We had Groundhog’s Day this week and, depending on which groundhog you choose, we’ll either get an early spring or six more weeks of winter. There was also a Bill Murray movie a while back with the same name in which his character was essentially forced to relive the same day until he got it right. No doubt, you’ve heard quite a lot about both this week. You’ve also probably already heard a lot about politics, the economy, and the Super Bowl.
So, here’s a little change of pace. There’s been a lot of big news in science and technology recently. Let’s hit them briefly. As usual, I’ve listed all the links at the end.
In the world of physics, there have been two huge potential discoveries. They both relate to the most basic fundamental underpinnings of physics. One of them may rewrite the relationship between matter and anti-matter while the other appears to challenge the belief that nothing can move faster than light (both topics are out of my realm in the world of physics, but interesting nevertheless). Though these are huge events in the world of physics, their practical applications in the next couple years are likely limited. The lack of short-term practical application doesn’t mean these are unimportant because, as we’ve seen repeatedly in the world of physics, it sometimes takes a while after a theory is outlined before it can be refined and put to practical use.
In recent years, the need has been identified for more flexible body armor. Present body armor is often heavy, bulky, and generally an impediment to mobility. Two technologies are emerging.
Liquid body armor has been in development for several years now (I’ve been following it since 2004), so that’s not news in itself. However, what is news is how scientists are attempting to apply similar principles to helmets. It’s a bit different because in the body armor case, it’s using a shear-thickening fluid to essentially have an on/off switch for the armor (the wearer gets a choice - a motor is turned on or sped up to circulate the fluid when protection is needed because the fluid thickens as it moves, but that motor is turned off or slowed down when flexibility is needed) whereas the helmet technology appears to be using relatively stationary fluid technology to distribute the impact across the skull versus localizing it, but the basic concept is still to use fluids to protect against injury or death. Applying stationary fluids to protect the head is very interesting because our skull and the accompanying brain fluid are set up very similarly to protect the brain.
Also, research continues on spider silk, which is several times stronger than Kevlar by weight. This would probably be the better technology overall on a technical basis, as it’s a clear improvement over the existing in performance (protection and movement) and it is inherently more reliable than the fluid armor because spider silk armor wouldn’t have the motor and leakage failure modes to consider. The problem is manufacturing. There’s just no good way to make spider silk through natural, synthetic, or hybrid means (yet).
On the offensive side, we now have smart bullets. It’s probably more appropriate to call it a small guided missile than a smart bullet. The projectile has an optical sensor that tracks a laser dot “painting” the target. An on-board guidance system determines the necessary adjustments and these are made using electromagnetically-driven fins. Because of the fins, the projectile has to be fired from a gun with a smooth barrel (projectiles without fins, like regular bullets or balls, rely on spin to set their path because it changes the pressure differences across the projectile; grooves or rifling in gun barrels spin bullets so that they fly straight whereas golfers can adjust their swing to change the impact to make a ball hook or slice – whether that is intentional or not is another matter entirely). These projectiles travel a bit slower than regular bullets, but the range is over a mile and on-par with modern sniper rifles.
The US military also announced two bigger offensive technology stories, namely hypersonic weapon testing and the receipt of giant bunker-busting bombs. There are a lot of key differences between hypersonic and subsonic flight that make this a huge achievement, but let’s leave that aside. The non-military applications for hypersonic flight are obvious, but the bunker-buster bomb applications are probably limited outside of the military, though I could see the technology possibly being useful in mining applications. These are expansions and upgrades on existing work and very significant milestones in and of themselves.
Lots of big happenings in technology this week, and it’s a fun change of pace to write about something different.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment