Who would have guessed?

Apparently Peter Gabriel is a closet nerd. Two weekends ago The Boss went to a Peter Gabriel concert which was good according to him. But, the best part of the concert was not the music, the best part was a plug that Mr. Gabriel put in for something that is quite near and dear to the heart of The Boss and the soul of our company. These are not his exact words, but Mr. Gabriel said:

"Have you heard about some crazy scientists over in California? Apparently they are very close to making a fusion reaction in a laboratory setting, its something called the NIF project. They use these really big lasers and hit a small pellet of fuel to create Fusion. This is a really great thing, if they can get this to work this has the potential to create un-imaginable amounts of energy and could solve many of the earths energy problems, in addition to destroying many of the earths stores of nuclear material."

While I can not confirm the last portion of the statement, I can say that this is indeed what is happening, being intimately involved with this project my self. The science, physics and physical aspects of this project are really quite interesting. The premise is to use about 200 laser beams all focused on the same target. This target contains Fuseable material (usually an isotope of hydrogen), by increasing the temperature of the sample with those lasers it is possible (in theory) to force the atoms to fuse together. So what you say? Well Fusion has a much higher energy yield than Fission which is what happens in a Nuclear Reactor. Fission works by breaking apart unstable high Atomic weight atoms, Usually U235 or U238. When these atoms split They form two new atoms, BUT the weight of these two atoms when added together does not equal the original weight of the Uranium atom. The excess weight is converted into energy. Each split makes a set amount of energy dictated mostly by the mass difference between the uranium and its fission products, about 202MeV. There is another way to generate energy using the following Nuclear binding energy curve.

Uranium is far out to the right, and when it splits you move up the curve to the left. Fusion is better, it usually starts with hydrogen far to the left, when you fuse it you get a helium atom, some neutrons and energy. When you fuse an atom, you move up the energy curve to the right. At first look, at the released energy, it would seem fission is better (220MeV per reaction vs 4.03MeV per reaction for Hydrogen fusion). But if one takes into account the energy released per unit mass, the fusion reaction is about 5 times more energetic and doesn't have all the nasty nuclear waste products at he Fission does.

So the upshot is Fusion created a lot more energy using the same amount of fuel mass with less nuclear waste products than fission. This is not to say it is without its drawbacks, but if this works we'll have a limitless amount of energy at out disposal.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the chart above.

Hook 'em while they're young

In the fall of 2010 The Wife, Child1, Child2 and I met some friends in Boston for the day. After going to a museum or two, eating lunch and checking out the Curious George store, we headed over to a certain large bookseller. There I found scientific gold, a book about the elements called...... The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe.  This is the book that I have been reading to Child1 as a bedtime story for the past 5 nights.


I am willing to bet that you are thinking: "What the hell kind of bedtime story is that?!" My answer would be, the best. Why should bedtime stories always be about a porridge stealing, chair breaking, bed sleeping blonde, or a freakishly huge red-haired hound, or some other moral teaching fiction? Can we not also include the awesomeness that it the real world? Science? Engineering? Chemistry? These things can be fascinating! Let's take a really simple example from the above book: on page 34 we encounter Sodium. Bad stuff. Blows up when you toss it in water. Further on, on page 49 we find Chlorine. Really bad stuff, the gas will sear your lungs. As the author describes it, inhaling chlorine gas is "as if someone was pointing a blowtorch at your sinuses". Nice eh?  Here is where we get to the cool bits, when you mix these two really bad elements, you can EAT THE RESULT. When presented in the proper fashion, this will blow a child's mind right out of their ears (and make you the smartest person in the world to them). I ask you, where is the down side?


All joking aside, it's a wonderful thing to teach kids at a young age to respect others, play nice, ignore skin color and other good social values, as well as reading. But why is it that people balk at trying to teach their children the other stuff like how to plant seeds, what photosynthesis is, how to use a hammer and build a birdhouse, where bacon comes from, and, yes, how televisions work and what the elements are? I really don't think a child's mind will differentiate between learning how to spell a word and learning what the chemical formula for salt is. Science and technology in all its forms should be introduced at an early age, we need more engineers, scientists and researchers . Oh sure, some people will say that they don't want their kid to be a "NERD" or a  "GEEK", but those are just petty labels made by insecure people trying to make themselves feel good. In this situation should you ask yourself would the likes of Bill Gates (Microsoft founder), Steve Jobs (iPod anyone?), Brad Bird (I loved The Incredibles) and Ken Olsen (this one you should look up) would really care what others called them in school.


Don't even get me started on lasers.....

Robots are COOL!

I freely admit that I am a nerd. I like engineering, solving problems, computer games, lasers and ROBOTS. Let me just say that before you judge, seeing six robots try to hang inflatible tubes on pegs was never so much fun. Sounds boring I know, but when you're in a crowd who's loving it, listening to songs from The Scorpions, Van Halen, Lit and AC/DC it's hard not to get excited.

What am I talking about? It's called The FIRST Robotics Competition (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and..... it's awesome. There are over 2100 teams, 52000 participants from nine countries and they all build robots to complete specific challenges. From what I could see it seems like an excellent way of teaching children about Math, Science, Technology, Teamwork, Sportsmanship, Communication and Self Esteem. All worthy goals, yes?

The competition this year consisted of six robots on a playing field for about 4 minutes. The first 15 seconds of which the robots had to guide themselves to accomplish a goal of lifting a yellow innertube onto any one of 9 metal pegs from about 3 to 10 feet in the air. The next 3 minutes or so, the robots were controlled by drivers to accomplish the task of putting red, white and blue inner tubes onto the same pegs, points were awarded for placing the tubes in certain positions, configurations and heights. The final 30 seconds the robots had to get to one of 4 vertical poles, deploy a mini robot which would climb the pole to press a button at the top, points for first second and third place.

It was very much like robot soccer/basketball since robots could block others from getting innertubes and entering the scoring area, but not interfere with them in the scoring area. There were cheer leading teams, professional wrestling style announcers, and light shows. This was a very much family and student oriented event. If you have kids, I would strongly suggest you check it out, I can personally vouch that while involvement may not be appropriate for the under 6 set, it is highly entertaining for all ages (at least down to 22 months of age).