Physicists create highest man-made temperature ever - June 28th 2012

JohnMarston

norrie rugger wrote: »

When they invented the laser, that had no real world application, would you have said that the money would have been better spent on aid?

The laser was invented for no reason at all?

skelliser

JohnMarston wrote: »

The laser was invented for no reason at all?

LASER wasnt "invented" it came about from scientific theory and discovery.

Capt'n Midnight

SeaFields wrote: »

All these discoveries and advancements and still no hoverboards

We've had them for ages now :rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA

Expect a big marketing buzz Christmas 2014

Capt'n Midnight

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

somewhere in africa a child who hasn't had anything to eat for 2 weeks is thrilled at the announcement

Yes Minister
The National Education Service
First airtime BBC: 21 January 1988

Jim Hacker: "Math has become politicized: If it costs 5 billion pounds a year to maintain Britain's nuclear defences and 75 pounds a year to feed a starving African child, how many African children can be saved from starvation if the Ministry of Defence abandoned nuclear weapons?"

Sir Humphrey: "That's easy: none. They'd spend it all on conventional weapons."

prinz

Faster popcorn!

Should we start a boards pool on how long it is before some nutbag gets arrested for trying to build a homemade collider in his garden/apartment/ garage :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

norrie rugger wrote: »

When they invented the laser, that had no real world application, would you have said that the money would have been better spent on aid?

LOL

The laser was 'invented' from the MASER

it just used light instead of microwaves.

and the MASER ?

It's what makes telecommunications satellites possible. In fact it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that many of the telecomms uses of lasers were preceded by masers.


side note

LED Lasers are twice as energy efficient as ordinary LED's




Except for emergencies Aid money is wasted.
Removing trade barriers could probably achieve as much
Not lending to corrupt regimes to build white elephants / buy weapons would achieve even more.


Oh yeah.
Concern was recently able to feed 300,00 people by mobile phone

local people bought food from local producers so no disruption of supply chains


Technology wise Africa is only a few years behind us, for stuff like Mpesa they are ahead. Experience in New Guinea has shown that it's difficult to get stone age adults to become mine engineers, but you can educate the kids to that level. Technology-wise to get from the Stone age to today takes just one generation.

norrie rugger

JohnMarston wrote: »

The laser was invented for no reason at all?

Lasers were initially described as solutions looking for problems. Much of what you take for granted today is the result of doing something because we can, or to see what happens if we try "X".

Accidental side effects of experiments can become more important than the experiments themselves. X-Ray photography and Antibiotics were not the focus of their respective experiments

norrie rugger

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL

The laser was 'invented' from the MASER

it just used light instead of microwaves.

and the MASER ?

It's what makes telecommunications satellites possible. In fact it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that many of the telecomms uses of lasers were preceded by masers.

Lasers are "optical masers" but did they really think that they could access optical storage, be used in multitude of surgeries, use as barcodes readers, etc?

Nope, these came about after the discovery of the Laser. So what I mean is that experimentation for experimentation sake is not a waste of money

and here is the wikipedia, explaining it much better than I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser wrote:

When lasers were invented in 1960, they were called "a solution looking for a problem".[30] Since then, they have become ubiquitous, finding utility in thousands of highly varied applications in every section of modern society, including consumer electronics, information technology, science, medicine, industry, law enforcement, entertainment, and the military.

The first use of lasers in the daily lives of the general population was the supermarket barcode scanner, introduced in 1974. The laserdisc player, introduced in 1978, was the first successful consumer product to include a laser but the compact disc player was the first laser-equipped device to become common, beginning in 1982 followed shortly by laser printers.

Some other uses are:

Medicine: Bloodless surgery, laser healing, surgical treatment, kidney stone treatment, eye treatment, dentistry
Industry: Cutting, welding, material heat treatment, marking parts, non-contact measurement of parts
Military: Marking targets, guiding munitions, missile defence, electro-optical countermeasures (EOCM), alternative to radar, blinding troops.
Law enforcement: used for latent fingerprint detection in the forensic identification field[31][32]
Research: Spectroscopy, laser ablation, laser annealing, laser scattering, laser interferometry, LIDAR, laser capture microdissection, fluorescence microscopy
Product development/commercial: laser printers, optical discs (e.g. CDs and the like), barcode scanners, thermometers, laser pointers, holograms, bubblegrams.
Laser lighting displays: Laser light shows
Cosmetic skin treatments: acne treatment, cellulite and striae reduction, and hair removal.
In 2004, excluding diode lasers, approximately 131,000 lasers were sold with a value of US$2.19 billion.[33] In the same year, approximately 733 million diode lasers, valued at $3.20 billion, were sold.[34]

andy1249

All those comments about pointless experiments just goes to show how short sighted some people can be.

When The Pioneers of the field worked out the basics of quantum mechanics at the Solvay conference in 1927 , short sighted people at the time would have said it was all just guff and nonsense , but the fact is , without quantum theory and an understanding of sub atomic particles , none of us would be typing out our thoughts on computers attached to the world wide web.

Exploitation of quantum effects are essential to modern semiconductor manufacturing , without which , your iphones , ipads , or PC's would not exist.

And without which I might add , no one would know about the starving babies in Africa either !!

A quick and not too technical introduction to how important quantum theory is to semiconductor manufacturing ... it opens a pdf and is in the format of a slideshow.


http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=semiconductors%20and%20quantum%20mechanics&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CFEQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fusers.ece.gatech.edu%2F~alan%2FECE6451%2FLectures%2FECE6451L1IntroductionToElectronicMaterials.pdf&ei=7vn2T4TgF9KyhAeLqYDFBg&usg=AFQjCNGIGXA1ntfZc63uA4spHDQvyBNiRA

amacca

JohnMarston wrote: »

Sorry for irking so many people in this thread. I'm all for scientific advancement that benefits mankind, i just dont see the value in what was accomplished in reaching a higher man-made temperature.

Its part of an attempt to understand more about the nature of the universe we inhabit...they are not simply getting funded with billions to engage in a "lets see what the highest temperature we can make is dude" style college society / mythbusters experiment (which imo would have merit also...see below)

they want to understand the universe....what laws it operates under etc.....I would have thought it would be a normal human trait to be curious about our surroundings...to want to learn more about them even if just for for its own sake....its basic curiosity

btw the search for knowledge like that throws up massive engineering challenges which when overcome almost always lead eventually to new beneficial technologies (sometimes destructive when used in what most would consider the wrong way but thats still not reason to sit on our hands and not discover them) + almost always lead to new puzzles/mysteries which pose challenges to existing theories or require them to be modified

if we as a species dont see the point in learning about the universe around us or pushing the envelope in some way then what is the point really....should we just exist to eat, sleep, pass waste and procreate?.........although that sounds good too I'll admit (especially that last part - thats why I didnt pursue a career as a scientist)

Capt'n Midnight

andy1249 wrote: »

When The Pioneers of the field worked out the basics of quantum mechanics at the Solvay conference in 1927 , short sighted people at the time would have said it was all just guff and nonsense , but the fact is , without quantum theory and an understanding of sub atomic particles

Quantum mechanics => Lasers

seamus

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Technology wise Africa is only a few years behind us, for stuff like Mpesa they are ahead.

There are a few arguments that in some ways for the delivery of end-consumer telecoms, many of the African nations are better placed than developed nations because they have such a small amount of physical infrastructure that there are few competitive barriers for wireless tech. So it works out more cost-effective to roll out your city-wide wireless broadband network because you're not competing with fixed-line operators for subscribers.

Overall, the "that money could be sent to Africa" argument is as silly as the, "Finish your sandwich, there are starving kids in Ethiopia" rhetoric that our teachers used to love.
Most direct foreign aid to Africa ends up in some warlord's bank account or being spent on weapons. Non-direct aid to the likes of concern and goal is mostly spent on administration and staff wages.

Capt'n Midnight

norrie rugger wrote: »

Nope, these came about after the discovery of the Laser. So what I mean is that experimentation for experimentation sake is not a waste of money

I was just pointing out that Lasers were just an extension of existing Maser technology.

Masers were the big step in the dark.

Thing is if lasers did work then there are many obvious uses of a very bright light source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photophone optical comms in 1880

Haelium

On the subject of aid to Africa, most "Aid" does more harm than good. Until the population problem in third world countries is solved, sending food over just means more starving kids in the long run. Throwing money at a problem doesn't make it go away.

Altruism should not be based on emotion, give it a few hundred years and this discovery may help Africa far more than all the "Aid" sent in the last 5 years.

Repeat after me kids: Application comes after discovery.

Ruski

JohnMarston wrote: »

Sorry for irking so many people in this thread. I'm all for scientific advancement that benefits mankind, i just dont see the value in what was accomplished in reaching a higher man-made temperature.

Fusion occurs at high temperatures. Fusion = good. Though not very profitable..

hooradiation

JohnMarston wrote: »

Yes, i cannot percieve the invention of the lightbulb, the mobile phone, the airplane, personal computers, the internet and so on.

Its all just over my head :rolleyes:

As is basic reading comprehension.

"a scientific achievement" is singular. In this case the experiment in question, quite why and how you extrapolated that out as you did is something I am hopeful will remain a mystery.

If certain people read about all that's being done on the International Space Station they'd lose their ****. :pac: There's a lot up there being done that at first seems to have little practical use unless we're going to be colonising other planets but there are almost always unexpected uses that pop up.

Sulla Felix

Unfortunately the negative attitude exhibited by some in this thread is endemic in Ireland. Just take a look at the pointless restrictions placed on the recently announced r and d funding from government.

hooradiation

Deleted User wrote: »

If certain people read about all that's being done on the International Space Station they'd lose their ****. :pac: There's a lot up there being done that at first seems to have little practical use unless we're going to be colonising other planets but there are almost always unexpected uses that pop up.

People just have very narrow views of "use" when it comes to science. It's an amazing ignorance coupled with some blatant false dichotomy bullshit.

But it does provides a good yardstick for who shouldn't be listened to in future, so it's not totally without it's use.

Capt'n Midnight

prinz wrote: »

Faster popcorn!

Should we start a boards pool on how long it is before some nutbag gets arrested for trying to build a homemade collider in his garden/apartment/ garage :pac:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

Dravokivich

I don't think Kelvins means much to the general readership of the particular site. They are setting the article to their audience, what's wrong with that?

Overheal

Clareman wrote: »

How the f**k can they calculate the temperature in Fahrenheit? That was invented by using the theory that the coldest you could get was freezing saltey water in Germany, use Kelvin ffs

Im sure it was converted from the article. ambient temperature is always scientifically measured in Kelvin.

smash wrote: »

How could then read that temperature?

Presumably 2 atoms of gold don't generate a whole great sum of heat, even if it gets up to 7 trillion degrees of whatever have you. They can measure using readings at a distance from the impact point and run all the math for the relativity involved. I think there are also spectrometers and several other ways that you can measure the wavelength of infrared that comes off of something like that in order to calculate the heat produced as well.

So no I'm not really sure exactly how but I could at least see it being possible.

mathstalk

JohnMarston wrote: »

No, more like: Stop fruitless scientific endeavour until we've addressed basic human rights

Fruitless? You fool! Discoveries like this will lead to the development of fusion. That means unlimited clean energy! Poverty in the world has a lot to do with the energy crisis. If we can crack fusion the world will be a much better place. If you're going to comment critically about something, make sure you've done some research prior.