Lifeboat Foundation

“Computational design tool transforms flat materials into 3D shapes” — I could use this many times over.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL) have developed a new computational design tool can turn a flat sheet of plastic or metal into complex 3D shapes. They say the tool enables designers to fully and creatively exploit an unusual quality of certain materials — the ability to expand uniformly in two dimensions.

In this case, the researchers were making hexagonal cuts into flexible, but not normally stretchable plastic and metal sheets to give them the ability to expand uniformly, up to a point. But the design tool could be useful for a variety of synthetic materials, known as auxetic materials that share this same distinctive quality.

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“Virgin Spaceship Unity, set to begin test flights next month, includes a very special nod to the theoretical physicist.”

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“The UK Space Agency is investing £4.12m in a National Propulsion Test Facility, giving the UK a new facility for space technology testing.”

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“Kenyan policy makers and experts are rooting for the use of space technology to enhance wildlife and ecosystems management in the country.”

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According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. Yet if the flow of time is an illusion, how do we account for the distinction between past, present and future? In June, 60 physicists gathered for four days at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics to debate this another questions about the mysteries of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcg6gCbFBWY&feature=youtu.be

Exploring our Holographic Galaxy with my Hololens DevKit.

Shared from my #HoloLens #YawLife.

SPACE editor, Heather D’Angelo, spoke with Marschitect Vera Mulyani about her dreams to build Mars’ first ever self-sustaining cities.

Physics, as you may have read before, is based around two wildly successful theories. On the grand scale, galaxies, planets, and all the other big stuff dance to the tune of gravity. But, like your teenage daughter, all the little stuff stares in bewildered embarrassment at gravity’s dancing. Quantum mechanics is the only beat the little stuff is willing get down to. Unlike teenage rebellion, though, no one claims to understand what keeps relativity and quantum mechanics from getting along.

Because we refuse to believe that these two theories are separate, physicists are constantly trying to find a way to fit them together. Part-in-parcel with creating a unifying model is finding evidence of a connection between the gravity and quantum mechanics. For example, showing that the gravitational force experienced by a particle depended on the particle’s internal quantum state would be a great sign of a deeper connection between the two theories. The latest attempt to show this uses a new way to look for coupling between gravity and the quantum property called spin.

I’m free, free fallin’

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“When programmers at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory set out to develop the flight software for the Apollo 11 space program in the mid-1960s, the necessary technology did not exist. They had to invent it.”

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