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Nov 182023
 

A common trope in science fiction is the discovery of “an element that does not appear on the periodic table.” This is of course nonsense… if the element has three protons, it’s lithium, full stop. And we’ve discovered – or invented – every element up to Element 118, Oganesson. These higher elements are quite unstable, generally having half lives of microseconds to minutes… but there is a suspected “island of stability” with some of these heavier elements if you can nail the isotopes correctly. Which nobody has.

But even if you can reliably manufacture the stable versions of these heavy elements on an industrial scale, the likelihood of them being useful to make spaceships or battle armor is low… and they’d still appear on the periodic table. Their physical properties probably won’t be that terribly interesting. Oganesson, for example, melts at a boring 52 C/125 F, and has a density of only 7.2 gm/cubic cm.

But Amazing Materials are terribly useful in science fiction. Witness Star Trek’s “dilithium,” a crystal that somehow or other allows matter-antimatter reactions that are controllable and useful. In Babylon 5 there was Quantium 40, necessary for the construction of jumpgates.  So what the hell are these?

 

I kinda recall that “Quantium 4o” was just bog-standard potassium-40 that had been close enough to a supernova to be *somethinged,* and changed at the quantum level *somehow,* resulting in a material that does Amazing Things.  How about dilithium? Well, dilithium is a real substance…. just a molecule with two lithium atoms bonded together in the gas phase. It’s clearly not the same thing as Trek’s “dilithium crystals,” and certainly not the later “trilithium resin” which has the interesting property that a few grams of the stuff can cause all fusion to cease in a star moments after it’s dropped in.

So… what the hell are Trekkian “dilithium,” or “vibranium” or “adamantium” or “byzanium” or “naquadah?” A century or more ago, fabulous new elements like “cavorite” could be thrown in without issue, because the list of known elements was massively incomplete. We can’t do that today.

In general, unless it’s important to the story, there’s neither need nor benefit to explaining such details in a story… it just exists. But now we know that there are no slots in the periodic table for new elements, so introducing them raises questions. So how to create actual new elements?

Honestly… I don’t know. But I’ve got an ill-formed probably crappy idea.

 

Take “dilithium.” Clearly “lithium” has something to do with it. Presumably *two* lithiums, given the name. If you simply stick two lithium atoms together, you get the previously mentioned uninteresting real-world “dilithium.” If you mash the lithiums together hard enough that the nuclei bond together, you no linger have lithium, you have carbon. This is just the way it is.

 

But while we can’t really posit new elements, we *can* posit the discovery, creation, utilization of new particles. We’re not done discovering such things. So *perhaps* there is a particle that can, say, replace neutrons in a nuclei, fullfilling the same function of gluing the protons into place. But they have a different effect on the electron shells. Perhaps to the point where two lithium nuclei so modified will actually stick together, but not actually fuse into carbon. Sort of a contact binary nuclei. Or these mystery particles are simply added to the neutrons and protons; being the same mass as a proton, if you add six of these new particles to a lithium atom you double the mass… thus di-lithium. These modified atoms would undoubtedly have very different properties from the regular stuff… properties the writer can simply declare. Adamantium, for instance, is a modification of helium; this turns it into a metal that, apparently, melts at a low temperature *once*, but when it solidifies it becomes not only insanely hard and tough, its melting temperature shoots way up.

 

In recent years one of the more popular fictional elements is “unobtanium” from “Avatar,” a room temperature superconductor. This *has* to be a new pseudo-element, rather than an alloy or compound. Because if it was the latter, a technological species with the ability to create antimatter-powered relativistic starships could simply synthesize the stuff. There’d be no need to mine it light years away. But if it was a material made from exotic particles… shrug.

 Posted by at 11:50 pm
Nov 182023
 

The second Starship/Superheavy launched today. Vastly more successful than the first flight, but both stages were still destroyed.

This sort of thing would be unacceptable for a modern NASA launch system… but it was common in early launch vehicle development. Atlas and Titan kerploded with regularity. This sort of thing is not desirable, but it is a natural part of the learning process.

Scott Manley has done an analysis of the video and has some good suggestions about what happened with the booster. There would seem likely to be some serious issues with slosh and propellant hammer effects, caused by the sudden deceleration and flip maneuver. These are resolvable.

But beyond the technical issues and successes… this flight was simply *gorgeous.*

 

 

 

 Posted by at 4:24 pm
Nov 122023
 

Due to a law rushed through last year, if Illinoisans don’t register their perfectly legal and common firearm (referred to inaccurately as “assault weapons”) by January 1 2024 they could get in trouble. But there’s a little wrinkle… the “Firearm Owners Protection Act” of 1986. The FOPA has a lot of problems, but it also has a fun little provision:

No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established. Nothing in this section expands or restricts the Secretary’s [1] authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation.

Huh. No system of registration is to be established by the US, any state or political subdivision. A gun registry is *illegal* under Federal law.

So, tell me where I’m wrong: if you know a firearm registry is illegal, you knowingly violate the law if you register your gun. So if its a choice between obeying the Illinois state law or the US Federal law… isn’t it legally safer to not violate US law? Doesn’t registering your firearm make you an accessory to breaking a Federal law?

 

A good question to ask is why would a government pass a law they know to be not only illegal under federal law but downright unConstitutional. Well, it’s always worth considering that the people who do these sort of things tend to have an amazing mix of arrogance and stupidity, leading to monumental incompetence. But it’s also worth considering that the idea may well be to set up the system of laws so that not only is virtually everyone in violation of *something,* they all know it. This will necessarily have the effect of reducing respect for rule of law. It seems counter-intuitive that the government would want to bake a lack of respect for the rule of law into the population…  but it makes sense once you realize that a lot of government types are in it for *power.* A population that no longer expects or even wants to obey the law will just naturally expect all manner of corruption from their “leaders.”

 Posted by at 2:47 pm
Nov 082023
 

It’s many a year since I’ve driven through Denver. Last time I came close was 2019, when i drove *around* Denver and found it to be a horrible traffic nightmare; driving through it seemed like utter insanity. Apparently the years have not improved the situation any.

Video shows car driving down 16th Street Mall sidewalk, hitting other vehicles

I came downtown for the dinner but I stayed for the driver
byu/cyrpious inAbruptChaos

I think that’s a Bentley. Aren’t they kinda expensive? I’m not sure the insurance company is going to take too kindly to the claims here.

 

 Posted by at 11:35 pm
Nov 062023
 

I’ve long counseled American Jews to get armed and trained, because their “friends” on the political left will sooner or later throw them to the wolves. That day seems to be right about here, if not in fact yesterday.

Anyway, this happened today:

Several young kids escape injury after woman targets what she thought was an ‘Israel school’

One “Ruba Almaghtheh” rammed her car into the Indianapolis school, which had a single adult and four little kids in it. She damaged her car and scored herself attention and felony charges, but didn’t seem to actually injure anyone. Why’d she do it? Because it was the “Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge,” and some people are kinda psycho in their hatred of Jews.

But here’s the kicker: the”Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge” isn’t Jewish… it’s “Black Hebrew Israelites.” These are black supremacists who have culturally appropriated some texts, names, clothes and ideas, but are about as Jewish as the average Fed glowie advocating online for violent rebellion is actually a Trump supporter. In one of those fantastic “make it make sense” moments, they are an offshoot of the “Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ.” They are so whackadoodle that even the Southern Poverty Law Center, which hates to even suggest that there can be such a thing as anti-white racism, has labeled them a hate group.

So… Palestine-supporters vs black supremacists? I want this show to go on for seven seasons and at least three movies.

And in other news, Palestine supporters are now outright murdering Israel supporters on American streets.

 

And in other news…

How Israel shot down a ballistic missile in space for the first time

Arrow missile-defence system took out rocket fired from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen outside of Earth’s atmosphere

Enemy missiles have been shot down before. Missiles in space have been shot down before. But this is the first time an enemy missile has been shot down in space.

 Posted by at 11:32 pm
Nov 042023
 

Several models of the Starship Enterprise were built for the original “Star Trek” series. The most famous is the 11-foot model which was used for most of the effects shots, and *amazingly* managed to survive long enough to end up in the hands of the National Air and Space Museum. But before the 11-footer was a 3-footer. This was made early on, and was solid wood with no lighting; still, it was used in a number of shots. This model stayed in the hands of Gene Roddenberry, modified to rest on a mike stand bolted to a wooden base. This model was lent to the first special effects house during the production of the aborted “Star Trek Phase II” series in the mid-70’s… and then it vanished. Whether it was stolen, misplaced or lost has not been clear, but Roddenberry considered it to be stolen. Stuff like this that disappears stands a good chance of never being seen again. Witness many of the models made for “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

But then, the “Aries Ib” model for “2001” was found a few years ago. And as it turns out, that 3-foot Enterprise was recently found. It was in a storage unit, purchased by someone who buys such things at auction. The new owner then put it on ebay with a starting price of a mere $1000. And then Star Trek fandom found out about it and has been going nuts. The Roddenberry estate contacted the seller and the auction has been pulled.

News was revealed here:

https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/red-alert-lost-3-ft-tos-enterprise-found.354596/

The current seller has broken no laws… it seems he just bought an abandoned storage unit. But the Enterprise remains stolen property and should be returned to the Roddenberry estate. Still… it sure seems like the seller aught to be compensated for finding this thing, even if he didn’t really know quite what he had. It’s in pretty rough shape, as can be expected. With luck it’ll receive some sort of restoration, though arguments can be made for exactly how far that should go. It should definitely be cleaned up. It’s drooping and cracked; that should be fixed. But fixing the paint and decals? I don’t know about that. Perhaps it, unlike the NASM Enterprise, should retain the appearance of years. There are some “errors” that were there from the beginning, those should stay.

It is very unlikely that this will ever see an auction. But if it does, it’ll doubtless go for Lotto-levels  of cash.

The photos from the ebay listing:

 Posted by at 10:13 pm
Nov 032023
 

So they’re coming for the night sky, too:

The Magellanic Clouds must be renamed, astronomers say

Anything and everything to erase any mention of the people who built the world. The wokies want to rename the Magellanic Clouds because by modern standards Magellan was not a great guy. But you don’t see them wanting to rename anything named by the Sumerians or Babylonians or the Arabs, do you.

 Posted by at 3:04 pm
Oct 302023
 

A barnacle that attaches itself to female crabs and convinces said crab that it is her eggs so that the crab will take care of it, and help it distribute its own eggs. But it sometimes attaches itself to male crabs.In that case, it releases hormones that convince the male crab that it is female, sometimes to the point that the gonads actually flip sex.

Well, that’s horrifying.

But it’s also… well, huh. Hormones being fed into an organism without the organisms knowledge or consent, causing it confusion about its gender. one wonders if there might be some sort of analogies that can be drawn. Such as to chemicals in the water and food supply… birth control pills flushed down the toilet, entering the sewage treatment systems, *not* getting processed out and then dumped into the water supply. “Forever chemicals” added to plastic drinking bottles that mimic gendered human sex hormones, and which are now detectable in *rain.*

 

 Posted by at 11:31 pm
Oct 292023
 

Old-school antisemitism: not just for western leftists.

 

For the brain dead who think “this is an over-there problem, nothing to do with us,” the chumps who set off the Boston Marathon bombs back in 2013 were from, in part, Dagestan, and were of the same mindset as this jet-swarming mob.

 

 Posted by at 2:27 pm