Fictional Freedom

Fabricating freedom one word at a time

131 notes

wildcat2030:

You guys, hold the phone. Drop whatever you’re doing right now. Is it dropped? Yes? Good. We have tractor beams now! Like where you zap a thing with a laser and pull it toward you with beam power? Yeah, those! We have those now. Even though they are super tiny and effective only on microscopic items like silica spheres suspended in water for right now, they are still working tractor beams, and now that we have the principle down, they are pretty much only going to get cooler from here. If you can’t get excited about that, I don’t even know what to say, as I have to assume you are already dead inside. The new tractor beam design uses a special type of laser known as Bessel beams. Rather than a single beam, Bessel beams are transmitted as concentric circles that converge around the point they’re directed at. This gives the beams a unique quality. If you place a small object between the source of the beam and its destination, the concentric rings of the Bessel beam can reform around the object. That makes it possible for Bessel beams to pull or push objects — a quality of the beams that had been hypothetical until now. (via Lasers Turned Into Working Tractor Beam | Geekosystem)

wildcat2030:

You guys, hold the phone. Drop whatever you’re doing right now. Is it dropped? Yes? Good. We have tractor beams now! Like where you zap a thing with a laser and pull it toward you with beam power? Yeah, those! We have those now. Even though they are super tiny and effective only on microscopic items like silica spheres suspended in water for right now, they are still working tractor beams, and now that we have the principle down, they are pretty much only going to get cooler from here. If you can’t get excited about that, I don’t even know what to say, as I have to assume you are already dead inside. The new tractor beam design uses a special type of laser known as Bessel beams. Rather than a single beam, Bessel beams are transmitted as concentric circles that converge around the point they’re directed at. This gives the beams a unique quality. If you place a small object between the source of the beam and its destination, the concentric rings of the Bessel beam can reform around the object. That makes it possible for Bessel beams to pull or push objects — a quality of the beams that had been hypothetical until now. (via Lasers Turned Into Working Tractor Beam | Geekosystem)

19,628 notes

Through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire, through empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought and a whole terrible wonderful universe of impossibilities.

(Source: allmenmustdie, via bbglasses)

74 notes

clearscience:

mdt:

Handmade particle accelerator unveiled at Milan Design Week, Higgs-Boson a no-show http://engt.co/I523GW

It shouldn’t surprise any of you Clear Scientists if it’s possible to make a small, handmade particle accelerator. In fact the first cyclotron, built by Lawrence and Livingston in 1931, was just 4.5 inches in diameter. It applied a voltage of 1800 volts to accelerate particles to 80,000 electron-volts. (This was the trick: How do you keep from needing 80,000 volts?)
This first, small cyclotron was the predecessor to the big synchrotrons we’ve been talking about lately.
Any idea how this handmade particle accelerator would work? We’re not sure yet, just taking a glance.

Reblogged via Stumblr

clearscience:

mdt:

Handmade particle accelerator unveiled at Milan Design Week, Higgs-Boson a no-show http://engt.co/I523GW

It shouldn’t surprise any of you Clear Scientists if it’s possible to make a small, handmade particle accelerator. In fact the first cyclotron, built by Lawrence and Livingston in 1931, was just 4.5 inches in diameter. It applied a voltage of 1800 volts to accelerate particles to 80,000 electron-volts. (This was the trick: How do you keep from needing 80,000 volts?)

This first, small cyclotron was the predecessor to the big synchrotrons we’ve been talking about lately.

Any idea how this handmade particle accelerator would work? We’re not sure yet, just taking a glance.

Reblogged via Stumblr