Assorted and Sundry Hypotheses in Physics and Medicine

[PLCoulomb]

Publication #35 -  Terahertz Regime Alternation of Applied Magnetic Force in Alloyed Materials for Reactive Armor Reinforcement (2026 August 16)

Synopsis:

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In most circumstances, this truism is certainly accurate. When it comes, however, to extremely short timescales, this author believes that the opposite can be true, provided certain specific conditions are met.

This publication will explore the possibility of creating metallic alloys composed of both ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic metals and applying external magnetic fields in order to create cohesive forces between the ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic components. This author proposes that a synthetically modulated grain may be introduced to alloyed materials, similar to the grain in wood. Anyone who has ever cut a piece of wood understands that the grain of the wood will impact the ease which the wood may be cut and can produce the undesired effect of “pull” on a saw blade.

Although the grain of wood is fixed in nature and is predicated upon variations in density, the grain in this author’s proposed material would, although the ferromagnetic and the non-ferromagnetic components would be fixed in terms of their positional inter-relationships, would not be fixed in terms of the locus of areas of artificial resistance to density, which would be modulated by an externally applied magnetic field activated in response to the detection of an imminent impact by a projectile and which would be adjustable in its quality according to the velocity of that projectile.

Creating areas of artificially amplified or diminished density would accomplish for a metallic armor what carbon-fiber does for fiber-resin composites, but which would allow for far greater strengths to be achieved, at least over the timescales involved in countering a blast wave (no more than 50ms.)

In such a system, high-density materials encountering zones of amplified density would be forced to go around these areas. However, because these artificially-generated areas do not exist for more than picoseconds, the high-density materials such as penetrator material does not have a chance to “stack,” and therefore never reaches the needed density to penetrate the material. That material must move into lower-density areas.

Over longer timescales, structural materials and armors are only as strong as their weakest link. However, at timescales of less than a few nanoseconds, ferromagnetic fiber-doped solid armor subjected to magnetically amplified adhesion from alternating directions could be predicted to take on the strength of the material at its strongest point, much as a propeller, despite featuring expansive empty areas between its blades, may as well be a solid object from the perspective of a bird.


Like the rotation of the blades of a propeller, the variable direction of magnetic forces in this proposed system causes the zones of increased density in this type of armor to rotate, thereby preventing the passage of a blast wave through the material by disrupting the aforementioned kinetic energy feedback loop which is at the heart of penetrator/blast wave propagation through armor.

[PLCoulomb]

Publication #36 - Self-Annealing Runways Composed of Bitumen Chilled by Solid-State Cooling Plates (2026 August 21 A)

Synopsis:

The time and cost involved in runway repair under battlefield conditions is a major limiting factor for modern militaries. Concrete is generally used for runway construction because its high tensile strength allows the runway to support the weight of exceptionally heavy aircraft such as cargo aircraft and it remains strong at a variety of temperatures.

Some classes of materials become weakened by cold temperatures, whereas others are strengthened by them. The long “set time” for concrete is the primary culprit extending repair times after combat damage is inflicted. A repair crew can race onto the runway as soon as the air raid sirens fall silent, but this does not negate the fact that it takes a couple of days for concrete to properly “set.”

Tar, which is primarily composed of bitumen coal, is abundant and cheap, but is not used for runway construction because of its low strength at high temperatures. Anyone who has ever been for a walk on a hot summer day and has stepped in tar sometimes used to patch potholes knows of this phenomenon.

However, if there were a way to ensure that tar could be kept exceptionally cold without the consumption of electrical power, not only would these runways be cheaper and faster to build, they could self-anneal in under 30 minutes after an attack. Hot tar could simply be added to fill in the damaged areas. These patches would freeze and, once they drop below the freezing point of water, will be strong enough to support the weight of an aircraft.

This may well be possible thanks to a new class of thermoelectric material which maintains a “permanently” cryonic state and is also capable of generating its own electrical power.

Publication #37 - Utilizing Partially Optical Double-Gate Thyristors in Order to Enable Timing-Based Voltage Control of Impulses within CMOS Processors (2026 August 21 B)

In a traditional CMOS processor, switches in the form of transistors are “thrown” by applying additional voltage which causes the transistors to conduct voltage, in addition to a primary pathway, toward an additional, secondary pathway leading to additional switches. This has traditionally required that the amount of current running into a transistor be increased; a process which requires some small amount of time. At each “switch,” charge must accumulate and some small length of time is needed for charge to accumulate and for the second gate to open, even after the voltage has arrived. In the aggregate, these small increments of time add up.

This author proposes that the switching speed of transistors could be substantially increased by conjugating a specialized thyristor with a conductive pathway connecting two transistors. This thyristor, although it would not be connected to an entirely discrete power source, would contribute the needed additional power to achieve the “threshold voltage” of the transistor.

If we have, for example, a processor which completes a processing cycle five billion times per second i.e. it operates at 5 GHz, we can use sub-clocks to encode switching information into the timing of the pulses input into the processor. Instead of having to adjust voltage, we adjust timing in order to open the correct combination of gates to deliver the needed voltage. Light bouncing between two mirrors in the thyristor back-channel would act as a precision clock in its own right. Electrical impulses arriving a picosecond early would be doubled, but those arriving in exact step with the expected timing would not be, for instance.

Although clock speeds could be increased through this mechanism and there would be the potential for implementing a ternary processing regime via this mechanism, perhaps the most interesting feature of this system is how little heat is generated compared to a traditional CMOS processor.