Lifeboat Foundation

As well as admiring beautiful pictures of space, you can also listen to those pictures via sonifications. These take images and translate them into eerie sounds to illustrate the wonderful and strange phenomena of our universe. NASA’s latest sonification illustrates the rings of X-rays that have been observed echoing around a black hole in the V404 Cygni system.

The sonification was made using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, both of which look in the X-ray wavelength. The data from the optical wavelength come from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii. Taken together, you can see how the X-ray bursts propagate outward from a central point which is the black hole. The black hole itself remains invisible, as it absorbs all light.

However, even though black holes are themselves invisible, the material around them can glow brightly. As material like dust and gas is attracted to the black hole due to gravity, it joins into a swirling disk around the black hole called an accretion disk. This material rubs together and creates heat due to friction, and can become so hot that it glows.

An atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity seen in cuprate crystals, confirming a 35-year-old theory.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-ZeeuDrknYc

Technology — An investigation into the advancements in digital technology unique to the gaming industry. They can either enhance our lives and make the world a better place to live, or we may find ourselves in a dystopian future where we are ruled and controlled by the very technologies we rely on.

End Game — Technology (2021)
Director: J. Michael Long.
Writers: O.H. Krill.
Stars: Paul Jamison, Razor Keeves.
Genre: Documentary.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Release Date: 2021 (USA)

Continue reading “End Game” »

Yakir Aharanov, winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Science, summarizes the main ideas behind the two-state vector formalism.

At the research workshop on the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics at the Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Tel-Aviv University, 18–24 October 2022, Prof Lev Vaidman asked: “Why is the many-worlds interpretation not in the consensus?” This was my answer.

😗

Elon GOAT Token’s efforts to deliver the statue landed the company on Twitter’s U.S. trending page. Musk purchased the social network last month, causing an upheaval with mass layoffs, departed advertisers and potential changes to the process of obtaining a Twitter Blue check mark.

Costing a total of $600,000, according to Elon GOAT Token, the Musk sculpture is a nod to the billionaire’s fame — a rocket representing SpaceX, the spacecraft company Musk founded; and the literal goat, a word that is also used as an acronym for the phrase “Greatest Of All Time.”

Continue reading “Giant Musk ‘Goat’ statue arrives at Tesla factory in crypto stunt” »

QC: Still not actually useful, but it’s increasingly intriguing.

‘There is no excuse for my lack of coasters,’ Musk says as he continues to tout value of new Twitter.

• Through Innovate UK, the Department for Transport has commissioned a Costain led consortium to assess the economic and technical potential of the UK’s first ‘eHighway’

• The study is part of the UK government’s plan to reach zero net emissions for heavy road freight.

• It aims to demonstrate the technology is ready for a national roll-out.