#Quantum Dot Technology

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Hisense Quality Hisense TV, the 75-Inch Class U8 Series ULED Mini-LED Google Smart TV, is packed with features that promise an immersive viewing experience. From its 4K ULED technology to its Quantum Dot Color and Dolby Vision IQ, this TV aims to deliver stunning visuals and enhanced picture quality. In this review, we will delve into its features, examine personal experiences, and provide a…

[ultrimio]

Conceptual Design for a Neutrino Power Transmission System

Overview

Neutrinos could potentially be used to send electricity over long distances without the need for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines. Neutrinos have the unique property of being able to pass through matter without interacting with it, which makes them ideal for transmitting energy over long distances without significant energy loss. This property allows neutrinos to be used as a medium for energy transmission, potentially replacing HVDC lines in certain applications.

So the goal is to create a neutrino-based power transmission system capable of sending and receiving a beam of neutrinos that carry a few MW of power across a short distance. This setup will include a neutrino beam generator (transmitter), a travel medium, and a neutrino detector (receiver) that can convert the neutrinos' kinetic energy into electrical power.

1. Neutrino Beam Generator (Transmitter)

Particle Accelerator: At the heart of the neutrino beam generator will be a particle accelerator. This accelerator will increase the energy of protons before colliding them with a target to produce pions and kaons, which then decay into neutrinos. A compact linear accelerator or a small synchrotron could be used for this purpose.

Target Material: The protons accelerated by the particle accelerator will strike a dense material target (like tungsten or graphite) to create a shower of pions and kaons.

Decay Tunnel: After production, these particles will travel through a decay tunnel where they decay into neutrinos. This tunnel needs to be under vacuum or filled with inert gas to minimize interactions before decay.

Focusing Horns: Magnetic horns will be used to focus the charged pions and kaons before they decay, enhancing the neutrino beam's intensity and directionality.

Energy and Beam Intensity: To achieve a few MW of power, the system will need to operate at several gigaelectronvolts (GeV) with a proton beam current of a few tens of milliamperes.

2. Travel Medium

Direct Line of Sight: Neutrinos can travel through the Earth with negligible absorption or scattering, but for initial tests, a direct line of sight through air or vacuum could be used to simplify detection.

Distance: The initial setup could span a distance from a few hundred meters to a few kilometers, allowing for measurable neutrino interactions without requiring excessively large infrastructure.

3. Neutrino Detector (Receiver)

Detector Medium: A large volume of water or liquid scintillator will be used as the detecting medium. Neutrinos interacting with the medium produce a charged particle that can then be detected via Cherenkov radiation or scintillation light.

Photodetectors: Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) or Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) will be arranged around the detector medium to capture the light signals generated by neutrino interactions.

Energy Conversion: The kinetic energy of particles produced in neutrino interactions will be converted into heat. This heat can then be used in a traditional heat-to-electricity conversion system (like a steam turbine or thermoelectric generators).

Shielding and Background Reduction: To improve the signal-to-noise ratio, the detector will be shielded with lead or water to reduce background radiation. A veto system may also be employed to distinguish neutrino events from other particle interactions.

4. Control and Data Acquisition

Synchronization: Precise timing and synchronization between the accelerator and the detector will be crucial to identify and correlate neutrino events.

Data Acquisition System: A high-speed data acquisition system will collect data from the photodetectors, processing and recording the timing and energy of detected events.

Hypothetical Power Calculation

To estimate the power that could be transmitted:

Neutrino Flux: Let the number of neutrinos per second be ( N_\nu ), and each neutrino carries an average energy ( E_\nu ).

Neutrino Interaction Rate: Only a tiny fraction (( \sigma )) of neutrinos will interact with the detector material. For a detector with ( N_d ) target nuclei, the interaction rate ( R ) is ( R = N_\nu \sigma N_d ).

Power Conversion: If each interaction deposits energy ( E_d ) into the detector, the power ( P ) is ( P = R \times E_d ).

For a beam of ( 10^{15} ) neutrinos per second (a feasible rate for a small accelerator) each with ( E_\nu = 1 ) GeV, and assuming an interaction cross-section ( \sigma \approx 10^{-38} ) cm(^2), a detector with ( N_d = 10^{30} ) (corresponding to about 10 kilotons of water), and ( E_d = E_\nu ) (for simplicity in this hypothetical scenario), the power is:

[ P = 10

^{15} \times 10^{-38} \times 10^{30} \times 1 \text{ GeV} ]

[ P = 10^{7} \times 1 \text{ GeV} ]

Converting GeV to joules (1 GeV ≈ (1.6 \times 10^{-10}) J):

[ P = 10^{7} \times 1.6 \times 10^{-10} \text{ J/s} ]

[ P = 1.6 \text{ MW} ]

Thus, under these very optimistic and idealized conditions, the setup could theoretically transmit about 1.6 MW of power. However, this is an idealized maximum, and actual performance would likely be significantly lower due to various inefficiencies and losses.

Detailed Steps to Implement the Conceptual Design

Step 1: Building the Neutrino Beam Generator

Accelerator Design:

Choose a compact linear accelerator or a small synchrotron capable of accelerating protons to the required energy (several GeV).

Design the beamline with the necessary magnetic optics to focus and direct the proton beam.

Target Station:

Construct a target station with a high-density tungsten or graphite target to maximize pion and kaon production.

Implement a cooling system to manage the heat generated by the high-intensity proton beam.

Decay Tunnel:

Design and construct a decay tunnel, optimizing its length to maximize the decay of pions and kaons into neutrinos.

Include magnetic focusing horns to shape and direct the emerging neutrino beam.

Safety and Controls:

Develop a control system to synchronize the operation of the accelerator and monitor the beam's properties.

Implement safety systems to manage radiation and operational risks.

Step 2: Setting Up the Neutrino Detector

Detector Medium:

Select a large volume of water or liquid scintillator. For a few MW of transmitted power, consider a detector size of around 10 kilotons, similar to large neutrino detectors in current experiments.

Place the detector underground or in a well-shielded facility to reduce cosmic ray backgrounds.

Photodetectors:

Install thousands of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) or Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) around the detector to capture light from neutrino interactions.

Optimize the arrangement of these sensors to maximize coverage and detection efficiency.

Energy Conversion System:

Design a system to convert the kinetic energy from particle reactions into heat.

Couple this heat to a heat exchanger and use it to drive a turbine or other electricity-generating device.

Data Acquisition and Processing:

Implement a high-speed data acquisition system to record signals from the photodetectors.

Develop software to analyze the timing and energy of events, distinguishing neutrino interactions from background noise.

Step 3: Integration and Testing

Integration:

Carefully align the neutrino beam generator with the detector over the chosen distance.

Test the proton beam operation, target interaction, and neutrino production phases individually before full operation.

Calibration:

Use calibration sources and possibly a low-intensity neutrino source to calibrate the detector.

Adjust the photodetector and data acquisition settings to optimize signal detection and reduce noise.

Full System Test:

Begin with low-intensity beams to ensure the system's stability and operational safety.

Gradually increase the beam intensity, monitoring the detector's response and the power output.

Operational Refinement:

Refine the beam focusing and detector sensitivity based on initial tests.

Implement iterative improvements to increase the system's efficiency and power output.

Challenges and Feasibility

While the theoretical framework suggests that a few MW of power could be transmitted via neutrinos, several significant challenges would need to be addressed to make such a system feasible:

Interaction Rates: The extremely low interaction rate of neutrinos means that even with a high-intensity beam and a large detector, only a tiny fraction of the neutrinos will be detected and contribute to power generation.

Technological Limits: The current state of particle accelerator and neutrino detection technology would make it difficult to achieve the necessary beam intensity and detection efficiency required for MW-level power transmission.

Cost and Infrastructure: The cost of building and operating such a system would be enormous, likely many orders of magnitude greater than existing power transmission systems.

Efficiency: Converting the kinetic energy of particles produced in neutrino interactions to electrical energy with high efficiency is a significant technical challenge.

Scalability: Scaling this setup to practical applications would require even more significant advancements in technology and reductions

in cost.

Detailed Analysis of Efficiency and Cost

Even in an ideal scenario where technological barriers are overcome, the efficiency of converting neutrino interactions into usable power is a critical factor. Here’s a deeper look into the efficiency and cost aspects:

Efficiency Analysis

Neutrino Detection Efficiency: Current neutrino detectors have very low efficiency due to the small cross-section of neutrino interactions. To improve this, advanced materials or innovative detection techniques would be required. For instance, using superfluid helium or advanced photodetectors could potentially increase interaction rates and energy conversion efficiency.

Energy Conversion Efficiency: The process of converting the kinetic energy from particle reactions into usable electrical energy currently has many stages of loss. Thermal systems, like steam turbines, typically have efficiencies of 30-40%. To enhance this, direct energy conversion methods, such as thermoelectric generators or direct kinetic-to-electric conversion, need development but are still far from achieving high efficiency at the scale required.

Overall System Efficiency: Combining the neutrino interaction efficiency and the energy conversion efficiency, the overall system efficiency could be extremely low. For neutrino power transmission to be comparable to current technologies, these efficiencies need to be boosted by several orders of magnitude.

Cost Considerations

Capital Costs: The initial costs include building the particle accelerator, target station, decay tunnel, focusing system, and the neutrino detector. Each of these components is expensive, with costs potentially running into billions of dollars for a setup that could aim to transmit a few MW of power.

Operational Costs: The operational costs include the energy to run the accelerator and the maintenance of the entire system. Given the high-energy particles involved and the precision technology required, these costs would be significantly higher than those for traditional power transmission methods.

Cost-Effectiveness: To determine the cost-effectiveness, compare the total cost per unit of power transmitted with that of HVDC systems. Currently, HVDC transmission costs are about $1-2 million per mile for the infrastructure, plus additional costs for power losses over distance. In contrast, a neutrino-based system would have negligible losses over distance, but the infrastructure costs would dwarf any current system.

Potential Improvements and Research Directions

To move from a theoretical concept to a more practical proposition, several areas of research and development could be pursued:

Advanced Materials: Research into new materials with higher sensitivity to neutrino interactions could improve detection rates. Nanomaterials or quantum dots might offer new pathways to detect and harness the energy from neutrino interactions more efficiently.

Accelerator Technology: Developing more compact and efficient accelerators would reduce the initial and operational costs of generating high-intensity neutrino beams. Using new acceleration techniques, such as plasma wakefield acceleration, could significantly decrease the size and cost of accelerators.

Detector Technology: Improvements in photodetector efficiency and the development of new scintillating materials could enhance the signal-to-noise ratio in neutrino detectors. High-temperature superconductors could also be used to improve the efficiency of magnetic horns and focusing devices.

Energy Conversion Methods: Exploring direct conversion methods, where the kinetic energy of particles from neutrino interactions is directly converted into electricity, could bypass the inefficiencies of thermal conversion systems. Research into piezoelectric materials or other direct conversion technologies could be key.

Conceptual Experiment to Demonstrate Viability

To demonstrate the viability of neutrino power transmission, even at a very small scale, a conceptual experiment could be set up as follows:

Experimental Setup

Small-Scale Accelerator: Use a small-scale proton accelerator to generate a neutrino beam. For experimental purposes, this could be a linear accelerator used in many research labs, capable of accelerating protons to a few hundred MeV.

Miniature Target and Decay Tunnel: Design a compact target and a short decay tunnel to produce and focus neutrinos. This setup will test the beam production and initial focusing systems.

Small Detector: Construct a small-scale neutrino detector, possibly using a few tons of liquid scintillator or water, equipped with sensitive photodetectors. This detector will test the feasibility of detecting focused neutrino beams at short distances.

Measurement and Analysis: Measure the rate of neutrino interactions and the energy deposited in the detector. Compare this to the expected values based on the beam properties and detector design.

Steps to Conduct the Experiment

Calibrate the Accelerator and Beamline: Ensure the proton beam is correctly tuned and the target is accurately positioned to maximize pion and kaon production.

Operate the Decay Tunnel and Focusing System: Run tests to optimize the magnetic focusing horns and maximize the neutrino beam coherence.

Run the Detector: Collect data from the neutrino interactions, focusing on capturing the rare events and distinguishing them from background noise.

Data Analysis: Analyze the collected data to determine the neutrino flux and interaction rate, and compare these to

theoretical predictions to validate the setup.

Optimization: Based on initial results, adjust the beam energy, focusing systems, and detector configurations to improve interaction rates and signal clarity.

Example Calculation for a Proof-of-Concept Experiment

To put the above experimental setup into a more quantitative framework, here's a simplified example calculation:

Assumptions and Parameters

Proton Beam Energy: 500 MeV (which is within the capability of many smaller particle accelerators).

Number of Protons per Second ((N_p)): (1 \times 10^{13}) protons/second (a relatively low intensity to ensure safe operations for a proof-of-concept).

Target Efficiency: Assume 20% of the protons produce pions or kaons that decay into neutrinos.

Neutrino Energy ((E_\nu)): Approximately 30% of the pion or kaon energy, so around 150 MeV per neutrino.

Distance to Detector ((D)): 100 meters (to stay within a compact experimental facility).

Detector Mass: 10 tons of water (equivalent to (10^4) kg, or about (6 \times 10^{31}) protons assuming 2 protons per water molecule).

Neutrino Interaction Cross-Section ((\sigma)): Approximately (10^{-38} , \text{m}^2) (typical for neutrinos at this energy).

Neutrino Detection Efficiency: Assume 50% due to detector design and quantum efficiency of photodetectors.

Neutrino Production

Pions/Kaons Produced: [ N_{\text{pions/kaons}} = N_p \times 0.2 = 2 \times 10^{12} \text{ per second} ]

Neutrinos Produced: [ N_\nu = N_{\text{pions/kaons}} = 2 \times 10^{12} \text{ neutrinos per second} ]

Neutrino Flux at the Detector

Given the neutrinos spread out over a sphere: [ \text{Flux} = \frac{N_\nu}{4 \pi D^2} = \frac{2 \times 10^{12}}{4 \pi (100)^2} , \text{neutrinos/m}^2/\text{s} ] [ \text{Flux} \approx 1.6 \times 10^7 , \text{neutrinos/m}^2/\text{s} ]

Expected Interaction Rate in the Detector

Number of Target Nuclei ((N_t)) in the detector: [ N_t = 6 \times 10^{31} ]

Interactions per Second: [ R = \text{Flux} \times N_t \times \sigma \times \text{Efficiency} ] [ R = 1.6 \times 10^7 \times 6 \times 10^{31} \times 10^{-38} \times 0.5 ] [ R \approx 48 , \text{interactions/second} ]

Energy Deposited

Energy per Interaction: Assuming each neutrino interaction deposits roughly its full energy (150 MeV, or (150 \times 1.6 \times 10^{-13}) J): [ E_d = 150 \times 1.6 \times 10^{-13} , \text{J} = 2.4 \times 10^{-11} , \text{J} ]

Total Power: [ P = R \times E_d ] [ P = 48 \times 2.4 \times 10^{-11} , \text{J/s} ] [ P \approx 1.15 \times 10^{-9} , \text{W} ]

So, the power deposited in the detector from neutrino interactions would be about (1.15 \times 10^{-9}) watts.

Challenges and Improvements for Scaling Up

While the proof-of-concept might demonstrate the fundamental principles, scaling this up to transmit even a single watt of power, let alone megawatts, highlights the significant challenges:

Increased Beam Intensity: To increase the power output, the intensity of the proton beam and the efficiency of pion/kaon production must be dramatically increased. For high power levels, this would require a much higher energy and intensity accelerator, larger and more efficient targets, and more sophisticated focusing systems.

Larger Detector: The detector would need to be massively scaled

up in size. To detect enough neutrinos to convert to a practical amount of power, we're talking about scaling from a 10-ton detector to potentially tens of thousands of tons or more, similar to the scale of detectors used in major neutrino experiments like Super-Kamiokande in Japan.

Improved Detection and Conversion Efficiency: To realistically convert the interactions into usable power, the efficiency of both the detection and the subsequent energy conversion process needs to be near-perfect, which is far beyond current capabilities.

Steps to Scale Up the Experiment

To transition from the initial proof-of-concept to a more substantial demonstration and eventually to a practical application, several steps and advancements are necessary:

Enhanced Accelerator Performance:

Upgrade to Higher Energies: Move from a 500 MeV system to several GeV or even higher, as higher energy neutrinos can penetrate further and have a higher probability of interaction.

Increase Beam Current: Amplify the proton beam current to increase the number of neutrinos generated, aiming for a beam power in the range of hundreds of megawatts to gigawatts.

Optimized Target and Decay Tunnel:

Target Material and Design: Use advanced materials that can withstand the intense bombardment of protons and optimize the geometry for maximum pion and kaon production.

Magnetic Focusing: Refine the magnetic horns and other focusing devices to maximize the collimation and directionality of the produced neutrinos, minimizing spread and loss.

Massive Scale Detector:

Detector Volume: Scale the detector up to the kiloton or even megaton range, using water, liquid scintillator, or other materials that provide a large number of target nuclei.

Advanced Photodetectors: Deploy tens of thousands of high-efficiency photodetectors to capture as much of the light from interactions as possible.

High-Efficiency Energy Conversion:

Direct Conversion Technologies: Research and develop technologies that can convert the kinetic energy from particle reactions directly into electrical energy with minimal loss.

Thermodynamic Cycles: If using heat conversion, optimize the thermodynamic cycle (such as using supercritical CO2 turbines) to maximize the efficiency of converting heat into electricity.

Integration and Synchronization:

Data Acquisition and Processing: Handle the vast amounts of data from the detector with real-time processing to identify and quantify neutrino events.

Synchronization: Ensure precise timing between the neutrino production at the accelerator and the detection events to accurately attribute interactions to the beam.

Realistic Projections and Innovations Required

Considering the stark difference between the power levels in the initial experiment and the target power levels, let's outline the innovations and breakthroughs needed:

Neutrino Production and Beam Focus: To transmit appreciable power via neutrinos, the beam must be incredibly intense and well-focused. Innovations might include using plasma wakefield acceleration for more compact accelerators or novel superconducting materials for more efficient and powerful magnetic focusing.

Cross-Section Enhancement: While we can't change the fundamental cross-section of neutrino interactions, we can increase the effective cross-section by using quantum resonance effects or other advanced physics concepts currently in theoretical stages.

Breakthrough in Detection: Moving beyond conventional photodetection, using quantum coherent technologies or metamaterials could enhance the interaction rate detectable by the system.

Scalable and Safe Operation: As the system scales, ensuring safety and managing the high-energy particles and radiation produced will require advanced shielding and remote handling technologies.

Example of a Scaled Concept

To visualize what a scaled-up neutrino power transmission system might look like, consider the following:

Accelerator: A 10 GeV proton accelerator, with a beam power of 1 GW, producing a focused neutrino beam through a 1 km decay tunnel.

Neutrino Beam: A beam with a diameter of around 10 meters at production, focused down to a few meters at the detector site several kilometers away.

Detector: A 100 kiloton water Cherenkov or liquid scintillator detector, buried deep underground to minimize cosmic ray backgrounds, equipped with around 100,000 high-efficiency photodetectors.

Power Output: Assuming we could improve the overall system efficiency to even 0.1% (a huge leap from current capabilities), the output power could be: [ P_{\text{output}} = 1\text{ GW} \times 0.001 = 1\text{ MW} ]

This setup, while still futuristic, illustrates the scale and type of development needed to make neutrino power transmission a feasible alternative to current technologies.

Conclusion

While the concept of using neutrinos to transmit power is fascinating and could overcome many limitations of current power transmission infrastructure, the path from theory to practical application is long and filled with significant hurdels.

[kenleephotography]

AI's crystal ball: Predicting future camera features in 2034

What features will cameras have ten years from now that cameras do not have now? I asked Gemini AI. Here are the answers. AI’s Crystal Ball – Predicting future camera features in 2034. Image by Justin Clark from Unsplash. I don’t know that AI – our new buzzword for what is largely machine learning – has a crystal ball. But Google’s Gemini is pretty good at scraping the internet for information…

[ghelgheli]

17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)

from the end-of-year book ask

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.

SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.

But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.

This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.

When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.

None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.

So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.

What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.

The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.

Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.

Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.

What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.

ty for ask✨🐐

[carionto]

Overwhelming presence

Monitoring space is a complicated task due to the literal cosmic scale of the undertaking. However, security is paramount, all species learn this in their own histories, thus technology and methods to effectively keep track of most relevant objects in space has been thoroughly developed.

The (relatively) simplest and most commonly used is the Quantum Web - a series of micro-satellites dotted around a star system, each maintain a large field of quantum-entangled particles and relay any changes within it in real time to all associated monitoring stations. The primary method is by detecting changes in energy levels, as simple physical displacement often clutters the feed with random asteroids and debris, or other objects of non-sapient origin.

As the United Federation and the Galactic Coalition are in a bit of a... tense stage in their relationship at the moment, the bordering Neutral Zone is heavily monitored by Federation agents, especially all systems close to where they have deployed their Battle Moon.

One day, a Federation monitor was returning from a short break to notice something off about the readout. There were many big bright white dots moving quickly within the Neutral Zone. They had never seen anything like that before. Normally all readings are color coded based on known ship or station designs and typical power outputs throughout said vessel.

The flow of energy throughout a vessel is sort of a fingerprint in a way. If you zoom in on the readout, and if the Quantum Web field is saturated enough, you can sometimes make out individual power generators and consumers.

This was something else. Going closer just made the whole projection go white, as if the thing was hundreds of kilometers in every direction, but that couldn't be. First, even the Battle Moon doesn't produce an image like that and it is literally a 340km large moon. And second, these dots - spheres more accurately - seem to overlap constantly. Logically, this must be an error of some kind.

What was not logical is when those bright lights came up to relative physical viewing distance of the hidden monitoring station. Letting curiosity get the better of them, the Federation agent pointed a telescope where this "error" should be.

There was nothing there. Just an error then. Feeling relieved even though they didn't think they were nervous to begin with, they set about filing a report on the situation and requesting maintenance support. As they were about to finalize all necessary paperwork, an open channel hail pinged them.

"Hey there, is anyone out here? We, uhh, messed up and wiped our navcom, so we're kinda lost here. Could someone please send over a copy of the local system chart? We'd be real grateful if you also didn't tell our parents about this, okay? Like, we can trade for something, like Mick's fancy guitar" "Hey!" "What? You don't play, your dad just gave it to you cuz you randomly said you wanted one while high."

Taking a quick glance at the projector and comm-observer, the agent stopped. The messages were coming from those bright lights. Rushing back to the telescope, they quickly zeroed in on their location and found three small apparently custom built space craft of unknown design.

As the trio of ships kept sending out random conversations among the clearly young civilians on board, the agent maintained total silence. Not long after, a Coalition military scout craft appeared on the projector in the expected yellow energy pattern, confirming that the Quantum Web was functioning without fault.

Throughout the ensuing conversation and reprimand, they learned that the three ships belonged to Humans, a species very recently integrated into the Coalition. Little investigation had been done on them so far, mainly as they are quite far away and only reside within a single system.

So the question stands - what kind of energy signature would produce such a massive bright light? it couldn't be a ruse. You can't "trick" a quantum-entangled particle. Maybe... There are ancient anecdotes of true fusion reactors - miniature stars - but no, nobody utilizes that, it's far too dangerous and difficult just to contain let alone exploit.

No one in their right mind would use literal stars right next to them. Right?

[mindblowingscience]

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” Moungi Bawendi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Louis Brus of Columbia University, and Alexei Ekimov, formerly chief scientist at Nanocrystals Technology, will each receive one-third of the prize money—11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million). Quantum dots are semiconductor crystals in the nanometer size range—so small that about 500,000 nm fit across the period at the end of this sentence. Because of the effects of quantum mechanics, these particles exhibit a number of physical properties that uniquely depend on the size of the crystal. For example, how these particles absorb and emit light varies widely between particles that differ just slightly in size. Researchers, including this year’s chemistry laureates, have exploited those size-dependent traits to make quantum dots that glow in every color in the rainbow.

Continue Reading

[materialsscienceandengineering]

New technique uses enzymes to create versatile nanoparticles

The selective bond-breaking powers of enzymes bring new versatility for building nanoparticles with a wide range of technical and medical potential. Researchers at Hokkaido University have developed a new and more adaptable method for creating nanoparticles of finely controlled size. Their 'bio-catalytic nanoparticle shaping' (BNS) procedure, published in the journal Nanoscale Horizons, should greatly assist the production of a variety of nanoparticles for use in technology and medicine. "One of the most promising applications is for creating assemblies of nanoparticles called quantum dots, which are small enough for their properties to be influenced by subtle quantum mechanical effects," says Associate Professor Yuta Takano, the leader of the Hokkaido team. Takano and colleagues collaborated on the work with researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

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[selfcestmovies]

Wingwoman Carol Danvers x Carol Danvers (mentions of Carol x Maria) Wordcount: ~2800 Warnings: fluff, smut, first time, experimentation, prequel, one night stand, carol is a bicurious mess, selfcest

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Carol had joined Project Pegasus not knowing much about the organization, but she knew they had the fastest planes and were eager for new recruits not afraid to try out experimental tech. Carol couldn't sign up fast-enough when given the chance.

And it was... fine. The gear was top-notch and her fellow recruits were just as hot-headed as she was, which was nice. Carol had hoped that this type of fast-paced environment would finally make her happy, and it did, for a time. But just as she had felt in school, and in college, and in every circle she had entered before in life, the pain was there. Like a splintering in the back of her soul. Like she wasn't who she wanted to be.

Carol pretended like she didn't know where the emotion came from, but she was smart enough to make an educated guess. She knew the pain swelled the most after she hooked up with guys; the experiences left her feeling fake and empty, without fail, and yet she convinced herself the problem was always with the men being substandard. "Never my type," she'd joke with her friends, like Maria Rambeau, her fellow recruit.

The emotions around Maria were different. A dull type of ache, like Carol had felt before around any amazing woman that she had befriended over the years. These moments always left her feeling unfulfilled, untapped. Like she wasn't living up to her potential.

Pegasus offered plenty of distraction. Carol buried herself in the work.

She had only been with the program for four months before they approached her for something that her handler deemed "out of the ordinary." It was called Wingman. The US government had been working on technology to create quantum duplicates of their pilots to allow for seamless synchronous coordination during flight patterns.

Carol brushed off a lot of the jargon. In fact, she brushed off a lot of everything: the ethical ramifications, the risk of strain on her body and mind, and even several long disclaimers about side-effects (including death) if the quantum cloning were to go haywire. She just wanted to take on new risks and move up in the ranks quickly. She nodded, signed the dotted line, and asked for her orders.

By next morning, there were two of her.

"Holy shit." "Holy shit." They both spoke unison from across the small room; their appearance was identical, down to the stitching on their uniforms. Like a true reflection in a mirror, they removed their aviator glasses and approached for a better look. They were perfectly and completely identical.

Their handler explained what to expect: that the two would be monitored closely, both during training exercises and just around the base if they ever interacted. They would have separate — albeit, identical — living quarters. They would both respond to "Carol" or "Private Danvers" if asked.

"She doesn't get a different name," one Carol asked, gesturing to the clone.

"I was about to ask that," the other huffed and crossed her arms. "But I agree, won't that get confusing?"

The protocol was clear: since they were both Carol Danvers, down to every micron, they both maintained equal claim to the identity. It might be confusing, but it was what she signed up for.

Carol didn't like it one bit.

They never really... spoke, at all. Over the next week, they were in plenty of joint meetings and briefing sessions. When they were assigned to run drills together and fly in formation, they did so masterfully. The two were on a flawlessly matched wavelength, anticipating each other's movement and intentions without the need to check-in, brainstorm, or question motives. The brass was impressed.

And Carol found herself confused, mostly. She tried to talk to Maria and process her feelings. "I think I'm too competitive," she struggled to voice the words. "I don't like seeing another person as good as I am, I guess."

Maria just laughed. "Yeah, the other Carol told me that yesterday."

Fuck. She couldn't even talk to her closest friends without feeling far-too-evenly-matched with the double. It didn't help that every time she spotted the other Carol around base that she'd stare idly in her direction, only to avert her gaze the moment the clone saw her looking. Carol tried not to cast blame, though, since it wasn't uncommon for Carol to catch the other woman staring back at her, too. It was just bizarre to look at herself from the outside; clearly she and the clone were both transfixed by the out-of-body experience. They never talked about it. They'd just steal glances whenever the chance allowed, knowing full well that the other Carol was guiltily doing the same.

Why she was so fascinated with the other Carol confounded her. She had seen her body in the mirror perhaps tens of thousands of times; but she never leered like this, though. Maybe it was the competitiveness, or the jealousy. Carol found herself thinking, in rare moments, that she was impressed by her double — the way she carried herself around her peers. How good she looked from certain angles. Despite the envy, it was a confidence boost to be sure, seeing herself as the world saw her. She could only assume that was why the other Carol stared, too.

The cycle lasted for a full month: jealousy, observation, confusion, competition, obsession. Carol couldn’t tell if she hated the other woman, or if she had just become disoriented by the constant presence of “another her” in her life. One evening, it finally felt like too much. She needed to clear her head, but being under constant surveillance by the Wingman observers made it tough to get any alone time. She snuck out the rear of her dorm, triple-checking to make sure she was undetected, before trekking the short quarter-mile down the road to the local pub.

The walk was nice. Carol could make due in just a her bomber jacket and jeans, plus a baseball cap that she convinced herself made her appear less conspicuous. It was late by the time she reached the bar, but still a few hours from closing time. Still, she was pleased to find it mostly empty — precisely the vibe she was hoping for to collect her thoughts.

Except for one person, sitting in her favorite booth, with blonde shoulder-length hair and a ratty baseball cap, wearing a bomber jacket that matched Carol's down to every detail. She felt almost betrayed that her double would dare come here on the same night that Carol had craved some time alone.

She sighed, and tried to dispel the resentment. Of course the other Carol would need to clear her mind too, and of course she would pick that booth, in this bar, on this evening. They truly did share a brain.

They had already made eye contact. Carol nodded cordially, and from across the bar, the other Carol did the same.

“It would be weird for me to not go say hi,” Carol muttered to herself. “We’re the only two goddamn people here.”

Wordlessly, uncomfortably, Carol walked over. The double gestured if she wanted to take a seat.

"Thanks," Carol spoke flatly.

"Don't mention it," the double replied. "We're the only two goddamn people here. It would have been weird for us to take two separate booths."

Carol laughed. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

They tried to talk. Ordering beers helped — two hazy double IPAs. "Good taste," Carol quipped, and the double agreed.

"It's weird, seeing you — sorry if that sounds harsh, I just wanted to get it out of the way. And I'm sorry I've been such a bitch to you."

Carol agreed with every word. She made that much clear. "Why do you think it is, that we kind of can't stand each other?"

Carol shrugged. Their beers came and they both took long, healthy sips in silence.

She decided to state the obvious: "We're competitive. We probably should have realized that before allowing the US Military to create another pilot equally as talented as us," she smirked. And then dove deeper. "And I'm sure we stare at each other because it's tough to grapple with the sense that we're impressed by each other." She took another sip of her drink.

"Really? I stare cause I think you're hot."

Carol almost coughed up her beer.

"Sorry, I had to—" The other couldn't stop laughing. "I'm just messing with you."

"I know," Carol was wiping up her spill, smiling. "You got me. Although," she shrugged. "If we're being honest..."

The other Carol shrugged too. "Yeah, I know." For the first time, they were admitting to themselves the silly, unavoidable truth to the matter. They did think they were hot. Odd how she had never put that together until now. "Nice to finally admit that to ourselves, in a way. And I'll take the flattery."

"Likewise, hot stuff," Carol offered a cheers with her beer. "Just a bit of really healthy narcissism."

"That, and..." the other raised her eyebrows. "I suppose if it's just us Carol's here, why keep lying to ourselves?"

"I see your point," the other nodded. She had never said it out loud. Christ, she had never even admitted it to herself in secret. But with this other Carol eyeing her, egging her on, she wanted to say it once and for all. "Since we probably like girls."

"Bingo," the other nodded. "Feels nice to finally say it."

"It does," they took another sip. "Kind of fucked up that our first legit girl crush is on ourselves."

"We like Maria too though, right?"

"Oh for sure, damn that's fun to finally admit out loud. She's gorgeous."

"Ain't that the truth."

The night went on, the beers kept flowing. It felt so, so good to finally say these things out loud to another living soul, even if it did happen to be Carol's exact copy. They talked about all the women over the years who they had liked; all the men over the years who they didn't; all the times that they had felt the hollow, inexplicable pain of being incomplete, and finally realizing that it stemmed from never being honest with herself about who she was.

"Okay, tell me," Carol took a deep sip. She was feeling tipsy. "Best ass on a woman?"

"Oh man," Carol wracked her brain, digging through her memories. "Probably that bartender in Reno—"

"Christ, yes!" Carol beamed. "We fantasized about her for like, a full year! Although she might be just second place to me—"

"Who else?"

Carol just nodded. "I think we take the cake, my dear."

They burst out laughing, nodding, agreeing that it was impossibly hilarious that they found their own ass to be out of this world. They ran down the list: tits, lips, eyes, all the parts of their body they could finally admit they found attractive in themselves.

"Christ, we're exactly our type."

"So much for healthy narcissism, Carol Danvers," the other teased. "This borders on pathological."

After two more beers, it was closing time. They agreed to split the tab — very tongue-in-cheek, after they realized they shared a bank account — before making the walk home slowly. They talked more about girls, about Maria, about sex, about relationships. Carol had never been this open with anyone. Ever.

By the time they reached base, it felt obvious to both Carols that they still had energy to chat. One Carol's dorm was significantly closer, so it wasn't much of a discussion; they both snuck in the back, giggling like school girls.

"Another beer?" The host Carol asked once inside, not really needing to hear a reply before assuming the answer and heading to the fridge.

"It's so weird," the other Carol looked around. "Everything here is the same as mine — even the dishes on the counter. Damn we really are wired the exact same up there," she said in awe, flipping her cap backwards and running her hands through her hair. "And yes to the beer." She leaned back against the kitchen island and felt her gaze drifting over her clone, grabbing two beers from the bottom of the fridge. "Damn, I'm hot," Carol whispered, biting her lip. "So do I have to play coy about checking you out, now?"

"Definitely not," the other Carol looked over her shoulder. "I was giving you a show."

"I'm such a bitch," Carol laughed and approached the other woman. She knew full well that if their roles were switched, she would have been just as much of a tease. It wasn't often that she had her buttons pushed this effectively. She liked it. "Come on," she reached out to grab the other Carol by her jacket, pulling her away from the fridge. Her competitive edge was showing. "If it's just us Carols here, I should let you finally get what we really want—" She took a hold of the other Carol's wrists and brought them to her waist, wrapping them around to her backside. "Why just stop at looking?"

The other Carol laughed. The tangle of hands and legs was clumsy, and both Carols being four beers deep didn't help much, either. "Fucking finally," she joked, not holding back her hands from grabbing and smacking her twin's ass. "And it lives up to the hype." They pulled each other close, laughing, teasing, touching playfully, stumbling around the apartment and vying for dominance and the best-possible angle for attack. It only took a few seconds of frivolity for the two to grow out of breath, needing to pause to collect themselves — and finally realizing how closely they were standing.

"Do you..." One finally whispered. Her eyes darted down to the other Carol's lips. "Do you have any... reservations, I guess?"

The other shook her head. "No," she whispered back. They weren't speaking everything out loud — there was no need, after all. Despite their newfound comfort, they didn't quite want to put into words how deep the attraction went. How nice and warm they felt in each other's presence. How natural it felt to touch each other. She reached up to take the other Carol's cap off her head and toss it to the floor before moving her hands down to her waist and slowly, sweetly leaning in.

They took their time. Each brought their hands to the other's ribcage and gripped tight.

"I'm nervous," one whispered against the other's lips.

"Me too."

Their kiss was soft and gentle, both scared about letting go — letting themselves want this type of intimacy with another woman. But they did: they craved it, and it felt electric.

Before long, Carol had pinned her other self against the wall, kissing her with deep, wet, synchronous moves of her mouth and tongue. "Harder," she panted into her twin's lips. "Faster, baby. Please." The other woman had brought her hands back down to Carol's ass, pulling them close, forcing friction to their hips as they ground against each other. Carol meanwhile had slid her hands upward to grip the other woman's chest — "You're missing out," she cooed. "Christ we have amazing tits."

Neither was holding back by the time they collapsed to the sofa; jackets had been long-since stripped off and jeans in the process of being unbuckled and slid down to their ankles. One Carol finished first and sat back to watch the other remove her final articles of clothing. She slipped a hand into her panties, licking her lips and staring up at the other body. "I'm so fucking hot," she moaned.

The other smiled, leaping onto her, attacking her mouth again. It wasn't long before she took control — "You're mine," she purred before pulling the other's body against her. She had wrapped one hand around the front of the other woman, and one hand around the back, giving both access to Carol's pussy from both angles. Her mouth, meanwhile, had enveloped Carol's breast, her teeth and tongue and lips trading off in rapid circle's around the other woman's nipple. She enjoyed making Carol scream her own name in ecstasy.

By the time the two exhausted all their energy and fulfilled all their desires, it was into the early morning. The sun was peaking through the corner of Carol's blinds. They had tried to fall asleep hours ago, changing into pajamas, only to find themselves again on the sofa with insatiable appetites. The two panted, heavy, sweaty, entwined in each other's arms.

"I think we do like girls," Carol joked. The other laughed and kissed her temple.

"Or," she teased, "We just like ourselves. But probably the latter."

"You think we'll get discharged for this?"

"Nah," she shrugged, letting her hands roam across Carol's shoulders and neckline, down to the curve of her breasts. "But they won't be too happy, I'm sure. I do think we should both call in sick today."

Carol nodded and kissed the other woman. "I agree, although..." She trailed off.

"What?"

"I am really excited to fly with you again."

[mysticstronomy]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF COSMIC VOIDS!!

Blog#299

Wednesday, May 24th, 2023

Welcome back,

At first the sum total of large, orderly structure in the Universe appeared to arrive in two categories. There were the clusters of galaxies – an unoriginal but descriptive name – each a dense ball with anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred galaxies, all bound together by their mutual gravitational embrace. And then there were the field galaxies, lonely wanderers set apart and adrift from the clusters, not bound to anyone but themselves.

That was it: the clusters of galaxies, the field galaxies, and the megaparsecs of emptiness that enveloped them all.

But technology is technology and advancement is advancement. The telescopes grew more powerful. The field of cosmology involved more people. The techniques improved. The development of image amplification systems – the distant forerunners of your smartphone camera – allowed astronomers to peer ever further into the dark.

With every new survey taken, the number of galaxies in our Universe increased. With every night of observation, our window into the cosmos widened.

By the early 1960’s, astronomers began to realize that there was more in the Universe than mere galaxies and clusters. There was something larger – the supercluster. It only took a small sample of galaxies to reveal the shape of the first known supercluster, the Local Supercluster, with the galaxies themselves – each one the mass of a trillion suns – reduced to a tiny dot of light, acting as mere tracers of the vast structure that stretched for a million parsec on a side.

The faint sketches that they could produce revealed that galaxies clump into clusters, and clusters clump into superclusters, the beginnings of our understanding of the large-scale structure of the Universe.

Time passed. Observations pushed on, finding galaxy after galaxy and cluster after cluster. Until one day, they didn’t. One mapping of the cosmos produced an unexpected result. Once again this was a survey of galaxies, clusters, and superclusters. Once again this took only a small number of galaxies to reveal the grand structure of the cosmos.

Once again astronomers were intent to find the pattern, the hidden meaning in this grand design. Once again we were going to map the heavens and make it ours. But where a fair sampling of galaxies should have revealed yet more distant dots of light, there was…nothing.

A blank space.

It was a cosmic accident. A blight in the Universe. A Sahara too vast to describe except with the reducing, almost meaningless jargon of the astronomer – an empty patch devoid of galaxies almost 20 megaparsec, or 65 million light-years, across.

In 1978, we found a silence among the stars: our first cosmic void.

Originally published on www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, May 27th, 2023)

"WHAT IS QUANTUM GRAVITY THEORIES??"

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Gravity study gives insights into hidden features beneath lost ocean of Mars and rising Olympus Mons Studies of gravity variations at Mars have revealed dense, large-scale structures hidden beneath the sediment layers of a lost ocean. The analysis, which combines models and data from multiple missions, also shows that active processes in the martian mantle may be giving a boost to the largest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons. The findings have been presented this week at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) in Berlin by Bart Root of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).Mars has many hidden structures, such as ice deposits, but the features discovered in the northern polar plains are a mystery because they are covered with a thick and smooth sediment layer believed to deposited on ancient seabed. “These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts. There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap – one of which resembles the shape of a dog,” said Dr Root. “There seems to be no trace of them at the surface. However, through gravity data, we have a tantalising glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars.”Dr Root and colleagues from TU Delft and Utrecht University used tiny deviations in the orbits of satellites to investigate the gravity field of Mars and find clues about the planet’s internal mass distribution. This data was fed into models that use new observations from NASA’s Insight mission on the thickness and flexibility of the martian crust, as well as the dynamics of the planet’s mantle and deep interior, to create a global density map of Mars.The density map shows that the northern polar features are approximately 300-400 kg/m3 denser than their surroundings. However, the study has also revealed new insights into the structures underlying the huge volcanic region of Tharsis Rise, which includes the colossal volcano, Olympus Mons. Although volcanoes are very dense, the Tharsis area is much higher than the average surface of Mars, and is ringed by a region of comparatively weak gravity. This gravity anomaly is hard to explain by looking at differences in the martian crust and upper mantle alone. The study by Dr Root and his team suggests that a light mass around 1750 kilometres across and at a depth of 1100 kilometres is giving the entire Tharsis region a boost upwards. This could be explained by huge plume of lava, deep within the martian interior, travelling up towards the surface.“The NASA InSight mission has given us vital new information about the hard outer layer of Mars. This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the Olympus Mons volcano and its surroundings,” said Dr Root. “It shows that Mars might still have active movements happening inside it, affecting and possibly making new volcanic features on the surface.”Dr Root is part of the team proposing the Martian Quantum Gravity (MaQuls) mission,  which aims to use technology developed for missions like GRAIL and GRACE on the Moon and Earth respectively to map in detail the gravity field of Mars. “Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars. This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs,” said Dr Lisa Wörner of DLR, who presented on the MaQuIs mission at EPSC2024 this week.

TOP IMAGE: Gravity map of Mars. The red circles show prominent volcanoes on Mars and the black circles show impact crates with a diameter larger than a few 100 km. A gravity high signal is located in the volcanic Tharsis Region (the red area in the centre right of the image), which is surrounded by a ring of negative gravity anomaly (shown in blue). Credit Root et al.

LOWER IMAGE: Map highlighting the dense gravitational structures in the northern hemisphere. The regions denoted by the black lines are high mass anomalies that do not show any correlation with geology and topography. These hidden subsurface structures are covered by sediments from an old ocean. Their origin is still a mystery and a dedicated gravity mission, like MaQuIs, is needed to reveal their nature. Credit Root et al.

[mit]

Congratulations to Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry at MIT — newly minted Nobel laureate in chemistry! 🥇

MIT chemist Moungi Bawendi shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry

For his work on techniques to generate quantum dots of uniform size and color, Bawendi is honored along with Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov.

Anne Trafton | MIT News

Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry at MIT, has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2023. He will share the prize with Louis Brus of Columbia University and Alexei Ekimov of Nanocrystals Technology.

Bawendi is a pioneer in the development of quantum dots: tiny particles of matter that emit exceptionally pure light. These particles, a special type of semiconducting nanocrystals, have been incorporated into  technologies such as biomedical imaging and computer and television displays.

In its announcement this morning, the Nobel Foundation, cited Bawendi for work that “revolutionized the chemical production of quantum dots, resulting in almost perfect particles.”

Quantum dots consist of tiny particles of semiconductor material that are so small that their properties differ from those of the bulk material; they are governed in part by the laws of quantum mechanics that describe how atoms and subatomic particles behave. When illuminated with ultraviolet light, the dots fluoresce brightly in a range of colors determined by the sizes of the particles.

In 1993, Bawendi and his students were the first to report a method for synthesizing quantum dots while maintaining precise control over their size. Since then, he has also devised ways to control the efficiency of the dots’ light emission and to eliminate their tendency to blink on and off, making them more practical for applications in many fields.

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[gogonano]

The Revolutionary History of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology, a groundbreaking field that has revolutionized numerous industries, continues to shape the world as we know it. In this article, we delve into the rich history of nanotechnology, exploring its origins, major milestones, and transformative applications. Join us on this captivating journey through the nano realm and discover how this remarkable technology has reshaped various sectors, from healthcare and electronics to energy and materials science.

Origins of Nanotechnology

Unveiling the Nanoscale

Nanotechnology finds its roots in the exploration of the minuscule world at the nanoscale. The concept of nanoscale was first introduced by physicist Richard Feynman in his visionary lecture in 1959, where he discussed the potential for manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular levels. This groundbreaking concept laid the foundation for the birth of nanotechnology.

The Birth of Nanotechnology

In 1981, the term "nanotechnology" was officially coined by engineer K. Eric Drexler in his influential book, "Engines of Creation." Drexler envisioned a future where nanomachines could manipulate matter at the atomic scale, leading to remarkable advancements in various fields. His work served as a catalyst for the rapid development of nanotechnology research and applications.

Major Milestones in Nanotechnology

Scanning Probe Microscopy

In the early 1980s, the invention of scanning probe microscopy revolutionized nanotechnology research. The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) allowed scientists to visualize and manipulate individual atoms and molecules with unprecedented precision. These breakthroughs opened up new possibilities for studying nanoscale phenomena and laid the groundwork for further advancements in the field.

Fullerenes and Nanotubes

In 1985, a significant discovery shook the scientific community—the identification of fullerenes. Researchers Robert Curl, Harold Kroto, and Richard Smalley stumbled upon these unique carbon molecules, marking the birth of a new class of nanomaterials. Fullerenes paved the way for the development of carbon nanotubes, cylindrical structures with remarkable strength and conductivity. These nanotubes would go on to become key building blocks in various nanotechnology applications.

Nanotechnology in Medicine

Nanotechnology's potential to revolutionize healthcare became evident with the advent of targeted drug delivery systems. Nanoparticles, such as liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles, can be designed to encapsulate drugs and deliver them precisely to targeted cells or tissues. This approach minimizes side effects and maximizes therapeutic efficacy. Additionally, nanotechnology plays a vital role in imaging techniques, enabling highly sensitive and precise detection of diseases at the molecular level.

Nanoelectronics and Quantum Computing

The relentless pursuit of smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronics led to the emergence of nanoelectronics. By utilizing nanoscale materials and devices, researchers have pushed the boundaries of traditional silicon-based technology. Nanoscale transistors, quantum dots, and nanowires have paved the way for advancements in computing power, memory storage, and energy efficiency. Furthermore, the field of quantum computing, which harnesses quantum phenomena at the nanoscale, holds the promise of solving complex problems that are currently beyond the capabilities of classical computers.

Nanomaterials and Energy

Nanotechnology has also played a significant role in addressing global energy challenges. By developing advanced nanomaterials, scientists have made strides in enhancing solar cell efficiency, enabling the production of clean and renewable energy. Nanomaterials have also been employed in energy storage devices, such as batteries and supercapacitors, to improve their performance and longevity. Additionally, nanotechnology has opened up avenues for energy harvesting and energy conversion, contributing to a more sustainable future.

Transformative Applications of Nanotechnology

Nanomedicine and Disease Treatment

Nanotechnology has revolutionized medicine, offering innovative solutions for disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Targeted drug delivery systems, nanoscale imaging techniques, and nanobiosensors have transformed the landscape of healthcare, enabling personalized and precise interventions. From cancer therapy to regenerative medicine, nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize patient care and improve outcomes.

Nanoelectronics and Wearable Technology

The marriage of nanotechnology and electronics has given rise to the era of wearable technology. Nanoscale sensors, flexible displays, and energy-efficient components have paved the way for smartwatches, fitness trackers, and augmented reality devices. These advancements in nanoelectronics have made it possible to integrate technology seamlessly into our everyday lives, enhancing convenience and connectivity.

Nanomaterials and Advanced Manufacturing

Nanotechnology has propelled advancements in materials science and manufacturing. Nanomaterials with tailored properties and enhanced performance characteristics have found applications in aerospace, automotive, and construction industries. From lightweight and high-strength composites to self-cleaning surfaces and energy-efficient coatings, nanomaterials have revolutionized product design, durability, and sustainability.

In Conclusion

Nanotechnology's journey from its conceptualization to its present-day applications has been nothing short of extraordinary. The field's remarkable achievements in diverse domains, including medicine, electronics, and energy, continue to drive innovation and shape the future. As we delve deeper into the nanoscale world, the possibilities seem boundless. With ongoing research and collaboration, nanotechnology will undoubtedly unlock new frontiers, leading to breakthroughs that will reshape industries and improve lives across the globe.