Category Archives: Technology

A silhouette of a person with a clock face behind them, symbolizing the concept of time and human existence.

The Greatest Engineering Challenge to Time Travel

Categories, Physics, Technology, Time Travel, , , ,

Without doubt, harnessing sufficient energy is  the largest obstacle to time travel. For example, time dilation (i.e., forward time travel) is only noticeable when mass approaches a significant fraction of the speed of light or sits in a strong gravitational field. To date, we have been able to accelerate subatomic particles to a point where time dilation becomes noticeable. We have also been able to observe time dilation of a highly accurate atomic clock on a jet plane as it flies over the airport, which contains another atomic clock. Using sensitive instruments, we can measure time dilation. We have also been able to measure time dilation due to differences in the Earth’s gravitational field. However, these differences are only evident using highly accurate atomic clocks. Our human senses are unable to detect a high mounted wall clock moving faster than our wristwatch, which gravitational time dilation predicts is occurring.

The fastest humankind has traveled is 25,000 miles per hour, using the Apollo 10 spacecraft. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 186,000 miles per second. This means that a spacecraft would have to go about 13,000 times faster than Apollo 10 for humans to experience noticeable time dilation, or a speed of about 90,000 miles per second, which is roughly half the speed of light. Today’s science has not learned to harness the amount of energy required to accelerate a spacecraft to a velocity of 90,000 miles per second.

Let us consider a simple example to illustrate the amount of energy required to achieve the above velocity. If we have a mass of 1000 kilograms (i.e., 2204 pounds), and we want to accelerate it to 10% the speed of light, the resulting kinetic energy would be about 1017 (i.e., a 1 with 17 zeros after it) joules, whether you calculate the kinetic energy using Newton’s classical formula or Einstein’s relativistic formula for kinetic energy. To put this in perspective, it is more than twice the amount of energy of the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. It would take a modern nuclear power plant about ten years to output this amount of energy.

The above example gives us a conceptual framework to understand the amount of energy that would be required to accelerate a sizable mass, 1000 kilograms, or 2204 pounds, to just 10% the speed of light. If we wish to accelerate the mass, for example, a spacecraft, to a greater percentage, the energy increases exponentially. For example, to accelerate to 20% the speed of light would require four times the amount of energy.

Today’s engineering is unable to harness this level of energy. In the popular Star Trek television series and movies, the starship Enterprise is able to travel faster than the speed of light using a warp drive, by reacting matter with antimatter. Factually, there is almost no antimatter in the universe. This is one of the mysteries associated with the big bang science theory, which I discussed in my book, Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries. In theory, during the big bang, matter and antimatter should exist in equal quantities. Our observation of the universe, using our best telescopes, detects almost no antimatter. However, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois is able to produce about fifty billion antiprotons per hour. This, though, is a miniscule amount compared to the amount needed to power a starship. According to Dr. Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and author of The Physics of Star Trek, it would take one hundred thousand Fermilabs to power a single lightbulb. In essence, we are a long way from using matter-antimatter as a fuel. In addition, the Enterprise was able to warp space. This provided a means to skirt around Einstein’s well-established special theory of relativity, which asserts no mass can travel faster than the speed of light. There is no similar physical law that prohibits space from expanding faster than the speed of light. If we are able to manipulate space, similar to our discussion of the Alcubierre drive in the previous chapter, then scientifically the spacecraft could collapse space in front of it and expand space behind it. However, the Alcubierre drive requires negative energy. Today’s science is unable to create and harness negative energy in any significant way.

Therefore, topping our list of major scientific obstacles regarding time travel is generating huge amounts of energy, in either positive or negative form.

Source: How to Time Travel (2013), Louis A. Del Monte

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Was the SETI “Wow!” Signal from Aliens?

Categories, Technology, Universe Mysteries, , ,

Did we actually receive a message from aliens? On August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI (i.e., Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University, Dr. Jerry Ehman detected a strong narrow-band radio signal. The signal lasted for 72 seconds, appeared to be non-terrestrial and originating from outside our solar system.

The Big Ear telescope was fixed and used the rotation of the Earth to scan the sky. At the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and given the width of the Big Ear’s observation window, the Big Ear could observe a given point for just 72 seconds. Therefore, a continuous extraterrestrial signal would be expected to register for exactly 72 seconds. The recorded intensity of that signal would show a gradual peaking for the first 36 seconds, as the signal reached the center of Big Ear’s observation window, and then a gradual decrease. This is exactly what was observed.

Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar communication, Dr. Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote “Wow!” on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.

Unfortunately, SETI has been unable to confirm the signal, but not for lack of trying. The signal was expected to appear three minutes apart in each of Big Ear’s horns, but that did not happen. Dr. Ehman unsuccessfully looked for recurrences of the signal using Big Ear for months after its detection.

In 1987 and 1989, American data analyst, author, and astronomer, Robert H. Gray, searched for the event using the META array at Oak Ridge Observatory, but did not detect it.

In a July 1995 test of signal detection software, SETI League executive director H. Paul Shuch made several drift-scan observations of the Wow! signal’s coordinates with a 12 meter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank WV. No signal was detected.

In 1995 and 1996, Gray searched for the signal using the Very Large Array, which is significantly more sensitive than Big Ear. Again, no signal was detected.

In 1999, Gray and Simon Ellingsen, an Associate Professor in Physics and Radio astronomy at the University of Tasmania, Australia, searched for recurrences of the event using the 26m radio telescope at the University of Tasmania’s Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory. No signal was detected.

Although, SETI was not able confirm the signal, they were able to determine that the initial signal seemed to have originated from the Sagittarius constellation.

The question “Are we alone in the universe?” is a question humankind has been asking for centuries. The “WOW!” signal appears to suggest we may have company.

A scientist wearing a lab coat, mask, and gloves operating a laboratory instrument with a blue screen.

3D Printers To Make Human Compatible Replacement Organs

Categories, Technology, , , , ,

In 1984, Chuck Hull of 3D Systems Corp developed the world’s first working 3D printer. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. It is called additive manufacturing because 3D printing is achieved using an additive process, where successive layers of material, like such as plastic, ceramics, glass or metal, are laid down in different shapes to manufacture parts.

Today, the market for 3D printers is estimated at 2.2 billion dollars, and companies like Boeing, General Electric and Honeywell are using the printers. Traditionally, 3D printers have been used for both prototyping and manufacturing. Applications include architecture, construction, industrial design, automotive, aerospace, military, engineering, civil engineering, dental and medical industries, fashion, footwear, jewelry, eyewear, education, geographic information systems, food, and new applications are continually surfacing. One new application is in biotech (human tissue replacement).

In 2012, 3D printing technology began to be studied by biotechnology firms and academia. Possible applications include tissue engineering, in which organs and body parts are built by depositing layers of living cells onto a gel medium or sugar matrix and slowly built up to form three-dimensional structures including vascular systems. This field of research is being referred to as organ printing, bioprinting, body part printing, and computer-aided tissue engineering. One such company, Organovo, a San Diego-based company that focuses on regenerative medicine, is using 3D printers to print functional human tissue for medical research and regenerative therapies.

In 2013, Chinese scientists found ways of printing ears, livers and kidneys, with living tissue. Researchers at Hangzhou Dianzi University invented their own 3D printer for the complex task, dubbed the “Regenovo.” Regenovo’s developer, Xu Mingen, said that it takes the printer less than an hour to produce either a mini liver sample or a four to five inch ear cartilage sample. In the same year, researchers at the University of Hasselt, in Belgium, successfully printed a new jawbone for an 83-year-old Belgian woman, who is now able to chew, speak and breathe normally again with her new jawbone.

Eventually, medical researchers predict to be able to use the printed tissue to make organs for organ replacement. However, growing functional organs is still at least 10 years away, said Shaochen Chen, a professor of nano-engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert that uses bioprinting in researching regenerative medicine. Other researchers, like Xu Mingen of Hangzhou Dianzi University, agree. This suggests that growing human compatible functional organs is only one or two decades away.

The image is a picture of Materials Engineer working in an Advanced Manufacture Laboratory with a 3D printing Machine.