Jul 25, 2016 04:08 AM
We Might Actually Be Able To Make Star Trek’s Photon Torpedoes
http://futurism.com/we-might-actually-be...torpedoes/
EXCERPT: A team from the University of Leicester have examined the likely materials that would go into building Star Trek's photon torpedoes, and they find that it might just be possible to create the tech...
A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature: Ball Lightning
http://nautil.us/blog/a-new-explanation-...-lightning
EXCERPT: [...] The passage of ball lightning into homes via windowpanes and its ability to develop inside aircraft have proved to be challenging observations to come to grips with. Explanations for how ball lightning is formed are even more diverse than its physical characteristics. Just a sampling of the theories out there suggest the ball is a cloud of hot silicon particles, a natural nuclear reaction, a lightning-induced epileptic hallucination, a miniature black hole, an aggregate of cellulose and other natural polymers, and a microwave-filled bubble of plasma
[...] What sets H.-C. Wu’s microwave origin theory apart is that it explains how ball lightning can appear inside an aircraft. Electrons, being tiny relative to atoms, are able to pass through the metal shell of an aircraft after being accelerated outside of it via a lightning strike. Microwaves are then emitted by the suped-up electrons inside where they form ball lightning. The electron-microwave-plasma pathway also explains the size of ball lightning, since the length of the electron bunch sped up by a lightning strike matches up with the typical 20-50 centimeter diameter of the resulting microwave bubble....
http://futurism.com/we-might-actually-be...torpedoes/
EXCERPT: A team from the University of Leicester have examined the likely materials that would go into building Star Trek's photon torpedoes, and they find that it might just be possible to create the tech...
A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature: Ball Lightning
http://nautil.us/blog/a-new-explanation-...-lightning
EXCERPT: [...] The passage of ball lightning into homes via windowpanes and its ability to develop inside aircraft have proved to be challenging observations to come to grips with. Explanations for how ball lightning is formed are even more diverse than its physical characteristics. Just a sampling of the theories out there suggest the ball is a cloud of hot silicon particles, a natural nuclear reaction, a lightning-induced epileptic hallucination, a miniature black hole, an aggregate of cellulose and other natural polymers, and a microwave-filled bubble of plasma
[...] What sets H.-C. Wu’s microwave origin theory apart is that it explains how ball lightning can appear inside an aircraft. Electrons, being tiny relative to atoms, are able to pass through the metal shell of an aircraft after being accelerated outside of it via a lightning strike. Microwaves are then emitted by the suped-up electrons inside where they form ball lightning. The electron-microwave-plasma pathway also explains the size of ball lightning, since the length of the electron bunch sped up by a lightning strike matches up with the typical 20-50 centimeter diameter of the resulting microwave bubble....
