Mount a couple on SpaceX's Dragon capsule and we can invade Mars properly.
British boffin builds cool maser after argument with wife
An obscure Japanese research paper, some second-hand equipment on eBay, and a British scientist's argument with his wife have become the catalysts for creating the world's first room-temperature microwave laser. It's also around 100 million times more powerful than current models. Masers (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated …
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Friday 17th August 2012 11:28 GMT Gordon 10
Re: 100 Million @ Atom Bomb
dont know if this is true or not as I got it second hand but its a great story anyways.
Apparently before the first atom bomb test Oppenheimer and the gang had a betting pool going on the effects. It was evenly split between those that believed the test would ignite the atmosphere and extinguish all life as we know it and those that thought it wouldnt.
Probably not true but conjours up a great mental image of boffins sweating bullets...
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Friday 17th August 2012 13:36 GMT Gav
Re: 100 Million @ Atom Bomb
Only stupid if you're the one betting you won't be alive. The one betting they will be alive wins either way. Alive and they win the bet, dead and they don't have to honour the bet. Just the slight downside of being dead, but if that's going to happen, it happens whether they have bet on the outcome or not.
So overall, the ones betting on dead are the stupid ones. Which has got to be good news, as you can then discount their estimations on the outcome.
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Saturday 18th August 2012 18:49 GMT Dave 62
Re: 100 Million @ Atom Bomb
Depends on the Motorway, does sound like a laugh though.. these days though, nanny state and all, they'd throw away the key. How does one unknowingly do it? Sounds like a solid defence, "sorry officer, I have no idea what happened, one minute I was in the shower and then..."
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Friday 17th August 2012 01:18 GMT John Smith 19
Historically MASERs have been used to amplify weak signals.
They were used to amplify the first geosynchronous satellite transmissions between ground stations and AFAIK are still used for deep space signals by NASA.
Such huge amplification offers some interesting possibilities.
amplifier (with suitable battery) + mobile phone = hot takeaways anywhere.
Just another small step in the rise of civilisation.
Gentlemen we salute you.
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Friday 17th August 2012 09:51 GMT Christian Berger
Re: Historically MASERs have been used to amplify weak signals.
Actually the problem wasn't how much you'd amplify the signal, but how little noise you had. And MASERs cooled down to low temperatures were quite silent. A room temperature MASER would just amplify the thermal radiation of your room. That's useless for satellite communications.
If you get the chance, get once of those cheap RF-meters used to allign satellite dishes. Connect them to a dish, misallign it, then place your hand in front of the LNB. You'll be surprised that (unless you aimed it at another satellite) the value will actually go up.
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Saturday 18th August 2012 19:01 GMT Dave 62
Re: Mobile phone.. heating food.. you've not really thought that through, have you?
Interesting aside - about a year ago there was some talk of using lasers in the place of spark plugs. I bet some guy just thought.. why the fuck not? Benefit? Well.. it's LASERS, is that good enough? Although for everyone getting all excited I may be wrong but wouldn't a maser technically be lower energy? Like how red lasers are lower energy than green which are lower than blue? Also isn't a CO2 laser is technically a MASER in the traditional sense as it's in the microwave range? So wouldn't like.. nasers or pasers be better?
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Friday 17th August 2012 02:19 GMT Kharkov
Applications?
There's a lot of jokes about death rays and the like but seriously, what are the applications for masers?
More accurate rangefinders? Optical scanners? Higher resolution spectographs?
The key to significantly more information-dense radio signals?
Or is it weapons after all? Something 747-sized to shoot down missiles? F-15-sized to shoot down directly incoming small missiles (think AMRAAM-type) and the (many) aircraft that launched them at ranges of up to 50 kilometres? Tank-sized to shoot down incoming aircraft/missiles/artillery shells? Infantry-weapon-sized to shoot, with great lethality, from ranges of 10 metres to 1 kilometre?
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Friday 17th August 2012 06:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Applications?
"Someone who knows about this will probably pass further comment soon."
Ahem. Harumph.
No comment.
I'm wondering what the useful applications might be. This device is pumped with a laser as opposed to incoming microwave energy. That's not going to allow it to replace the ones that NASA use in communications. And we're already quite good at generating microwave power using magnetrons, travelling wave tubes and solid state devices. I suppose that there is a potential use in radar systems - perhaps you can generate very short pulses at high power which would give you good resolution. But we've been achieving that in other ways for decades already, so even that seems to be not very likely to get the population excited.
p.s I salute you if you got the joke, and I apologise deeply in advance
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Friday 17th August 2012 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Applications?
well I've used and held a maser that was built in Chelmpsford. I think it was x-band so fairly compact (around 6 kilos). It was the front end for a type xxx radar system. This new much more sensitive solid state maser jobbie will prob be able to be engineered into a 50 gramme system; it's job will be to give coherent receive sensitivity far below the rf noise level. That can give rise to many things - spread spectrum covert internet/darknet (where the RF noise is high i.e thermal limited terrestrial applications) - it could well give space looking antennae (where the external RF noise level is mostly big-bang echo) a mega increase in sensitivity - i.e less satellite TX power needed, or Satellite reception easier to achieve in cars or on mobile handsets.
This solid-state maser isn't (yet) a weapon, it's more of a boost in the receiving chain rather than transmitting, and it could scale well up to and beyond terahertz thus opening up those bands for useful fun?
(Oh and as for the weapons "I think that microwaves have a problem with beam spreading over quite short distances due to the relatively large wavelength" the spreading is mostly solved by highlighting the target/path with freakingly powerful ultraviolet laser - the high power radiofrequencies then channel at much less than free-space-path-loss. Get used to it, directed energy is available, update your infrastructure accordingly!)
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Friday 17th August 2012 17:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Applications?
"Being electro-magnetic radiation, the inverse square law is probably more relevant than beam spread issues."
the inverse square law only applies to sources of radiation that are uncollimated and not coherent i.e. it doesn't apply to lasers and masers; that's why they're so useful.
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Friday 17th August 2012 14:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Applications?
>Maybe a portable EMP device to fry electronics selectively..
At last! My long-awaited yoof doof-doof-car-hifi killer! No more having to listen to whichever drivel if the current dance music craze blased out at 200 watts RMS from the passing chavmobiles.
And as a bonus, it may well make the shazzas and kevins sterile. Or at least, give rise to amusing mutations(*) in their gene pool..
(*) More so than usual. It's a pretty shallow pool usually..
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Friday 17th August 2012 15:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Applications?
I'd use it to sort out the HAM operator next door - his signals leak furiously all over my home electronics, and I'm fairly certain he's outputting far more juice than he's allowed.
Local authorities have been quite un-interested in sorting him out, so I'm wondering what a little high-intensity boost to his incoming signal might do to his reciever..?
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Friday 17th August 2012 15:49 GMT Mr Temporary Handle
Re: Applications?
That's because they don't have the authority. Something they may have already informed you of.
Find the right government (hint, hint) body to complain to and if he's exceeding his license limits or generating EMI which causes interference in nearby equipment he'll lose his license.
...Or alternatively, just break into his home and vandalise his equipment. Better still, go the whole hog as my American colleagues say, and vandalise his whole house. Pay particular attention to computers, games consoles, HiFi and TV.
Oh, and don't forget to use his bed as a toilet.
[/sarcasm]
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Friday 17th August 2012 15:56 GMT Fred Flintstone
Re: HAM operator
Alternatively, you could actually try to talk to the guy first. HAM radio hobbyists tend to have a reasonable insight into filtering out radio signals, and AFAIK they actually will get in trouble if their signals cause interference. Thus allowing the chap to sort it out before taking the bigger step would be a good start.
You can still call the relevant gov department (no idea who that would be in your country) if that doesn't solve the problem.
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Friday 17th August 2012 23:39 GMT Tapeador
Re: Applications?
Well it's obvious what the main application is. Just as lasers have become part of our everyday lives in this way, the new high-power maser will enable a new generation of jailbird chavs to blind drivers and airline pilots with a previously un-dreamed-of level of efficiency and accuracy.
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Saturday 18th August 2012 09:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Argument with the wife?
Mr Scientist, remember, never explain, and never apologise ;) I would explain about this, but I might have to apologise for my stance ;)
Well, unless you were the intellectual lecturer at Uni in my folks time there, who had his wife phone ahead and warn his workplace that he had clean forgot to put his britches on yet again .... before heading to work, possibly to a lecture .... :)
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Friday 17th August 2012 12:54 GMT Crisp
Re: All I want to know on behalf of us thickie non scientists is....
I'm going to go out on a limb here Ben and say yes.
Also, I believe that the results of this experiment will also pave the way to warp drives, positronic brains, silver jumpsuits, inertial dampeners, and heisenburg compensators.
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Friday 17th August 2012 07:43 GMT Matt Schofield
Rule Britannia anyone?
And that ladies and gentlemen is why Tim B-L was in the Olympics opening ceremony - not only because of his own contributions but because of the British way of doing things - 1lb Heath, 6oz Robinson, a pint of dallying, an argument with the wife and @Ginger because it might be his contribution to the world. Love it (post-Olympic normality not yet resumed...).
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Friday 17th August 2012 08:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Rule Britannia anyone?
"1lb Heath, 6oz Robinson, a pint of dallying, an argument with the wife"
... and a pudding bowl sized mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut sheathing a crystal of pure unobtanium encased in a mirror polished silver plated pot. Not the sort of thing one can whip up in the garden shed I'm slightly saddened to see.
Well done to him though. (I also have a collection of unlikely stuff purloined from work.)
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Friday 17th August 2012 07:49 GMT Neil Barnes
It's reminding me of the story of Asaph Hall
who was allegedly bullied by his wife Angelina Strickney into going back to the freezing observatory and discovering the moons of Mars, aka Fear and Terror.
The largest crater on Phobos - had the thing that made it been any bigger, the moon wouldn't have survived - is named for her.
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Friday 17th August 2012 08:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
YouTube captions for the win...
"my name is mark oak spoarer..."
By turning on YouTube captions, the presentations takes on an entirely different meaning.
other gems inlude:
"..and the problem with these devices is that up to now, all required progeny freezing in order to work"
"..and now kathleen removed the coal"
".. an inside the ring, ease any crystal, or intestinal, intent repainting"
"..the other night, export palistinians in process"
I think that makes more sense.
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Friday 17th August 2012 09:16 GMT John Smith 19
How many noted " mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut"
Once upon a time super villains had to organize giant jewel robberies just to get the *parts*.
Now it seems you just have to know the right websites and place an order.
When talking high efficiency amplification of GHz signals *the* obvious application has to be mobile phone base stations.
IIRC there was some talk of using High Temperature Superconductors to improve the reception (hence lower phone output power, smaller cells and potentially more users able to talk at once). They're *much* more difficult to maintain so it might take off sooner than people may think.
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Friday 17th August 2012 12:33 GMT kyza
Re: How many noted " mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut"
I was more intrigued by this line:
He then bought an old medical laser from a source in North London to set up the experiment.
I have an image of him buying a medical laser from a bloke in a pub in Stoke Newington 'Got it during the riots last year, mate. Couldn't shift it to anyone. Your's for a monkey.'
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Friday 17th August 2012 14:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "sunny side of the moon"
> Tip: the 'dark side' of the moon is not especially lacking in light.
There's that. But why go all the way to the moon? It'd be just as exciting to put them in near Earth orbit, but even that's grandstanding. It'd be a lot simpler to put solar generating plants in north Africa and a few other places around the world.
Maybe it'd be interesting to MASER the power to where it's wanted until the grid is extended to where the power is generated.
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Friday 17th August 2012 13:38 GMT Kubla Cant
Mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut
Scene 1: the breakfast table; wife has just opened the post
wife All right, who is she?
man Who?
wife Your floozie. The one you've bought this mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut for. I must say, I don't think much of her taste in jewellery.
man Oh that... it's, er, part of an experiment. I'm hoping to make Masie, er, a maser. That's it, I'm going to make a maser.
wife You must think I was born yesterday. You'd better make up your mind - her or me!
man I'm just off to the shed to try it out.
wife A likely story!
Scene 2: the shed
man Oh sh*t! What do I do now? I don't suppose there's any chance this maser thing is really possible.
To be continued.
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Friday 17th August 2012 14:23 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut
My ex-wife had a similar moment when she discovered a folder in my work email named "JaNet".
I don't think the explanation of "Joint Academic Network" ever did convince, even after showing the website and letting her read the content. (one of the reasons she's EX-wife)
That really is one feckoff large chunk of carborundum though, At least we'll be able to listen to Pioneer for a while longer with it. :)
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Saturday 18th August 2012 09:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Mono-crystalline sapphire doughnut
Did yours try to blame you for for having difficulty putting digital photos into year-grouping folders on the PC when she's not been setting the date properly on her camera? Compounded by the fact that she never ever moved files off her SD cards, seemed to think the filedates were the True Source of all knowledge, and that only Bad People ever move or copy them for any reason ;)
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