Alles over Most Detailed Photos of an Atom Yet | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2009-09-15 11:15:48
BuzzSkyline writes "Ukrainian researchers have managed to take pictures of atoms that reveal structure of the electron clouds surrounding carbon nuclei in unprecedented detail. Although the images offer no surprises (they look much like the sketches of electron orbitals included in high school science texts), this is the first time that anyone has directly imaged atoms at this level, rather than inferring the structure of the orbitals from indirect measurements such as electron or X-ray interferometry."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dvppUeQ1_HY/Most-Detailed-Photos-of-an-Atom-Yet
Alles over July 16, 1945: Trinity Blast Opens Atomic Age | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Wired News: Top Stories | 2008-07-16 23:55:22
1945: The first atomic bomb is tested successfully at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in a remote section of desert near Los Alamos, New Mexico. The instant the bomb detonated at 5:30 a.m. that Monday, the atomic age was born, and the world changed forever.
The Trinity test, as it was known, was the culmination of the American effort to win the race against Germany (and, ultimately, the Soviet Union) in building an atomic bomb. A mere three weeks after the test, the United States used atomic bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But prior to the 16th, none of those involved in the project knew if they had built a devastating new weapon or a spectacular dud.
With gallows humor, the Los Alamos physicists got up a betting pool on the possible yield of the bomb. Estimates ranged from zero to as high as 45,000 tons of TNT. Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 for his work on nuclear fission, offered side odds on the bomb destroying all life on the planet.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, was under no illusions about what he and his fellow physicists had wrought. The effects of the blast, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, moved the intellectual Oppenheimer to quote from the Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."
More prosaically, Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, site director of the Trinity test, said: "Now we are all sons-of-bitches."
The scientists and military men who were at the Trinity site when the detonation occurred were staggered by what they saw. T. F. Farrell, a brigadier general on the staff of Major Gen. Leslie Groves, the Manhattan Project's military commander, wrote:
The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined.
The blast, which sent a mushroom cloud boiling 38,000 feet into the sky, was both visible and audible for hundreds of miles around. The heat generated at the blast point was described as being 10,000 times hotter than the surface of the sun. Even at 10 miles removed from ground zero, witnesses said the resulting heat wave was like standing directly in front of a roaring fireplace.
While Oppenheimer said he never regretted helping develop the bomb, he did have second thoughts about the way the United States used it against Japan. Lamont Lansing's book, Day of Trinity, quotes Oppenheimer, then near the end of his life:
As for how we used it, I understand why it happened and appreciate with what nobility those men with whom I'd worked made their decision. But I do not have the feeling that it was done right. The ultimatum to Japan was full of pious platitudes.... Our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant.
Source: Trinity Atomic Web Site
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/336741729/dayintech_0716
Alles over Beautiful mushroom clouds | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Attu sees all | 2006-08-02 03:59:44
As a small girl Maria Tokasheva would sit on the doorstep of her family's home watching enraptured as mysterious mushroom-shaped clouds filled the sky.
At the time, in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was embroiled in a fierce arms race, but the endless nuclear bomb tests in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan seemed nothing more to her than a pretty light show.
"I liked to be there," said Mrs Tokasheva, 49, a mother of one. "I remember atomic mushrooms. My friends and I, we couldn't understand how dangerous it was because we had seen this mushroom and then something like a rainbow. It was amazing for us. There were four beautiful mushroom clouds a week. Nobody told us they were dangerous". http://attu.blogspot.com/2006/08/beautiful-mushroom-clouds.html
Alles over What Were Those Clouds? | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Attu sees all | 2006-06-28 12:08:09
A weather phenomenon filled the skies of Eastern Iowa Tuesday, and meteorologists say it's something we might not see again. I thought I was going to see alien spaceships come down through the clouds," said Casey Dunagan. Some say it looked like a scene from the movie Independence Day. Others had more down-to-earth descriptions. It almost reminded me of ocean waves rolling in," said Suzanne Staab. I thought it looked like a nice frothy cream on a latté," said Robin Morris. http://attu.blogspot.com/2006/06/what-were-those-clouds.html
Alles over Inflatable Cloud Meeting Room | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Gizmodo | 2006-06-27 22:44:35
"If you need me, I'll be up in the clouds" is how comedian Brian Regan ends one of his better jokes. It turns out that now everyone can be up in the clouds thanks to designer Monica Forster and her portable inflatable cloud room. It's designed to be a place where you can get away from the hustle and bustle of other, non-cloud rooms in order to have more relaxing meetings or brain storming sessions. Very hippie. A silent fan keeps the rooms inflated for the duration of the meeting, and only takes three minutes to inflate.
Once inflated, the cloud room is 7.6 x 17.6 x 13 feet, enough space for more than a few adults. Peace and serenity comes at a high price, though, since the cloud room costs $5,900. It's imported from Sweden, though, which automatically makes it Eurocool. – Nicholas Deleon
The Cloud [UrbanPeel.com via Popgadget]
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Related: Radio Rodent: Not for the SqueamishRelated: OGO: The Breathing WaterRelated: Pixel Magic HD Media Box
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/inflatable-cloud-meeting-room-183720.php
Alles over Clarkson Spotted in Redneck Nowheresville: Ariel Atom at Willow Springs | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Jalopnik | 2006-06-26 22:21:38
The one time we went to Willow Springs, we woke up with a brutal hangover to find out that the once and future Kindergarten Cop was now our governor. Then we drove lightly-prepped race cars around the Streets for a few hours, sat outside at Burbank Airport listening to the Ramones piped over the outdoor sound system, and then flew back up north. These characters from IWSTI, an online Subie forum, did us one better. They went out to the track complex near Edwards Air Force Base, made like a ground-bound Chuck Yeager in a 300hp Ariel Atom and hung out with Jeremy Clarkson. Apparently, the Top Gear presenter has gone back on his prior assertion that he was never going to America again. [Thanks to Kevin for the tip.]
Drove an Ariel Atom Yesterday! [IWSTI]
Related:
Jay Leno's Ariel Atom Is Out Of Gas, Gas, Gas! [Internal]
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Related: Breaking! Unions Strike...Against Hyundai?Related: Where In The World Is My GPS?: Thieves Targeting Car GPS Units
http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/news/clarkson-spotted-in-redneck-nowheresville-ariel-atom-at-willow-springs-183403.php
Alles over Google combineert RSS en Atom | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | R-win.com [weblog] drwxr--r-- | 2006-06-18 00:35:16
Google ontwikkelde een eigen 'syndicatiestandaard', Gdata (details). Eigenlijk is het meer dan syndicatie alleen omdat Gdata ook authenticatie en queries toestaat: "(...) The Google data APIs ("GData" for short) provide a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web. GData combines common XML-based syndication formats (Atom and RSS) with a feed-publishing system based on the Atom publishing protocol, plus some extensions for handling queries. (...)" Discussie en details via Memeorandum... http://feeds.feedburner.com/R-wincomweblogDrwxr--r--?m=642
