quantum Field Theory uses specific kinds of mathematical structures. These are algebras of linear operators in linear topological spaces. It means that a convergence of infinite sequences of the elements of these algebras and spaces is
defined. There are different kind of spaces and algebras in use [to work with Quantum Field Theory],” Bohm said. An algebra here is a specific kind of mathematical structure in a given space. The next field encompassed by particle physics is theoretical physics. “A description of a small part of nature by a mathematical structure, math language; one [theoretical physics] maps the structure of a part of nature on a mathematical structure,” Bohm said. “Some people think a mathematical structure is discovered in the realm of ideas, I think/believe more that it is created by great human minds.” The last major field encompassed by particle physics is phenomenology. “I would say that phenomenology is the study of the natural phenomena around us,” Chiu said. Beyond the definition of the smaller fields of particle physics exists its overarching definition. “One can say that it is the study of the fundamental building blocks of matter,” Chiu said. “that is to say that at one stage one thinks of the atom as the fundamental building blocks
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of matter, however, that would not be the kind of particle physics that we talk about.” Chiu’s full and final definition of particle physics. “When one thinks of particle physics as the study of the fundamental building blocks of matter [they are correct], however I would very quickly add that [it] includes atomic [physics], the study of atoms, [which] you wouldn’t consider as a study of particle physics.” Chiu said. “It is just because of the fact we know its not quite the fundamental building block because there inside [the atoms] are still other things.” Now that we understand what particle physics is and how physicists get there, we are all set to start talking about what physicists are currently working on and how what they do will influence our future. Bohm has worked on many things in the field of particle physics but his heart truly lies with mathematical particle physics. “Applying various algebras in several different spaces in such a way, that the results of the mathematical calculations with these algebras and spaces reproduces the values which the experimentalists measures in the laboratory,” Bohm said. Bohm has worked hard over the past years to understand different mathematical structures and analyse data from the laboratory. “[I] use my brain to compare the results of the theoretical calculations with the experimental data measured in the laboratories,” Bohm said. Bohm hopes to help further the understanding of these mathematical structures. Chiu cleared his throat and continued his story. “I have worked on high energy experimental physics, particle physics; theory and
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phenomenology, qualitative reasoning in artificial intelligence, acoustic agglomeration and aerosol dynamics, laser-plasma physics, and nuclear theory: relativistic heavy ion collisions and gluon plasma physics,” Chiu said. He then went on to explain to me what his most influential piece of work was and how it lead him to his modern research. “I would say, definitely the Regge Pole theory, that was a very hot topic at that time and one of the things that came out from that particular related work is what is referred to as the dual resonance model and that is sometimes also referred to as the Veneziano model, in which essentially evolved into the string theory. The particular version that I worked on is referred to as a classical string and since then Image courtesy of home.slac.stanford.edu
An image of the inside of an atom, the subject of particle physicists studies. However beyond the 3 elementary particles of the atom lie the hadrons, the true heart of particle physicists studies.
there is a quantum string and they evolved into a very abstract thing that have various application to gravity and other fields,” Chiu said. Now Chiu went on to explain a timeline of particle physics and how it has led to the science that he does today. “In the 1930s right before the second world war. Someone asked the question, ‘if you have the nucleus which is very tightly packed inside, then why wouldn’t the protons and neutrons fly apart, instead they sort of glue very tightly inside?’ At that time someone realized there must be something, some glue that will give you a force much stronger than the electrical force stronger than the repelling force to glue them together, and this was the birth of the strong interaction field,” Chiu said. “Later in the 70’s there was a very big discovery in connection with strong interaction physics that is to say, all the things we talk about, the hadrons, the nucleus, the gluon, are not very fundamental, there is one more layer below that and it is referred to as a color force that is called quantum chromodynamics.” Hadrons are all the particles making up the protons and neutrons in the atom and explain how quantum chromodynamics leads to the creation of the standard model. “Standard Model itself essentially describes the composition of quarks and then also the gluons, something that glues the quarks together, and describes how they interact,” Chiu said. Quarks are the components of protons and neutrons and gluons is the guling force. As he explained the progression of particle physics we reached modern time.
Physics Defined
Image courtesy of www.physics.adelaide.edu.au
Regge Poles: “The Regge Poles are essential theoretical models to see how the strongly interacting particles which we refer to as hadrons interact with each other. My interest is in the hadron dynamic and how the strong interacting particles are interacting,” Chiu said. What is Strong Interaction Field: “Strong interaction I talk about up to now is just regular dynamics, how you have a gluon and you have other particles [quarks, leptons, and neutrinos] glued very tightly together within their protons,” Chiu said
This image depicts the hadrons, the quarks and leptons, interacting with the color force holding them together and the scattering force (the squiggely line) working as a function of angular momentum to interact with both the color force and the hadrons.
“Now we are looking at a higher energy environment and in that particular environment. There you can see the manifestation of the color objects, the quarks and the gluons and so forth. Our study has now shifted into how the quarks and gluons are interacting and that is quantum chromodynamics,” Chiu said. As Chiu came to the end of his story about his work and the past of particle physics we arrived at the core of his work. “OK, because of this particular background, the particular area that I work on is referred to as the strong interaction field physics,” Chiu said. Progressing into the future he explained the goal of physicists. “As a physicist we are always interested in expanding the horizon of human knowledge and we are trying to do thing in a cutting edge. Clearly all
the technologies that we have developed have an industrial application, say for example one of the latest things which particle physicists have been involved in is the superconducting magnet, Image courtesy of www.physics.adelaide.edu.au
This image depicts the color forces that is facilitating interaction between subatomic particles
nowadays the superconducting magnet is almost finding its way to industrial application,” Chiu said. Then he talked about the scope of particle physics in the future.
Color Force: “All what you see in nature are color neutral objects and yet the color neutral objects are made up of quarks and neutrons they themselves are colored objects,” Chiu said. “Where we are is essentially a summary of our present understanding of where things are as far as particle physics is concerned, the chart is almost complete because every little slot has been filled,” Chiu said. In our future as more work is being done on the mathematical structures and our understanding of the particles comes full circle we will be able to manipulate the fabric of our reality through the manipulation of these subatomic particles. “Nature offers a lot of challenges and it arouses our curiosity and in turn we try to divide and conquer nature’s mysteries and gain as much understanding as possible but then that quest for knowledge also tells us that nature is more challenging and more complicated than we anticipated. Its like nature is teasing us,” Chiu said.
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fuel up and FLY HIGH Story By: Theo LAVIER
magine an explosion of white, hot fire hurling a spaceship at faster than light (FTL) Imatter. speeds across the galaxy and you have the power of antimatter and exotic Fuels such as antimatter and exotic matter from Star Trek and Star Wars, once figments of science fiction writers imaginations, have now been brought to light -- light speed that is. Beyond these two fuel sources there exist many other ways that science fiction never thought of to send a ship at FTL speed into space. Picture Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
Exotic matter, an unexplored fuel at this moment, may one day become an endless and sustainable source of negative energy. According to researchers at the University of Lausanne the exotic matter that they hope to study lies out of reach, unless improvements in technology happen they can’t study this possible fuel source in their life times. So, for now, studying the exotic matter from afar will have to sait the hunger for knowledge growing in the scientist’s minds.
A ball of exotic matter releasing negative energy during an explosion
Picture Courtesy of redorbit.com
According to National Geographic, scientists at NASA working with researchers at University of California at Berkeley have conceived of a novel idea for creating energy from gravitational pulse waves with “ghost” matter. Two rods emitting low frequency gravitational waves interact with “ghost matter,” a type of exotic matter, and carry away the positive energy of both the rods and the “ghost” matter to power FTL travel.
Image of two rods emiting waves of energy tearing apart the matter and releasing energy that could be captured and used to power spaceships.
Picture courtesy of butane. chem. uiuc.edu
A hydrogen fuel cells method of converting hydrogen into energy by moving it through a catylase.
Hydrogen fuel cells will probably function only as ground transportation fuel because of the large energy loss involved. Currently, the energy harnessed in the reaction does not suffice to lift a sizeable spaceship. However according to United Technologies Company designers, major improvements to the design such as a more efficient way of collecting the energy produced may make it possible in the future to fully exploit the power of a hydrogen fuel cell and ultimately power a spaceship. With proper design improvements, it might be possible to use hydrogen fuel cells in conjunction with the antimatter engine to create a standard for spaceship fuel.
National Geographic recently reported on heated debates in the modern science community on the use of antimatter as a fuel source. According to researchers at the Hadron Collider, production is limited to a few micrograms of antimatter per year and there exists much discussion over how to use such small quantities as a fuel source. Antimatter as a fuel source would need to make contact with matter to cause a huge explosion of energy that could be used for power. How to generate or harvest kilograms of antimatter and to harness the energy from the explosion challenge the scientific community. Using antimatter as a fuel source entails accessing a clean energy source, yet an unmanageable explosive reaction may kill thousands of people.
Image Courtesy of wizardworlddigital.com
Image courtesy of bylon.com
A map of the internet, using lines to represent traffic online
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the Internet of THINGS Story by: Yash SARDA
F
or fans of the Terminator movie series or the Matrix movie series, the intelligent and connected machines always seemed ahead of the humans and it mostly took a single person to be able to disconnect from the environment to be able to save the human race. Is connectivity really that critical? Vivek Sarda, the staff design engineer of semiconductor products at Silicon Laboratories, believes it is. “We mainly know of connectivity today in two ways - social connectivity - aka texting, chatting, calling, posting, etc and data connectivity - surfing, downloading, cloud, etc. Social connectivity generally involves humans on both ends while data connectivity can be between any combination of a person or a machine,” said Sarda. When models wearing Google Glass tromped down runways in New York earlier this year, it might have been tempting to see wearable digital devices -- including experimental headgear, smart watches, and running shoes and athletic apparel with built-in data sensors -- as just the latest fad. In fact, they represent a more profound change that is reshaping major industries, even as it blurs the lines between humans and computers. When our lives become so integrated with technology, what--and how--can we claim to be “human” anymore? “Humans are social beings and share information with each other both via verbal and nonverbal methods. Our history teaches us that our growth and progress has been significantly faster when we have been able to share the information with our all of our brethren and jointly worked on solving problems,” said Sarda. “ As a human race we have always endeavoured to make our lives more efficient by using tools. These tools have taken various forms over the ages - from simple tools to make fire, axes to collect wood, spears and then guns to defend ourselves, computers to design, test and create devices and methods that improve our lives, machines and robots to do our laundry, clean our floors, make cars, cut crops, fly people, etc.” Machines are more capable than humans at least a thousand times over, and yet we rule over them as much as we rely on them. Page 34
Image courtesy of imdb.com
In the Terminator movie series we saw the rise of Skynet, an artificial intelligence that was housed in a network of computers. It eventually tried to exterminate humans, but not before showing us how powerful- and deadly- connected computers can be.
“There is a certain dependence that we have on these machines to be able to do other things in our lives and these machines help us make time for these other things to do. We are connected to them and our lives are very much intertwined. But there is a lot more that we can do and the use of the words connected, network and web will blur with the next generation of tools. Authors like Isaac Asimov have written about it as fiction and explored suggestions like the Three laws of Robotics, filmmakers like Gene Roddenberry have made TV serials like Star Trek with what we could possibly do and how to handle the ethics of it, many like Arthur C Clarke have urged us to look outside our planet also while some like Stephen King have warned us that we are pushing our survival as a race by going there and the risk is too high,” said Sarda. To be sure, risks to privacy and personal freedom from Page 34
these new technologies could be sizeable: It could be a short trip from monitoring a patient’s vital signs to punishing patients for sneaking a cigarette or forbidden food. And the same technology that can help the CPR expert find a heart attack victim in a crowded stadium can show a government where its enemies are gathering. But the opportunities for this technology are too big to pass up, and the ease of life caused by connectivity will be unparalleled. “The next big wave of connectivity is between things - be it your toaster, your energy meter, your phone, your lawn mower, your car, your TV, your clothes, your shoes, your glasses, anything that you have and then more,” said Sarda. “Each one of these devices will be connected to each other and can distribute information about what they see, sense or are doing to make a more efficient environment for you.” This ease of access to all your daily functions makes life
easier and faster, as well as letting people focus on the things that they want. “As you get up in the morning, your toaster, TV and coffee maker turn on automatically, as you eat your breakfast your TV gives you updates on the news and weather. Your TV mutes
“
There is a certain dependence that we have on these machines to be able to do other things in our lives and these machines help us make time for these other things to do. --Vivek Sarda
”
automatically when your phone reads your voicemail. Your clothes and shoes understand that it is cold today and preheat themselves, Your glasses change shades of brown to the right light setting and display your emails and calls, your lawn mower waits for your driverless car to leave the driveway before mowing your lawn. Is this possible today? Yes,” said Sarda.
These concepts might seem like something from a science-fiction movie, but even now they are under development, and some are even being used today. “Several companies including Silicon Labs have demonstrated technologies for over five years now that allow for all these devices to be connected and able to share information with each other. This means that every machine that we will use will now be able to send status about itself to others and receive status from others. The next step that is being worked on would invariably add some intelligence to every machine to process the information and “think” and act autonomously. More information generally means a better outcome, so these machines will be encouraged to talk and share information just like humans. This huge set of information - which currently can be referred to as big data - will need to be organized, corrected and analyzed to make the right decisions,” said Sarda. Big data isn’t called big data for no reason-- The amount of power it would take to channel all the information from your everyday life is enormous, and
requires a lot more processing than we have today. Trying to use this technology requires planning and infrastructure “Every process can broadly be covered by a three step approach - Understand, Plan and Implement. Each step in the process of implementing the internet of things has issues that need to be resolved,” said Sarda. First, people have to Understand. “ When we change things too fast and introduce things into peoples lives without fully understanding the implications, we increase the risk exponentially of having a unwanted or negative side effect. A knife can be used to cut fruits and meat but also to hurt others. Today we do not fully understand the scope, size and details of the implementation. Every implementor is doing it their way and the social, economic, environmental and health issues are not fully comprehended,” said Sarda. Secondly, people should plan. Many of the technologies that drive these many things are incompatible - i.e they speak different languages. Even in
Image courtesy of siliconangle.com
The internet today is based off servers, groups of multiple computers that can handle the traffic directed to the website they are hosting
a single language, there are many variations. Unless there is a universal translator or a universal language, they are unlikely to share information and remain broken and Man can continue to rule the middle Earth,” said Sarda. Lastly, after all the rest is completed, people should Implement. “With so many places that these devices can go and connect and the humongous amount of data they can provide, it is very likely to overwhelm any current data storage or analysis system. If implemented we should expect these devices to generate about a trillion times more information than we have now,” said Sarda “’Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ Arthur C Clarke’s third Law. A simple way to find out is to watch the Star Trek series or read the “Robot” series from Isaac Asimov. Then sit back ,wait a few years and presto - things will change, the past will be forgotten and we will all move onto the new wave of technology,” said Sarda With these limitations, it might be a while before our lives are immersed in the internet, and the internet is immersed in our lives, but when that transfer is complete, there will be no shortages of possibilities. “A more interesting way is to immerse yourself into the technologies that make it happen, study the social consequences, think about the unintended ones (sentient machines - Matrix anyone), create scenarios, influence people by communicating the pros and cons of the different possible paths,” said Sarda. “It is the future and it is best handled when the future generation have a good handle on things that they are likely to encounter.” Page 35
The final frontier is finally here
Reserve your tickets to space today Visit http://www.virgingalactic.com/booking for more information