• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

The Nature of the Universe, Time Travel and More...

  • Thread starter Will The Serious
  • Start date
Meanwhile, another Mandela effect shows up and this one is entertainingly weird:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

I remember the ad being aired in the UK. Never seen the Super Bowl.

More likely Dorritos stole his video played it and decided he'd never chase them up for cash
 
Never seen the Super Bowl.
I live in New England, and I've only seen short segments of the Super Bowl while my father watched it and I passed through. Not an event I ever thought was worth sitting more than 15.333333333... minutes for. Their commercials are usually pretty good, though.

-Will
 
More likely Dorritos stole his video played it and decided he'd never chase them up for cash
Doritos are made by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. Are they that shady a company that they would do that?

Also, why do you spell Doritos with two Rs? Is that how it was spelt in your timeline?
 
Without watching the video, having trained in astronomy, is it because it sounds like a measurement of time (seemingly confusing George Lucas, but not Gene Roddenberry)

Hang on. Let's get it straight. It arguably confused Han Solo when he was bragging about his ship having done the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, not George Lucas. Obi-Wan's look of incredulity, making Han sound like he was just shooting his mouth off, was always an essential element of the scene. But in a later film, it was established that doing the run in 12 parsecs meant that a shorter but more dangerous route had been taken. Space fantasy yes, but confusion no.
 
Hang on. Let's get it straight. It arguably confused Han Solo when he was bragging about his ship having done the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, not George Lucas. Obi-Wan's look of incredulity was an essential element of the scene. But later on, it was established that doing the run in 12 parsecs meant that a shorter but more dangerous route had been taken. Space fantasy yes, but confusion no.
That is indeed the retrofitted excuse. It was never convincing. It would have been easier to just state that parsecs means something else along time ago in a galaxy far far away.

"You can type this shit, George, but you sure can't say it."
 
That is indeed the retrofitted excuse. It was never convincing. It would have been easier to just state that parsecs means something else along time ago in a galaxy far far away.

"You can type this shit, George, but you sure can't say it."
I get that, but Obi-Wan's "Yeah, sure, buddy" look was always in there. Anyway.... :techman:
 
I get that, but Obi-Wan's "Yeah, sure, buddy" look was always in there. Anyway.... :techman:
I was already an adult studying physics and astronomy when Star Wars was first released, so I likely had that look as well. I was more surprised how attached people became to a space fantasy that was updated Saturday matinee fare aimed at kids. I kind of appreciated it as dumb entertainment, but thought it pretty goofy and silly. I assumed the influence of Taoism, Buddhism and Frank Herbert's Dune got mixed in due to the Californian hippy milieu. This was before I knew about the hero's journey stuff and tributes to Japanese cinema. The movie got slated by some cinema critics in the UK, who obviously missed the point and took it way too seriously.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Apparently Super Lubricity is a thing scientists are researching for & Graphite might be the key to it.
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Apparently Super Lubricity is a thing scientists are researching for & Graphite might be the key to it.

And it looks like some assumptions on friction are false:

Great...not only does electromagnetism not lend itself to anti-gravity...nor even stay neutral and out of the way.

No-no, it has to go and make things worse.

Between this, and the Corvette-eating sinkhole, we know two things:

God is a Ford fan....and hates sci-fi/aerospace buffs.
 
Last edited:
"...a new mechanism of sliding friction: resistance to motion that arises without any mechanical contact, driven purely by collective magnetic dynamics."
Is that really new? Isn't that how a stepper motor locks in a stop position? Haven't we understood this dynamic all along?

-Will
 
Tom's Hardware - Researchers reach superconductivity at ambient pressure, record high temperature — milestone of -122°C reached by using pressure quenching, still 140 degrees off room temperature target
Researchers from the University of Houston have achieved superconductivity at ambient pressure and a transition temperature of 151 K (−122°C) by applying a pressure quenching technique used to create artificial diamonds. This is a record high temperature for superconductivity at ambient pressure, which is why researchers Ching-Wu Chu and Liangzi Deng believe that the achievement marks a notable advance toward practical superconducting systems. Still, they are 140°C away from achieving superconductivity at room temperature.

Superconductivity is a state in which a material has zero electrical resistance and repels magnetic fields. The state can be achieved under very low temperatures and/or very high pressure, but the industry has to figure out how to achieve it using ambient temperatures and pressure. The main challenge is that the conditions needed for a high critical temperature (Tc) — the point where resistance disappears — are usually unstable at normal conditions. Superconductivity relies on fragile electron pairs that break apart as temperature rises. Applying high pressure can strengthen these interactions by squeezing the material and changing its electronic structure, which increases Tc. However, these improved states typically exist only under extreme pressure, and once it is removed, the material returns to normal and loses its superconductivity. The key goal for scientists is to create materials that keep strong electron pairing and high Tc at ambient pressure — which is essential for practical use — so this is what the scientists from the University of Houston are studying.

The team worked with a mercury-based cuprate superconductor known as Hg1223, a material known for its high transition temperatures. Historically, Hg1223 reached superconductivity at 133 K (−140°C) under ambient conditions, a record that stood since 1993. The new study raises this temperature by 18 K to 151 K (−122°C).

The key enabler behind the advance is a technique called pressure quenching: the material is first subjected to intense pressure to enhance its electronic properties and increase Tc. While still under pressure, the sample is cooled to a defined temperature, after which the pressure is abruptly removed. This sequence effectively preserves the pressure-induced state of the material and therefore maintains its improved superconducting behavior at ambient pressure. While pressure-assisted superconductivity is well documented, retaining these properties after decompression has proven challenging, which is why this demonstration seems to be significant.

An added bonus of the work is that operating at ambient pressure simplifies experimentation and development as materials stable under normal conditions can be studied using widely available laboratory tools, which boosts both fundamental materials research and applied R&D.

Superconductors can be useful for multiple electronics, energy, medical, and industrial applications, including emerging fusion energy platforms, high-performance electronics, and magnetic resonance imaging systems. All of these devices can benefit from zero-resistance operation, but they cannot use extreme cooling methods, such as liquid nitrogen or something more exotic.

1 Step closer to Room Temperature/Pressure SuperConductors.

If you only need "Liquid Nitrogen" to run SuperConductors, that's a huge step up and somebody with deep pockets can afford to pull it off with the right application & use case.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top