Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Loud Whispers]

Solid air? Only humans...

Yeah, that stuff is cool. Because of it's ridiculous insulation properties, I've contemplated the possibility of making refrigerator doors out of the stuff. That way you can see what you have without opening the door!

Some foodstuffs don't like being exposed to light though. Also, insulation works 2 ways. Since the thingy let's light in, but not heat out, your fridge would effectively become a greenhouse.

Heat pump!

[Lagslayer]

The obvious solution would be to put the stuff inside a thin metal shell. You don't make things entirely out of the insulating material because those tend to be too fragile (at least as far as heat insulation goes).

[10ebbor10]

That would void the seethrough part though.

Oh, and aerogel isn't in the least fragile. It's rather strong for it's size and weight.

[Lagslayer]

Strong for it's size and weight, but can still be punctured with relative ease because there's hardly anything there.

[Another]

Yeah... I've kinda realised I'm a terrible OP >_>

The sad thing about the Higg's discovery is it seems to exactly match the expected properties... so no cool new physics

Allow me to disagree. If Higgs had not been found where it was expected - already mostly established theories of supersymmetry or additional compactified dimensions would stand much better chance of being right. And they were claiming to explain everything up to at least an order of magnitude above LHC if not halfway to the Plank scale. That would be in some way now new physics for at least a few dozens of years.

Currently lots of supersymmetry theorists are disappointed but new physics is sure to manifest at around 1 TeV/quark (around the limit of maximum energy LHC has already achieved and below what it will get after the current planned upgrade). That is just from the Standard Model predictions that if no new something (e.g. new particles) appears at higher energies it becomes not self-consistent. A different simple and strong argument is that Dark Matter apparently exists and a heavy stable particle not in the Standard Model is a very natural candidate for it.

I, for one, think that a problem for which no good theories currently match the data is more interesting than a problem for which good candidate solutions are known.

[Starver]

That would void the seethrough part though.

Which is of course most important for the experiment that is to come after the LHC is mothballed and the necessary funding is freed up.

The RLO, or "Refrigerator Light Observer", is hoped to answer the most important question ever asked in modern times.

[Osmosis Jones]

Yeah... I've kinda realised I'm a terrible OP >_>

The sad thing about the Higg's discovery is it seems to exactly match the expected properties... so no cool new physics

Allow me to disagree...

...I, for one, think that a problem for which no good theories currently match the data is more interesting than a problem for which good candidate solutions are known.

I'm not really sure how that's disagreeing with me; I lament the lack of new physics because it means, to the limit of our current data, we have explained everything we can. We have matched all the data. If further discoveries are made at higher energies, great, but for now, no new physics. Hence sad face

[DrPoo]

Looking back at my fucking rediculous posts in this thread now the higgs has been found i feel like a massive idiot.
I apologise.

[Scoops Novel]

I also apologise.

[Virex]

Solid air? Only humans...

Yeah, that stuff is cool. Because of it's ridiculous insulation properties, I've contemplated the possibility of making refrigerator doors out of the stuff. That way you can see what you have without opening the door!

Some foodstuffs don't like being exposed to light though. Also, insulation works 2 ways. Since the thingy let's light in, but not heat out, your fridge would effectively become a greenhouse.

Use switchable glass, perhaps?

[Osmosis Jones]

MOAR SCIENCE!

Potential 30 day Mars trips, using magnetically initiated fusion.

Now, even if that Q-thruster doesn't pan out, we have legit ways to get to Mars in a realistic timeframe!

EDIT: Correct terminology.

[palsch]

That's actually inertial confinement fusion, just with the inertia delivered by magnetism rather than lasers or explosives as is traditional.

As a rule;
ICF generates a plasma by squashing a pellet.
MCF holds a plasma in a magnetic bottle and heats it.

[Osmosis Jones]

A hurr-duurrr. Cheers, fixed. Magnetically triggered, not confined.

[Another]

If this proposal can achieve at least double the efficiency of ion drives - what could prevent us from constructing such engine on earth and extracting fusion energy at net gain?

[Osmosis Jones]

If this proposal can achieve at least double the efficiency of ion drives - what could prevent us from constructing such engine on earth and extracting fusion energy at net gain?

Because it basically works by exploding a pellet of fusable material, and having the resulting explosion rush out the back; great as a propulsion method, less than ideal for extracting energy in the form of electricity.