Some say the world will end in fire; some say ice. Others prefer to trot out obscure scientific theories. Strange as it might seem, the pole shift hypothesis, in which the Earth’s crust and mantle (or outermost layers) move as one piece, did not spring from the fevered imaginations of the sandwich-board set, but from scientific circles, and it’s rooted solidly in physics.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Hollywood got it right …
Space is as hostile as environments come. Astronauts encounter temperatures that swing from 248 F (120 C) to -148 F (-100 C), and that’s just near Earth. The temperature of deep space plummets to -454 F (-270 C). Even the relative comfort of a space station—with its carefully regulated temperature, pressure and mix of gases—offers no escape from the ravages of prolonged exposure to microgravity.
If ever a setting called for robotic assistance, space is that place; but working in place of and, particularly, alongside humans requires a combination of strength, gentleness and dexterity unequaled by robots found anywhere else. Let’s take a look at …
We tend to think of nanotechnology as the stuff of the future, but it’s already here, in hundreds of consumer products and industrial applications. As progress in this minuscule world has accelerated, concern for the environment and for public health has led to a call for green nanotechnology—approaches that accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. In this article, we’ll take a tour of how these many approaches are playing out.
We study mathematics for its beauty, its elegance and its capacity to codify the patterns woven into the fabric of the universe. Within its figures and formulas, the secular perceive order and the religious catch distant echoes of the language of creation. Mathematics achieves the sublime; sometimes, as with tessellations, it rises to art.
Related Article:
• Quiz: Tessellate this!
Alfred Nobel and several recipients of his namesake Peace Prize alike contributed to warfare and violence in numerous ways—a fact that some find ironic. Yet, Nobel lived at a time when scientists didn’t consider themselves responsible for how others used their inventions, and he held a view of destructive-weaponry-as-deterrent that presaged the Cold War philosophy of Mutually Assured Destruction, so perhaps there was a method to his M.A.D.-ness. As for the others I discuss in my article below, only history can judge.