Football Video: Clay Helton, Cam Smith and Porter Gustin talk USC in 2018
- By Adam Maya
- Trojan Talk
- 0 Replies
OT- Rotating At Unbelievable Speeds
- By PanamaSteve
- Trojan Talk
- 1 Replies
That's 1 billion times a second! That's beyond comprehension.
Tiny 'dumbbells' that spin 60 billion times a minute may help solve quantum mysteries
Record-setting rotor could help scientists understand what goes on inside a vacuum.
by Mindy Weisberger, Live Science / Jul.24.2018 / 1:37 PM ET
Researchers at Purdue University have levitated a nanoparticle in vacuum and driven it to rotate at high speed, bringing them one step closer to figuring out the properties of vacuum and quantum mechanics.Vincent Walter / Purdue University
Spinning objects are hypnotic and fascinating, as last year's fidget-spinner craze overwhelmingly demonstrated. But even the fastest fidget spinner trails the new reigning champion of fast-whirling objects: a tiny dumbbell that can rotate 60 billion times per minute.
It's enough to make your head spin.
Spin doctors — er, researchers — recently created the nanoscale rotor and levitated it in a vacuum, blasting it with lasers to set it spinning. Their research, described in a new study, could help reveal how different substances respond under extreme conditions and how friction behaves in a vacuum, Tongcang Li, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, as well as electrical and computer engineering, at Purdue University, said in a statement. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
Over the past decade, researchers have tested the limits — and broken records — for how fast human-made things can spin. In 2008, a motor the size of a matchbook clocked 1 million rotations per minute, Live Science previously reported. Then, in 2010, scientists set a new rotation record when they spun a slice of graphene at a dizzying 60 million spins per minute, Popular Science reported that year.
Scientists crafted tiny silica "dumbbells" that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, spinning them faster than any other human-made object on Earth.Tongcang Li / Purdue University
Three years later, that record was shattered by a microscopic sphere measuring just 4 micrometers — one-tenth the width of a human hair — capable of completing 600 million spins per minute, or about 500,000 times faster than the spin cycle in a washing machine.
For the new study, the scientists tested so-called nanodumbbells made from two joined silica spheres; each dumbbell measured about 0.000012 inch (320 nanometers) long and approximately 0.000007 inch wide (170 nm).
Nanodumbbells were levitated and spun by lasers, rotating 60 billion times per minute.Tongcang Li / Purdue University
Tightly focused laser light can manipulate tiny objects, and the researchers tested their dumbbells by bombarding them with circularly polarized light, which happens when the electric field produced by the light has a constant magnitude but its direction rotates over time. That polarized laser light forced the nanoscale rotors to spin. In the absence of stray air molecules to slow it down — the test was carried out in a vacuum — the tiny spinner was able to achieve rotation speeds of 60 billion rotations per minute, which vastly exceeds what was previously possible, the scientists reported.
The researchers were also able to vibrate the nanodumbbell in place by blasting it with a laser that was linearly polarized, with its light confined to a single plane, they wrote in the study.
Observations of the objects' rotation and vibration shed light on how vacuums work, the scientists explained. People generally think of vacuums as empty, but physicists see a vacuum as occupied by lively virtual particles, Li said in the statement, and this research with levitating, spinning nanodumbbells brings researchers one step closer to figuring out "what's really going on there" on a quantum level, Li said.
Tiny 'dumbbells' that spin 60 billion times a minute may help solve quantum mysteries
Record-setting rotor could help scientists understand what goes on inside a vacuum.
by Mindy Weisberger, Live Science / Jul.24.2018 / 1:37 PM ET
Researchers at Purdue University have levitated a nanoparticle in vacuum and driven it to rotate at high speed, bringing them one step closer to figuring out the properties of vacuum and quantum mechanics.Vincent Walter / Purdue University
Spinning objects are hypnotic and fascinating, as last year's fidget-spinner craze overwhelmingly demonstrated. But even the fastest fidget spinner trails the new reigning champion of fast-whirling objects: a tiny dumbbell that can rotate 60 billion times per minute.
It's enough to make your head spin.
Spin doctors — er, researchers — recently created the nanoscale rotor and levitated it in a vacuum, blasting it with lasers to set it spinning. Their research, described in a new study, could help reveal how different substances respond under extreme conditions and how friction behaves in a vacuum, Tongcang Li, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, as well as electrical and computer engineering, at Purdue University, said in a statement. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
Over the past decade, researchers have tested the limits — and broken records — for how fast human-made things can spin. In 2008, a motor the size of a matchbook clocked 1 million rotations per minute, Live Science previously reported. Then, in 2010, scientists set a new rotation record when they spun a slice of graphene at a dizzying 60 million spins per minute, Popular Science reported that year.
Scientists crafted tiny silica "dumbbells" that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, spinning them faster than any other human-made object on Earth.Tongcang Li / Purdue University
Three years later, that record was shattered by a microscopic sphere measuring just 4 micrometers — one-tenth the width of a human hair — capable of completing 600 million spins per minute, or about 500,000 times faster than the spin cycle in a washing machine.
For the new study, the scientists tested so-called nanodumbbells made from two joined silica spheres; each dumbbell measured about 0.000012 inch (320 nanometers) long and approximately 0.000007 inch wide (170 nm).
Nanodumbbells were levitated and spun by lasers, rotating 60 billion times per minute.Tongcang Li / Purdue University
Tightly focused laser light can manipulate tiny objects, and the researchers tested their dumbbells by bombarding them with circularly polarized light, which happens when the electric field produced by the light has a constant magnitude but its direction rotates over time. That polarized laser light forced the nanoscale rotors to spin. In the absence of stray air molecules to slow it down — the test was carried out in a vacuum — the tiny spinner was able to achieve rotation speeds of 60 billion rotations per minute, which vastly exceeds what was previously possible, the scientists reported.
The researchers were also able to vibrate the nanodumbbell in place by blasting it with a laser that was linearly polarized, with its light confined to a single plane, they wrote in the study.
Observations of the objects' rotation and vibration shed light on how vacuums work, the scientists explained. People generally think of vacuums as empty, but physicists see a vacuum as occupied by lively virtual particles, Li said in the statement, and this research with levitating, spinning nanodumbbells brings researchers one step closer to figuring out "what's really going on there" on a quantum level, Li said.
OT- Interesting Tid Bit About the Civil War
- By PanamaSteve
- Trojan Talk
- 4 Replies
Hidden Compartments in This Wrecked Confederate Submarine Could Solve a 150-Year-Old Mystery
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | July 20, 2018 05:08pm ET
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank in 1864 and wasn't seen again until 1995. Since 2000, conservators have worked tirelessly to reveal the doomed sub's secrets.
Credit: Bruce Smith/AP/REX/Shutterstock
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was a 40-foot-long (12 meter) sausage of bulletproof iron built in Mobile, Alabama, and propelled through the water by seven daring men cranking a single, giant screw.
It was, it's fair to say, not the safest place in which to spend the Civil War. During the Hunley's brief career, between July 1863 and February 1864, the primitive sub sank three times, which resulted in the deaths of 21 of its own crewmen. Nevertheless, on Feb. 17, 1864, the Hunley made history by ramming a live torpedo into the hull of the Union warship USS Housatonic, becoming the first submarine in history to successfully sink an enemy vessel.
Unfortunately, the Hunley sank, too — for its third and final time — shortly after the battle, which resulted in the deaths of its final eight crewmen (seven manning the crank and an eighth steering the ship).
Why the Hunley disappeared that day and how its last crewmen perished have remained mysteries for the better part of two centuries. But on Wednesday (July 18), marine archaeologists at Clemson University in South Carolina unveiled an important new clue in the Hunley enigma.
According to a video released by the Hunley museum in North Charleston, South Carolina, researchers recently discovered a hidden fail-safe mechanism in the Hunley's keel that could have helped the crew escape to the surface in an emergency. The mechanism included a series of heavy metal slabs known as "keel blocks," which weighed close to 1,000 lbs. (454 kilograms) and could be dropped from the bottom of the sub with the pull of a lever.
But they weren't. According to Michael Scafuri, a marine archaeologist at Clemson University who has been studying the Hunley for 18 years, the keel blocks were all found locked in place and the levers untouched. For whatever reason, the crew of the Hunley did not try to escape the ocean floor.
"It's more evidence there wasn't much of a panic on board," Scafuri told the Associated Press.
Dead in the water
A cutaway drawing published in France shows the H.L. Hunley's impressive crank-powered propeller. The sub was so cramped, crewmembers could not stand up straight.
Credit: William A. Alexander/ U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command
The discovery adds fuel to the theory that the final crewmen of the Hunley were either resigned to their watery fate — or they just didn't see it coming. Previous surveys of the wreck have found that the bones of all eight crewmembers had not budged from the men's posts; if there was panic among the ranks, nobody let it show.
One recent hypothesis, raised in a 2017 study by researchers at Duke University, suggests that the crew of the Hunley accidentally killed themselves with the shockwaves from their torpedo's explosion. The fateful torpedo was attached to the bow of the Hunley by a metal spar less than 16 feet (5 meters) long. According to the researchers, who conducted a (very cool) scale reproduction of the explosion using model ships, the resulting shockwaves from the torpedo blast would have been powerful enough to burst the blood vessels in the crewmen's lungs and brains. Such a blast would have probably incapacitated the crew, if it didn’t kill them outright.
The wreck of the Hunley was first discovered 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1995 and was raised from Charleston Harbor in 2000. Over the following decades, conservators have scraped away the centuries-old schmutz of silt, sand and sea life known as "concretion" that had covered the ship. Researchers have since removed more than 1,200 lbs. of the accumulated gunk, revealing the original body of the Hunley for the first time since its mysterious disappearance.
As scientists continue stripping concretion away from the sub's interior, more revelations from the Hunley's final voyage are likely to surface.
"We keep seeing parts that no one has seen in 150 years," Scafuri told the AP. "All of them add into the mix of what happened and how this sub was operated."
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | July 20, 2018 05:08pm ET
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank in 1864 and wasn't seen again until 1995. Since 2000, conservators have worked tirelessly to reveal the doomed sub's secrets.
Credit: Bruce Smith/AP/REX/Shutterstock
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was a 40-foot-long (12 meter) sausage of bulletproof iron built in Mobile, Alabama, and propelled through the water by seven daring men cranking a single, giant screw.
It was, it's fair to say, not the safest place in which to spend the Civil War. During the Hunley's brief career, between July 1863 and February 1864, the primitive sub sank three times, which resulted in the deaths of 21 of its own crewmen. Nevertheless, on Feb. 17, 1864, the Hunley made history by ramming a live torpedo into the hull of the Union warship USS Housatonic, becoming the first submarine in history to successfully sink an enemy vessel.
Unfortunately, the Hunley sank, too — for its third and final time — shortly after the battle, which resulted in the deaths of its final eight crewmen (seven manning the crank and an eighth steering the ship).
Why the Hunley disappeared that day and how its last crewmen perished have remained mysteries for the better part of two centuries. But on Wednesday (July 18), marine archaeologists at Clemson University in South Carolina unveiled an important new clue in the Hunley enigma.
According to a video released by the Hunley museum in North Charleston, South Carolina, researchers recently discovered a hidden fail-safe mechanism in the Hunley's keel that could have helped the crew escape to the surface in an emergency. The mechanism included a series of heavy metal slabs known as "keel blocks," which weighed close to 1,000 lbs. (454 kilograms) and could be dropped from the bottom of the sub with the pull of a lever.
But they weren't. According to Michael Scafuri, a marine archaeologist at Clemson University who has been studying the Hunley for 18 years, the keel blocks were all found locked in place and the levers untouched. For whatever reason, the crew of the Hunley did not try to escape the ocean floor.
"It's more evidence there wasn't much of a panic on board," Scafuri told the Associated Press.
Dead in the water
A cutaway drawing published in France shows the H.L. Hunley's impressive crank-powered propeller. The sub was so cramped, crewmembers could not stand up straight.
Credit: William A. Alexander/ U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command
The discovery adds fuel to the theory that the final crewmen of the Hunley were either resigned to their watery fate — or they just didn't see it coming. Previous surveys of the wreck have found that the bones of all eight crewmembers had not budged from the men's posts; if there was panic among the ranks, nobody let it show.
One recent hypothesis, raised in a 2017 study by researchers at Duke University, suggests that the crew of the Hunley accidentally killed themselves with the shockwaves from their torpedo's explosion. The fateful torpedo was attached to the bow of the Hunley by a metal spar less than 16 feet (5 meters) long. According to the researchers, who conducted a (very cool) scale reproduction of the explosion using model ships, the resulting shockwaves from the torpedo blast would have been powerful enough to burst the blood vessels in the crewmen's lungs and brains. Such a blast would have probably incapacitated the crew, if it didn’t kill them outright.
The wreck of the Hunley was first discovered 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1995 and was raised from Charleston Harbor in 2000. Over the following decades, conservators have scraped away the centuries-old schmutz of silt, sand and sea life known as "concretion" that had covered the ship. Researchers have since removed more than 1,200 lbs. of the accumulated gunk, revealing the original body of the Hunley for the first time since its mysterious disappearance.
As scientists continue stripping concretion away from the sub's interior, more revelations from the Hunley's final voyage are likely to surface.
"We keep seeing parts that no one has seen in 150 years," Scafuri told the AP. "All of them add into the mix of what happened and how this sub was operated."
