Earth 12000: Exploring space, time, and parallel universes

July 03 2008 / by futuretalk / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Other   Year: General   Rating: 9 Hot

A glance at what life may be like ten millennia from now, by Dick Pelletier

Of course, nobody can predict exactly how the future will unfold in 10,000 years, but by tracking technology advances expected in the coming centuries, we see changes that will transform humanity into super-intelligent beings focused on developing space, exploring universes, and traveling through time.

Imagine if you could peek in on the dinosaurs’ first-hand, enjoy an exotic vacation thousands of light years from Earth, or jump into a parallel universe where another you is living a far more exciting life than yours – and you could stay there if you like.

For years, scientists around the world have bandied about the revolutionary idea that future humans could zip across the universe using wormholes as high-speed portals enabling faster-than-light travel to explore space, enter other universes, and witness the past and future.

Wormholes enable travel between its two openings. One end of the wormhole stays home while the other is carted away at sub-light velocities to the destination, connecting the two locations through a tunnel in warped space-time. A person enters the wormhole, and depending on the connection, exits to a remote destination in space, another time in the past or future, or into a parallel universe.

Consensus among most scientists has been that wormholes are so destructive; people would be torn to subatomic bits if they tried such a thing. However, a new paper by University of Utah physicist Lior Burko now raises the possibility that wormholes may not annihilate all matter, and the potential for hyperspace travel could one day be realized. (cont.)

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Researchers watch electrons as molecules change shape

October 31 2008 / by Garry Golden / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Energy   Year: Beyond   Rating: 1

What happened?
Research teams from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Canada’s Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences have watched electrons rearrange themselves as molecules changes shape like a Slinky. The team shot a laser across a molecule of dinitrogen tetraoxide, or N2O4, to map the electron energy levels of the molecule as it changed shape.

Why is this important to the future of energy?
Advanced energy systems depend on our ability to understand how electrons rearrange themselves during chemical reactions. To trigger specific chemical reactions involved in producing energy, cleaning up hydrocarbons, and making materials with less energy we need to know how bonds are formed and broken between atoms.

“The Holy Grail in molecular sciences would be to be able to look at all aspects of a chemical reaction and to see how atoms are moving and how electrons are rearranging themselves as this happens,” researcher Margaret Murnane. “We’re not there yet, but this is a big step toward that goal.”

Why is it difficult? Changes in electron clouds happen on timescales of less than a femtosecond, or one quadrillionth of a second, representing some of the fastest processes in the natural world.

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