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#126 2022-06-22 14:05:06

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Physics Topics

I was thinking more along the lines that free atomic oxygen would attack metallic components.  Then again I don't have a clear idea of how this propulsion system will be arranged.  It might turn out not to be an issue.  Ammonia would have better ISP because of the lower average molecular weight of the dissociation products.  But other propellants are possible.  We could use aluminium from the moon or even pure O2 that is bled through a porous aluminium oxide target.  Magnesium vapour has a slightly lower atomic weight than aluminium and is abundant on the moon.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-06-22 14:11:58)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#127 2022-06-22 14:30:52

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

For Calliban re #126

Thank you for picking up the thread here!  Void often tosses out ideas that are inspired, and leaves it to others to try to develop them.

He makes an agreeable argument, that transporting water in a space vessel is a LOT less challenging than transporting separated chemicals.

However, the energy to provide propulsion has to come from somewhere, and the best candidates I know of right now are solar flux (photons primarily) and nuclear fission.  Fusion will change the nature of the game, of course, but we don't have it.

What I'm hoping you might consider is a nuclear powered propulsion that uses water as the mass to throw, but (here I'm picking up on your objection) separates the molecules of water before throwing the mass overboard.

And! I'm wondering if the dissassociated plasma might be accelerated by electric means (I'm assuming magnetic?) to achieve high ISP ** and ** high thrust levels.

The direction I'm trying to head with this is to avoid using elements for propulsion that might be a problem downwind ...

Aluminum would make a coating on any space craft unlucky enough to fly through the plume, for example.

Plain hydrogen and oxygen ** should ** be less concerning, although I recognize your point that oxygen would do a job on materials it encounters.

(th)

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#128 2022-06-22 19:16:49

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Physics Topics

Kbd512 is using a modified solar sail approach by using lasers and a pusher plate for the target of the beams.

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#129 2022-06-23 07:59:00

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

For SpaceNut re #128

Thanks for adding the novel propulsion ideas of kdb512 to the Physics topic!

While absolutely nothing like what kbd512 proposed has been tried (with one exception I will add) it certainly ** has ** been a focus of science fiction writers for many years.

It would be terrific if the Physics topic of the NewMars forum were to receive a contribution by a ** real ** scientist or ** experienced ** engineer on the subject you have raised in Post #128.

The exception is the pioneering research with photon pulse propulsion by a physicist at a University with a name like:
? Rennseler ?

I'll look up the reference and post it here.

Google came up with some encouraging snippets:

Dedicated Laboratory Setup for CO{sub 2} TEA Laser Propulsion ...https://www.osti.gov › biblio › 21439583-dedicated-lab...
In this paper we introduce a cutting-edge Laser Propulsion Laboratory created at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the very few in the world to be ...

Rensselaer Scientists Unlock Some Key Secrets of ...https://science.rpi.edu › chemistry › news › rensselaer-s...
New research led by chemists in the Baruch '60 Center for Biochemical Solar Energy Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is seeking to detail the ...

Aerospace Science and Engineeringhttps://mane.rpi.edu › research › aerospace-science-and...
Combustion/Propulsion. Research Areas: Fuel chemistry; ... School of Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Jonsson Engineering Center, Troy, ...

Dedicated Laboratory Setup for TEA Laser Propulsion Experiments ...https://aip.scitation.org › doi › pdf
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180. Abstract. Laser propulsion research progress has traditionally been hindered by the scarcity of photon ...

Gallery #3 (RPI - Laser Propulsion Laboratory) - iisalvadorhttps://sites.google.com › site › israelsalvador › home › ga...
This Gallery section illustrates some of my previous work, which included setting up the laboratories required to do the research and the research itself.

Leik N. Myrabo's research works | Rensselaer Polytechnic ...https://www.researchgate.net › Leik-N-Myrabo-5890769
Dedicated Laboratory Setup for CO2 TEA Laser Propulsion Experiments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Article. Oct 2010.

I. I. Salvador's research works | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY ...https://www.researchgate.net › 2005422665_I_I_Salvador
Laser propulsion is an innovative concept of accessing the space easier and cheaper where the propulsive energy is beamed to the aerospace vehicle in flight ...

Laser_propulsion - chemeurope.comhttps://www.chemeurope.com › encyclopedia › Laser_p...
Laser propulsion systems may transfer momentum to a spacecraft in two ... developed by Leik Myrabo of RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and Frank Mead, ...

How Light Propulsion Will Work - Science | HowStuffWorkshttps://science.howstuffworks.com › ... › Future Space
Photo courtesy Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. More than 20 years ago, the United States began to develop a missile defense system that was given the ...

Related searches

Leik N. Myrabo's <<== this is the gent whose research I am remembering

(th)

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#130 2022-06-23 08:04:34

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

This topic is available for anyone who would care to make a contribution of actual research on the subject of laser propulsion.

Wild science fiction about laser propulsion belongs in the Chat topics of the NewMars forum.

For SpaceNut:

Salvador, Israel I, Kenoyer, David, Myrabo, Leik N, and Notaro, Samuel. Dedicated Laboratory Setup for CO{sub 2} TEA Laser Propulsion Experiments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. United States: N. p., 2010. Web. doi:10.1063/1.3507165.

You could invite these gents to participate in the forum.  Without authoritative voices in the forum, we can only collect reports of work by others.

(th)

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#131 2022-06-29 09:23:09

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

This article (with YouTube video) shows a design for a space craft with two counter rotating passenger habitat rings.

What is novel (to me for sure) is the arrangement of the counter rotating rings.  I have been visualizing the rings of recently proposed spacecraft as like two doughuts on a stick.  This article shows a completely different arrangement, which seems to me to have very attractive features.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/quest … properties

Would a double gyroscope still have gyroscopic properties?
Asked 6 years, 8 months ago
Modified 2 years, 3 months ago
Viewed 4k times

8


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Imagine you have a gyroscope that has two spinning parts, one on top of the other. When you pull the string, the two halves spin in opposite directions. Would this cancel out the gyroscopic properties, or double them?

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asked Oct 14, 2015 at 1:58
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Jason Chen
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Which properties are you talking about exactly? –
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Oct 14, 2015 at 2:19
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Short answer: it cancels the gyroscopic effect (with caveats).

As long as the system holds together (see below), if the two halves spin with exactly the same magnitude but opposite sign angular momentum, from the point of view of an outside observer, the system behaves like one of zero angular momentum. In particular, it takes negligible torque on the part of an outside observer to rotate the system, and there is no phenomenon of precession or nutation. Indeed this kind of principle is sometimes used in robotics and mechanical engineering to allow high speed rotating components to be manipulated easily.

However: from the standpoint of each rotating component, each requires a torque to change its own angular momentum. Indeed, if you spin the system quickly, you're forcing the angular momentum of the two separate components to change extremely fast. The two spinning components must therefore exert huge torques on one another to achieve this. Rotation of the whole system, although easy for the outside observer, begets huge stresses on the shaft joining the two components. If you set a system like this up and rotate it, you can see the shaft between the components bending slightly at right angles to the plane of rotation, as the massive torque between the components sets up high bending moments in the shaft. This kind of experiment needs to be done with great care, with very lightweight components and with safety glasses on. Systems like this can explode if the joining shaft fails, and whenever the principle is exploited in robotics, the control system imposes very strict limits on the maximum rate of rotation of the system as a whole, if the rotation is in a different plane from that of the two components' angular momentums.

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answered Oct 14, 2015 at 2:18
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Selene Routley
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Can you give a concrete example of usage of this phenomenon in robotics? –
Ruslan
Oct 14, 2015 at 12:08
@Ruslan I've seen it used in CNC cutting and grinding machines. Optical element making robots are a big user of this kind of idea (such as those built by makers such as Statisloh) –
Selene Routley
Oct 14, 2015 at 12:17
There was a propellor-driven VTOL called Pogo -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_XFY_Pogo with counter-rotating props. This both eliminates gyro and eliminates the tendancy for the body to counter-rotate. –
Carl Witthoft
Oct 14, 2015 at 15:56
It took me about this long before I could actually understand the specifics of what you were talking about. tongue
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Dec 12, 2016 at 3:49
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This would cancel out the gyroscopic properties. Here is a youtube video that demonstrates this effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzbVwiIeM0M

(th)

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#132 2022-06-29 09:34:29

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Physics Topics

tahanson43206,

I see you've discovered why I'm using counter-rotation in my ship design.  Otherwise we would need a very large, very heavy, and very energy-intensive moment control gyro to counteract gyroscopic precession- an effect very well known to those of us who fly or have flown aircraft with propellers.  We're operating at very low speeds, but the masses involved are quite large, and so are the forces acting on that center barrel section and slewing ring bearings, which is why it's made here on Earth where inspection is much easier.

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#133 2022-06-30 08:46:20

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

For kbd512 re #132


Thanks for your contribution to the Physics topic.

Let's look at the video during next Sunday's Zoom.  The difference is "real Universe" actual working hardware vs theoretical hand waving.


SearchTerm:gyroscope Test Package for Spacecraft Habitat Configuration

(th)

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#134 2022-07-06 15:46:05

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Large Hadron Collider Finds Evidence of 3 Never-Before-Seen Particles

https://www.sciencealert.com/large-hadr … -particles

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#135 2022-07-06 17:19:39

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Physics Topics

Mars_B4_Moon,

I have it on good authority that these newly discovered particles are "FriendsOfQuark 2, 3, and 4".

FriendOfQuark1 will be pleased.

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#136 2022-07-06 20:30:41

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Physics Topics

OIP.7XFXhwIObmWrweg3RgGEZQHaHk?pid=ImgDet&rs=1

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#137 2022-08-06 02:51:08

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Holy Grail of Energy Efficiency: Physicists Advance in Race for Room-Temperature Superconductivity

https://scitechdaily.com/holy-grail-of- … ductivity/

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#138 2022-08-08 03:58:38

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Unlocking gravity's secrets at the smallest scales

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Unlo … s_999.html

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#139 2022-08-10 04:56:15

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Wheel Made of ‘Odd Matter’ Spontaneously Rolls Uphill
https://www.quantamagazine.org/wheel-ma … -20220615/
Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts.

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#140 2022-08-12 12:06:38

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Violent supermassive black hole with twisting jet may help Milky Way observations
https://www.space.com/black-hole-blazar-twisted-jet-eht

How AI Could Protect the Lives of Future Firefighters
https://www.technologynetworks.com/neur … ers-364631

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#141 2022-08-17 03:45:49

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Even a Cyclical Universe Needed to Come From Somewhere
https://www.universetoday.com/157105/ev … somewhere/

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#142 2022-09-04 03:00:08

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Four More Things You Might Not Know About Antimatter
https://www.realclearscience.com/2022/0 … 47204.html

2021 study

Physicists Observe Particles Switch Between Matter and Antimatter

https://interestingengineering.com/scie … antimatter

charm meson and anti charm meson, deviation from theoretical predictions could indicate new physics?

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-04 03:01:49)

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#143 2022-09-13 15:41:02

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved by US Regulators

https://singularityhub.com/2022/08/05/t … egulators/

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#144 2022-10-11 07:36:18

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

A topic from 2003 came to light recently.  It was the topic chosen by Member 440 (Streety) for his one and only post.

In the discussion about using nuclear power to produce thrust, it was proposed that a power of some megawatts of power might produce a Newton of thrust.

I an offering ** this ** post in hopes someone in the current membership knows what amount of mass held in the hand would produce one Newton of force on the hand, due to the gravitational pull of the Earth.

A useful example for what I have in mind is the famous "one foot" nanosecond ...

A famous computer scientist/inventor (whose name I have forgotten) used this example in a lecture I attended.

I only remember ** one ** thing from that lecture.... the presenter held up a stick that was one foot long, and said that it was the distance light would travel in one nanosecond.

The example was relevant, because the speaker was talking about the technical difficulty of achieving greater performance from computer chip designs.

The speed of light becomes (is) a significant factor in limiting the processing speed of CPU devices. That is why engineers have expanded horizontally by combining multiple cores in a single device.

** this ** post is an invitation for someone in the current membership to find (or work out) how much mass is needed to exert a Newton of force on a hand holding the mass in a 1 G gravitational field.

SearchTerm:Newton of force
SearchTerm:force of one Newton

Google found this snippet:

Newton's Second Law of Motion - The Physics Classroom
www.physicsclassroom.com › newtlaws › Lesson-3 › Newton-s-Second-Law
One Newton is defined as the amount of force required to give a 1-kg mass an acceleration of 1 m/s/s. Your Turn to Practice. The Fnet = m • a equation ...

So my question is: What amount of mass held in the hand in a 1 G field, produces 1 Newton of force on the hand?

A 1 G field produces an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared.

I doubt that dividing a kilogram of mass by 9.8 gives the correct solution, because of the exponent.

update: I gave that exact question to Google, and if found what looks like a possible hint of an answer:

People also ask
How many grams of mass does it take to produce a force of 1 Newton?
What mass would your hand have to hold to apply a force of 1n?
Hence, by applying a force of 1 newton, one can hold body of mass 102gm.
By applying a force of one newton, one can hold body of mass
brainly.in › question
More results

OK! that looks promising .... the poster offers 102 grams as the equivalent of one Newton.

It is mildly amusing (to me at least) that the poster simply divided 1000 by 9.8.

1000/9.8 > 102.04081632653061224489795918367

Perhaps my concern about the exponents is taken care of by elimination, since both terms contain the same exponent.

At any rate, for the moment, this post is left with 102 grams as the amount of mass a person might hold in hand on the surface of the Earth, to experience 1 Newton of force.

Update later (from homework.study.com) (the answer of 102 grams was included as an option of multiple choices)

Weight:
The weight of an object is given by the product of the mass of the object and the acceleration due to gravity at the object's location. From Newton's third law, every applied force has an equal but opposite reaction force. Therefore, to be able to hold an object in air, the upward force you apply on the object equals its weight.

Evidence collected so far seems to indicate that a mass of 102 grams, held in the hand in a 1 G field, will exert a downward force of 1 Newton on the hand.

(th)

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#145 2022-10-24 18:35:32

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

How dried passion fruit inspired Chinese device that may clean up space junk

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science … space-junk

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#146 2023-01-21 08:57:48

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

This web site showed up when I was looking for an animation about orbital motion .

https://www.physicsclassroom.com/Physic … nteractive

I'm looking for animation that allows adjustments by the operator/student to observe changes.

It appears the NaSA may sponsor one or more of these.

What I'm looking for specifically is animation to show the interaction of an orbiting object with an object that collides with the orbiting object from various angles.

(th)

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#147 2023-01-21 09:34:31

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Physics Topics

Americium is one of those low energy releasing elements of the radioactive range.
Today's news has the small reactor approved for the US, but which companies can afford to build them with the current nuclear fear issues and not trusting government agencies.

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#148 2023-01-21 19:54:22

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

This post contains part of a request I submitted today to one of the Physics Tutors available at a web site Bing found.

Hi Molly,
The web site where I found your offer of assistance indicates $30 for three lessons. I'd be ** very ** happy to pay that amount for guidance to find software to run a simulation of a physics problem. I'm a (Junior) Moderator at NewMars forum of the Mars Society, and in that role I attempt to encourage our members to succeed in their creative thinking.

The specific problem I'm trying to address is a consequence of work by Dr. John Hunter, who worked at Lawrence Livermore before attempting entrepreneurship. Dr. Hunter designed a hydrogen gas gun to launch payloads off Earth.

His plan is to include a solid rocket motor with the payload, to smooth the orbit. You would (of course) recognize that a payload launched from Earth has to achieve a horizontal velocity sufficient to remain in orbit. The gas gun can put objects into space, but the trajectory is linear, except to the extent it is curved by the Earth's gravity.

I'd like to find a software I can run to experiment with interaction with an orbiting object (a fuel depot) when Dr. Hunter sends one of his payloads up to the depot.

My conjecture is that by adding vertical velocity to the shot, and capturing the capsule at the depot, it would be possible to recover from perturbation of the orbit.

I am experienced with multiple computer languages, in the field of banking, so physics simulation is a stretch. Never-the-less, I am willing to tackle the problem, if I can get a running start.

PS ... Dr. Gary Johnson is one of our members.  He designed a large Space Tug concept to put a 5000 Metric Ton passenger vessel at Mars, and we're looking for a Nation state interested in building it. (th)

I'll report if a reply shows up.

(th)

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#149 2023-02-24 18:25:14

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Physics Topics

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/firs … 00819.html

First Law of Thermodynamics under review for systems not in equilibrium...

Popular Mechanics

The First Law of Thermodynamics Has Been Rewritten

Jackie Appel

Fri, February 24, 2023 at 11:05 AM EST

The First Law of Thermodynamics Has Been RewrittenMirageC - Getty Images
Researchers have made a breakthrough in applying the first law of thermodynamics to complex systems.

The law is a bedrock of physics, but has long failed to describe systems that are out of thermodynamic equilibrium.

The work could have applications in fields ranging from circuitry and quantum computing to space weather.

The first law of thermodynamics is undergoing a huge renovation.

A team lead by researchers at West Virginia University just released a paper detailing how the fundamental law can be applied more broadly than ever before—a finding that has the potential to rewrite the way we understand complex energetic systems.

The first law of thermodynamics is one of the bedrock laws of physics. Even if you’re not gung-ho for physics research, you might have heard the simplified version: energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be converted into different forms.

“Suppose you heat up a balloon,” said Paul Cassak, lead author on the paper, in a press release. “The first law of thermodynamics tells you how much the balloon expands and how much hotter the gas inside the balloon gets. The key is that the total amount of energy causing the balloon to expand and the gas to get hotter is the same as the amount of heat you put into the balloon.”

This law has been an incredibly helpful tool for physicists since its discovery in the 1850s. But there’s a catch—it has historically only worked when things are in or near a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. At its core, that means the temperature of a system is consistent throughout. There aren’t big hot and cold spots; it’s all basically the same temperature, which means it all has pretty much the same amount of energy.

And because it’s no longer 1850 and we’re trying to answer more detailed questions about the universe around us, researchers have long been trying to find a way to apply the first law to systems that are not in equilibrium. While you might have to reckon with many of these systems in your day-to-day existence, they’re very common throughout the universe in such substances as space plasma—found everywhere from the tails of comets to the outer layers of stars.

The breakthrough for this team of researchers came in the form of a lot of complicated math. Basically, the energy conversion in systems that are in thermodynamic equilibrium can be described almost entirely by their density and pressure.

But the behavior of the energy conversion in more complicated systems is determined by a lot more than just density and pressure.

“Out of equilibrium, the first law of thermodynamics continues to only describe energy conversion during a process that changes the density and temperature,” Cassak tells Popular Mechanics. “What we discovered is that all of the other quantities describing the gas, liquid, or plasma when it is not in equilibrium are left out of the first law of thermodynamics.”

What the team needed was a way to quantify all of the energy conversion that wasn’t described by density and pressure. And they found it.

To the untrained eye, the solution will probably just look like a dense and confusing group of equations. But to a physicist, the mathematical description of these additional properties looks like opportunity. Potential applications of this work range from chemistry to circuitry and quantum computing to space weather.

This kind of adjustment in our understanding of the basic building blocks of physics doesn’t happen often, so when it does, it has the potential to hugely influence the field and those associated with it. It just goes to show that even centuries-old laws can become new again if we look at them hard enough.

(th)

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#150 2023-03-01 13:16:26

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Physics Topics

Astronomers find a star that survived going supernova after colliding with another star. “I’ve worked on supernova remnants for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,”
- Robert Fesen

https://astronomy.com/news/2023/02/fire … -collision

Dark Energy Camera in Chile captures the glowing remains of first-ever documented supernova — white-dwarf star that exploded more than 1800 years ago was witnessed by Chinese astronomers, in the year 185 CE

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2307/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-03-02 05:49:09)

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