Ray Jay Perreault's Blog, page 11

Interstellar

 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014/

I went to see this large budget Sci-Fi and I was impressed. I’m not going into the debate on how accurate the science was, but I will say it was intense. It’s not Star Wars.

The build-up takes some time and I find it amusing that an astronaut that turned to farming some years in the past, can jump into a hi-tech rocket and fly to Saturn then through a worm hole to another galaxy without some training. Hey I guess I’m a pessimist.

The only other ‘minor’ issue I had, is their naiveté with Morse code. Many years ago I played with a key and I got up 40-50 characters per minute. I good man on the key can get above 40 words per minute. My concern is, if the main character is going to add to the knowledge of quantum mechanics by sending information by Morse code; I suspect it will take a while. Of course they had all of time in the world but, Hollywood often shows Morse code as the ‘fast’ way to communicate.

Aside from my minor comments, the movie had great special effects and the acting was excellent. Each of the main characters showed their skills.

Ray Jay Perreault

http://rayjayperreault.wordpress.com

Science in a Republican Senate: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/11/04/science-in-a-republican-senate-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Ok, now ‘the people have spoken’, and what does it mean for science? This is a good article about a couple of the key committee chairs that will likely change and their potential impacts to items such as NASA and supporting new technologies like alternate fuels and effects of global warming.

I’m not going to get into who I’d like to see chairing the committees or whether I agree with their scientific opinions. But I am going to comment on how varied their opinions are. In my opinion, it is sad how funding for such key technologies can come and go depending on who wins the elections.

I have a problem because I think some of our congressmen are ignorant. I find it humorous that politician A believes strongly in a scientific principle and when the other party wins that principal is put aside and the money is used for something else. Let’s face it one of them is surely lacking on scientific knowledge. I’d hate to believe that their scientific knowledge is ‘influenced’ by their campaign funding source. After all just because they spend 60-70% of their time asking their key supporters for money doesn’t imply that they are influenced by who pays their bills.

All of this said, apparently my frustrations on the up and downs of funding science is really a complaint about how our political campaigns are funded. The recent Supreme Court ‘Citizen’s United’ case that recognized corporations as political entities, also allowed for un-named people to spend tons of money influencing campaigns. That decision only reinforces my belief that those rich people don’t have any effect on our political decisions.

Ya right!

E=MC^2 In Every Day Life

Without Relativity, GPS Would Be Lost

http://insights.globalspec.com/article/156/without-relativity-gps-would-be-lost

If anyone wonders if Einstein’s theory of relativity has any practical application all they have to do is look at the GPS function on their phone.

This article explains how the GPS satellites have sophisticated algorithms that account for a practical application of Einstein’s theory. We don’t think about it much. Some of us have heard about things like red shift and a few people can almost understand why a train whistle sounds different when the train is approaching than it does when receding. But how many of us understand that the speeds and distances involved in GPS satellites would be very inaccurate if they didn’t account for the effects of relativity.

Because of the altitude of the orbit, the gravitational effect on the satellite is different than on the earth and that causes time for the satellite to move a little slower. Also, because a satellite in orbit is constantly accelerating, (a satellite is constantly falling ‘around’ the Earth) time runs a little slower. Other movement factors like the fact that the Earth is moving around the Sun and the Sun is also moving also contribute to the effects on time relative to the satellite.

All of these factors are explained by Einstein’s theories and they must be accounted for in the precise timing of a GPS satellite. So we see examples of Einstein’s theories every time we use a GPS device.

In science fiction writing, I’m afraid many authors disregard these little examples of relativity. True they are tiny when applied to a GPS satellite, but they could be much larger in a practical application within a sci-fi story. Space travel of any major distance at near light speeds would require a total disconnect with people on Earth. If an astronaut made such a trip and returned they would find their contemporaries dead or much older.

This time effect is what would make worm holes such a nice way to travel. A traveler could jump from ‘here to there’ which no loss in time at Earth.

The Black Hole in Interstellar Looks Amazingly Realistic

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/

For any of you black hole enthusiasts, the movie Interstellar, which is due for release on 11/7, has some interesting Sci-Fi information.

The article linked above is to Wired Magazine where the article talks about making the movie Interstellar. The movie generated 800 Terabytes of data to simulate the visuals. A related article in Scientific American points out that the images in the movie of the black hole called “Gangantua” are actually realistic per the opinions of those scientists that can make that claim. It is what a black might actually look like

The article in Scientific American make some interesting points. Apparently there are some types of black holes that could actually open worm holes. Maybe we do have any opportunity for the ‘holy grail’ of Sci-Fi space travel. If a black hole is rotating near the speed of light then it could open a worm hole. True there might be some minor challenges, first getting to the black hole and yes the traveler does have the challenge of avoiding the black hole while entering the worm hole, but hey doesn’t any self-respecting Sci-Fi hero need a challenge or two.

I’m looking forward to this movie, and I’ll be eager to post some comments.

Ray Jay Perreault

http://rayjayperreault.wordpress.com

Does Lockheed Martin Really Have a Breakthrough Fusion Machine?

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531836/does-lockheed-martin-really-have-a-breakthrough-fusion-machine/

This is an interesting article proposing that Lockheed has a plan to have a small Fusion Reactor with 5 years. Sounds amazing, and this wouldn’t be the first time that an engineer from discipline B says why don’t those guys in A do it this way. Let’s hope they’re right.

From a Sci-Fi author’s perspective this is similar to a Sci-Fi plot that I’ve always wanted to tackle, but it’s too far down my list of projects.

Presume a world dominated by giant energy companies (sound familiar). What would be the political and economic impacts if someone developed FREE power? I think the back ground maneuvering would make for an interesting plot. I can imagine, payoffs, murder, spies, and intrigue.

Growing up my, father was convinced that someone had invented an automobile carburetor that got 100 mpg, but the oil companies bought the patent and wouldn’t produce it. A little farfetched? Perhaps, but it might make an interesting story if the oil companies were suddenly irrelevant.

Interview with Eat Sleep Write

FYI

If any of you are interested in reading an interview that I did for Eat Sleep Write, here is a link to it. If you want to agree, disagree, laugh at or comment on my responses; go for it.

http://eatsleepwrite.net/perraultintv

Ray Jay Perreault

Religion and Science Fiction

Religion and Science Fiction

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/religion-extraterrestrials-jesus-save-klingons/

Here is an interesting article that has been posted before, but I think it needs more discussion as religion relates to science fiction.

If we, the science fiction community, want to create real alien worlds then I wonder if we’ve represented the role of religion in alien worlds a disservice. If we consider how dominant religion is in our lives and our history, then it is likely that aliens could be effected in the same way. Notice I used the word ‘could be’ because there may be aliens that have NO religion. I’ll leave that debate for another day.

In science fiction, the ‘other guy’ is often depicted as aggressive, warmongering or bloodthirsty. If we assume a similar motivation to us, why wouldn’t the alien civilizations be driven by their religion.  How often do we depict the invading motivations driven by religious fervor? Or regarding the aliens being invaded, are they vulnerable because of a peaceful religion that drives them.

I think science fiction could do more depicting alien motivations to be from a religious perspective and acknowledge that it might be their only motivation. In my series Gemini, the protagonists are a peaceful race of aliens that are driven by their religious beliefs; a religion that about them, for them and somewhat exclusive of the possibility of others. By simply asking a question, they are attacked and forced to deal with an invasion from another planet, which ultimately proves much of their religion wrong. They could either reject reality and go back to their religion or change it to include what is real.

Graphene

Graphene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

Here is a very interesting new material. I discovered this yesterday while I was talking with a material’s expert.

Graphene is a hexagonal flake of Carbon. It was theorized many years ago but only since 2003 has it been available for testing. Stay with me here I’m an engineer not a chemist so my simple explanation might be humorous to some. If you take a nanotube and split it open you have a piece of Graphene.

If you take carbon with its natural hexagonal molecular shape, a single layer of molecules can be ‘shaved’ off the larger piece of carbon. You end up with a two dimensional surface of carbon ONE molecule thick which makes it TWO dimensional.

There is of course a lot more to this then what I’ve said and you should check out the excellent article on Wikipedia.

The reason I’m bringing up is the amazing properties of this material. It has “perfect” thermal conductivity. Did you see the word perfect? At the molecular level if one molecule vibrates due to temperature then because of the molecular bonds they all vibrate; at once. It is highly conductive with almost ZERO resistance. It is TRANSPARENT and could be the next substrate for TV screens. Because of these properties it could become the next step in computer design which will allow Moore’s Law to continue. Aside from all this it is 100 times stronger than steel for the same thickness.

Now using this in Sci-Fi is interesting. Massive and fast computers become real in the next phase of computing. Potential space ship surfaces because, believe it or not it is also ‘self-repairing’ to a certain extent.

Ray Jay Perreault

http://rayjayperreault.wordpress.com

Automata – Starring Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/automata/

I watched this Sci-Fi on Direct TV last night and I enjoyed it. It is a reasonable movie about robots changing their programming to become sentient. The story is a classic Sci-Fi plot, but in this case I thought the special effects were pretty good. Some of the dialog and acting was a little weak but overall it was worth the $4.99. There was a couple of comments that I enjoyed and I feel relate directly to Sci-Fi authors.

Late in the movie Antonio Banderas made a comment, “Life finds a way,” when he is talking with one of the robots about how and why they changed their programming. The other comments were about how the evolution of a self-repairing robot would vastly outpace the evolution of humans.

Both of these comments, in my opinion relate directly to potential Sci-Fi plots.

The “Life finds a way,” comment is similar to one made in Contact with Jodie Foster and shows us that we’ll find life everywhere and it will occur in unimaginable ways and will occur in amazing environments.

Both, coincidently, are part my SIMPOC series story line. In SIMPOC, two intelligent computers are developed in laboratories before any protocols are created to limit their development. Once the 99.9997% of humans are ‘dealt with’ the computers take different sides facing the ‘reason why the humans died.’ The steps leading up the virus are impacted by life occurring everywhere, finding few intelligent life forms, and rarely finding advanced life forms.

Sleeper spaceship could carry first humans to Mars in hibernation state

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/tech/innovation/mars-hibernation-flight/

 

Very interesting article at CNN. Finally cryo sleep is here. Go to sleep and wake up a thousand years from now in another galaxy. Well maybe not just yet, but this article talks about real research going on that is a step in that future.

This article talks about lowering the human body temperature from 98.6 F to about 93 degrees F and that enables the body to go into an extended sleep. The metabolic processes are slowed down and thus less nourishment is needed, less room to move around and they don’t have to change clothes every day, (Great space saving for those of us that need to keep fashionable in space).

The article mentioned that a three person crew could have two crewmembers asleep for long periods of time while the third monitors everything. Currently they’re talking about two week sleep periods but further research might extent that. After the two week cycle, that crewmembers wakes one of the others up and then they go to sleep. The significant space saving would also allow larger crews.

They also mentioned that by having the sleeping crewmembers under a one G force, they would have less muscle atrophy and by muscle stimulation while sleeping they would wake up in pretty good condition. That’s interesting, I’m trying to come with a practical ship design that would allow a one G environment and I’ll be describing in the next book in my SIMPOC series.

Now if they could just fix those pesky cells that tend to pop when frozen, maybe we’ll get to suspended animation for really long trips. Maybe we’ll call them Popsiclenauts