Science

Making AeroGel

aerogel

TEOS – Tetra Ethyl Ortho Silicate   is the main ingredient

Tetraethyl_orthosilicate_3D

TEOS Recipe for usage

TEOS Venders

Costs

  • SilBond – Yet to find out what TEOS costs. I have a phone call in to SilBond

Interview with George Haig on Silbond products from technical perspective  – For purposes of making refractory and ceramic shapes Silbond 40  ( 40% SiO2 )  was recommended.   Summary of method is as follows:

  • mix SilBond  with the organic amine
  • mix SilBond / Amine with refractory ( sand & ?  … ) ( usually use more than just sand: Zircon flowers, alumina etc ) ( quoted: used for casting jet engine housings and glass handling tools )
  • add water to facilitate
  • pack or vibrate the wet casting – given water and amine you have a given amount of time to get the job done
  • Silbond 40 – Cost =   2.22 / lbs- minimum quanties for 1 drum.  Minimum 150$ min order.  ( Lisa Rally – costing information )
     

Technical contact

  • Silbond – George Haig

…..more

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Video: Desmond Morris The Human Animal

Youtube: Desmond Morris The Human Animal

Overview

The Human Animal which accompanies a major six-part series, shows that, however much we may think we have evolved from our animal ancestors, our instincts and behaviour are still rooted in our animal past. By denying this inheritance we are in danger of destroying everything we have strived so hard to create. Despite the different skin colours, beliefs and rituals to be found in the 5000 million human beings alive today, we actually all share an almost identical genetic heritage. In this portrait of the human species, Desmond Morris takes us right to the centre of human existence and explores all aspects of human life and behaviour. From the way we rear our young to the common use of certain facial gestures, he covers a fascinating variety of subjects: how our hunting instincts have been channelled into an extraordinary range of sporting activities; how the modern art world can trace its roots back to an early primate picking up a stone resembling a face; how different courtship rituals across the world reflect the universal emotion of love. Desmond Morris also looks at some of the damaging consequences that can be seen when we try to deny our animal heritage: how territorial fights erupt when the tribal systems within our overcrowded cities break down, and how human relationships disintegrate when natural social or sexual patterns change. Both candid and entertaining, Desmond Morris exposes our foibles, celebrates our triumphs and gives us a new understanding of the way we behave. A world-renowned zoologist, he has already fundamentally changed the way we perceive ourselves. Now The Human Animal takes us one step closer to confronting our true identity.


The Language of the Body

The BBC's Natural History Unit focuses on the planet's most advanced animal, beginning with a look at how man communicated before the evolution of language. Some gestures and expressions are so ingrained that we have not been able to erase them from our vocabulary. 


The Hunting Ape

This episode looks at our most fundamental activity – finding food, examining how humans exploit even the most inhospitable environments, and analysing how our origins as hunter-gatherers manifest themselves in the fast-food culture of the modern world. 

]The Human Zoo

In evolutionary terms, the human animal has gone from mud hut to skyscraper in the mere twinkling of an eye. The cameras of the Natural History Unit capture the subtleties of human hierarchy in an English pub, the urge to set up and defend territory in a Tokyo park, and tribal behaviour as displayed by gangs in Los Angeles. 

[edit]The biology of love

In this program, Desmond Morris analyzes the biological nature of love, with its attendant patterns of behaviour and signals of health and fertility that have evolved to ensure pair-bonding and genetic survival. The pre- and post-pubescent periods of sexual maturation, the stages of courtship, and the aesthetics of physical beauty are studied, along with the anatomical mechanics of sexual arousal and copulation. In addition, the stresses placed on couples by life in an urbanized, crowded world are explored. 

[edit]The Immortal Genes

Desmond Morris looks at the natural history of the human parent and child. Why do homo sapiens devote more time to raising their young than any other animal? What makes parents sacrifice so much for their children, and why, once the offspring have been raised, don't humans simply die off as other creatures do? Desmond reveals how children offer a way of overcoming death itself. 

[edit]Beyond Survival

Humans are animals with similar biological needs to other species. So why have we got art, cinema, sport, literature and philosophy? In the last programme in the series, Desmond Morris examines what the human animal does when it has sorted out its basic needs – food, warmth and shelter – and has gone beyond mere survival. Morris explores the inventiveness of human behaviour, and comes to some fascinating conclusions. 

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Video: The Prize – The Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power

Google keeps deleting the videos.  To get around this I am placing a search link

YouTubeSearch: The Prize

​Part 1

 In the style of the acclaimed CIVIL WAR series, THE PRIZE tells the epic history of oil – how it has dominated global politics, shaken the world economy, and transformed our century. Shot on location in Azerbaijan, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Russia, Scotland, Turkey, and the United States, the series features fascinating characters, never-before-seen archival footage, newly filmed segments, and interviews with the people who shaped the oil industry. Yergin appears on camera throughout the series to discuss oil's impact on politics, economics, and the environment. We see how oil becomes the largest industry in the world–a game of huge risks and monumental rewards. Narrated by Donald Sutherland, THE PRIZE represents cinematic storytelling at its best – a historically significant tale of a quest for mastery that has revolutionized our civilization." PART ONE: Our Plan "Trace the turbulent, rapid rise of the world's biggest business, how a visionary but ruthless John D. Rockefeller controlled it–and how reporter Ida Tarbell took him on in one of the most famous muckraking exposes ever. A fascinating look at Rockefeller's controversial legacy, the rise of modern business, and how Tarbell served as the role model for the modern investigative journalist

Part 2

The Prize Episode Two: Empires of Oil "Witness capitalism on a grand scale: how Shell Oil and Royal Dutch merged, then challenged the supremacy of Rockefeller's Standard Oil. A compelling tale of how oil transformed everyday life in the farthest corners of the globe, made Russia a great oil power, and helped the Allies win World War I

 Part 3

The Prize Episode Three: The Black Giant "It's the Roaring Twenties, and the magic of oil touches everyone, from millions of new car owners to hopeful Texan wildcatters. The American oil industry wrestles with shortage and surplus, as flamboyant entrepreneur Calouste Gulbenkian stakes his claim in Iraq

Part 4

The Prize Episode Four: War and Oil "The untold story of World War II unfolds: how oil dictated strategy to Hitler; how lack of oil slowed Japan's war machine; how oil ultimately determined victory or defeat. Features rare footage on the critical impact of oil on decisive military events

Part 5

The Prize Episode Five: Crude Diplomacy "Post World War II America awakens to the strategic importance of oil and witnesses a key moment in history when oil production shifts from the US to the Middle East. An extraordinary cast of characters, including Arabian kings, US presidents, British adventurers, Iranian politicians, and American explorers paint a global portrait of how oil shaped the world economy and politics

Part 6

The Prize Episode Six: Power to the Producers "It's the heyday of cheap oil, the dawn of the Hydrocarbon Society…and the introduction of a prosperous new automobile culture for Americans. Follow the flamboyant characters, plots, and counterplots, as the producing countries and the independent oil companies challenge the "Seven Sisters"–and open a new era in world oil

Part 7

 The Prize Episode Seven: The Tinderbox "Relive two decades of upheaval that shook the world as power shifted, and nations and companies jockeyed for position–amidst embargoes, shortages, and surpluses. A unique view of the rise of the OPEC era, beginning with the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and ending with the burning oil wells of Kuwait

Part 8

The Prize Episode Eight: The New Order of Oil "The Gulf War marked the beginning of a new era for the Hydrocarbon Society. This program explores the relationship between oil and the environmental c wlitith onscience, and the technological race to balance energy, economic, and ecological needs in the Information Age. WARNING:  This episode is not good because it focuses in on the ecological criticisms.  If you watch it note how GreenPeace member positions himself in front of an oil platform and criticizes.  He tried to make himself look big by doing so but ends up paling in comparison with the work of titans in the form of an oil derrick.  Very little content is useful because we all know cities have smog due to many cars being driven.  What the environmentalists fail to do is solve any problems as they are in effect professional complainers with little to no skill in engineering or science,

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Quantum Entanglement of Photons demonstrated in relatively low cost set up

  • Louis DeBroglie does not get the credit he deserves for original thinking in quantum machanics – DeBroglie thesis paper   – he won the Nobel Prize in 1929 for very good reasons which you will see if you read his thesis paper.
  • I am looking for the single photon counter used in this experimental setup

PowerPoint presentation of experiment Uses an SPCM-APD  ( Single Photon Counting Module – Avalanch Photo Detector )

One of the experimenters

Relatively simple setup uses spontaneous parametric downconversion of photon to create 2 photons that are entangled.  Then these are sent to 2 single photon detectors.   If you have any of the parts or pieces of this setup for sale I would be interested in buying.     

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Summary Outline of Richard Feynmans Thesis – Framework for learning QED and Quantum Mechanics in general

He was a fun guy.

 A reasonable strategy for learning QED would be to try to recreate Richard Feynman's path of discovery that lead him to his thesis paper.   If you are an electrical or computer engineer you should probably set about the task of learning the subject for sooner or later quantum computing and nanotechnology are going to go mainstream.  If I am successful in learning this subject it will mark the first time I have not been at least 10 years behind the technology curve when it finally hits.

Research Links

— The following summary is from his Nobel prize address in 1965 and yields some insight as to how he went about the problem of reformulating QED into a more usable form.   It includes some information about the wrong turns he took which of course is very instructive in and of itself. —

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

My Guide to all things Richard Feynman

Wikipedia entry  – with a list of papers at the bottom.

Selected papers of Richard Feynman

Feynman related book bit torrents  – includes the Feynman lectures on physics 1, 2, 3 –  Buy a hard copy because they are great but when traveling soft copy is the way to go.

Feynman lectures on computation  – hard copy on Amazon – Bittorrent   – Of course, we might get useful ideas from studying how the brain works, but we must remember that automobiles do not have legs like cheetahs nor do airplanes flap their wings!

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Video: KITP Lecture : Putting Weirdness to Work: Quantum Information Science

boxes and soxes

Backup copy: Putting quantum weirdness to work: Quantum Information Science

Quantum physics, information theory, and computer science are among the crowning intellectual achievements of the 20th century. Now, a new synthesis of these themes is underway. The emerg- ing field of quantum information science is providing important insights into fundamental issues at the interface of computation and physical science, and may guide the way to revolutionary technological advances. The quantum laws that govern atoms and other tiny objects differ radically from the classical laws that govern our ordinary experience. In particular, quantum information (information en- coded in a quantum system) has weird properties that contrast sharply with the familiar properties of classical information. Physicists, who for many years have relished this weirdness, have begun to recognize in recent years that we can put the weirdness to work: There are tasks involving the acquisition, transmission, and processing of information that are achievable in principle because Nature is quantum mechanical, but that would be impossible in a less weird classical world. John Preskill will describe the properties of quantum bits ("qubits"), the indivisible units of quantum infor- mation, and explain the essential ways in which qubits differ from classical bits. For one thing, it is impossible to read or copy the state of a qubit without disturbing it. This property is the basis of "quantum cryptography," wherein the privacy of secret information can be founded on principles of fundamental physics. Qubits can be "entangled" with one another. This means that the qubits can exhibit subtle quantum correlations that have no classical analogue; roughly speaking, when two qubits are en- tangled, their joint state is more definite than the state of either qubit by itself. Because of quantum entanglement, a vast amount of classical information would be needed to describe completely the quantum state of just a few hundred qubits. Therefore, a "quantum computer" operating on just a few hundred qubits could perform tasks that ordinary digital computers could not possibly emulate. 

Links

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By Fudgy McFarlen, ago