Physics
and
related meanderings coincident with my
adventures as a graduate student at
NCSU
Home of Grace and Kulchur
Galleries of lab photos 2006-7
Beginnings: August & Sept. '06
Construction: Oct. & November '06
All Wired Up: Dec. thru March '07
End of the Year: to Christmas '07
(this is an .mpg file, Quick Time won't play it, use Windows Media Player or Real Player)
My stuff
Ball Reactor: Current Status and Prospects
posted Oct. 10, 2007
I hope to use this ball reactor to investigate the mysterious reaction that provides the power sustaining Ball Lightning. As none of the physics of Ball Lightning is understood, and as it's never been made in the lab--despite claims to the contrary--it's not feasible to propose a reactor specific to BL. The goal is not necessarily to create BL, but rather to host the reaction. High-energy BL would make an ideal reactor, as the power density is far beyond chemical limits, there's no radioactivity, whatever the fuel is can't be hard to come by, and the energy it puts out is in microwaves--directly convertible to electric current. It is likely that a BL reactor will be stumbled upon rather than designed.
Oddly enough, the goal might result in a plasma looking something like the background mandala for this page.....
PowerPoint used November 15, 2007 at my preliminary exam
Spherical Microwave Confinement
(Until November 15 2007, I had an older paper posted under this title detailing a concept that I am no longer using except in bits and pieces.)
SMC is a novel confinement mechanism for plasmas that could work up to fusion conditions, although breakeven is highly speculative. This uses the same reactor used for investigating ball lightning as a novel form of gridless Inertial Electrostatic Confinement. If SMC works with this small device, then a more sophisticated reactor could make hotter and denser hydrogenic plasmas, with a variety of potential fuels.
The result could be a simple, economical, practical energy source of reasonable size and light weight. If it doesn't reach extreme enough conditions for power production, it could be useful as a neutron source.
From 1985 to 1990 I worked on an experiment in the very strange field of Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC), which is an attempt to bridge the gap between the physical and other planes by means of material devices. The project failed, but in time this kind of work could become significant. Here are some pictures from those years. (Also listed on the Spirituality page.)
A research paper in antiquarian verse concerning the Cyclic Universe (Duelling Branes) cosmology of Steinhardt and Turok (Best to be up on your Alexander Pope; Fools Rush In where Angels Fear to Read) written and performed for PY 528 (Astrophysics) class, Spring 2004.
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Other folks' work
On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets:
An Empirical Study
An important MIT study dealing with matters critical to microwave research, heretical mind-sets, resistance to group-think, and keeping your gray matter at least medium rare
I'm a Physicist and That's Just Fine
for Bass-Baritone and Piano MP3 Score
I'm a Physicist and that's just fine-
It's much better than a life of crime.
If you really want to see me sneer,
Just imply I'm an engineer.
I fuss with
numbers transcendental;
When I was young they called me mental.
If it can't be measured, it don't exist-
In this here science, that's the gist.
We need evidence, with fame for finders.
For spooky things, we've got on blinders-
UFOs and ghosts and prayer,
Hippies, preachers, tall blue hair.
I'm a
skeptic, tried and true;
My origin is Cosmic Goo.
I can calculate the odds,
Which, though Zero, admit no Gods.
I sit
inside and study all day;
My eyes are dim, my skin is gray.
My way with women is legen-dary-
I'll meet one someday, don't mean maybe!
I'm a
Physicist and that's just fine-
It's much better than a life of crime.
From Giga to Femto, from Cosmos to Quark,
One man's Genius is another man's Dork.
If Dork I must be, then Dork I must be;
The Answer to Everything is-
Twenty-three!
Bill Robinson January 2004 (music composed Nov. 28-Dec. 7 2004)
For more science songs, check out http://www.science-groove.org/MASSIVE/