Future/near Future technologies

[Az]

sorry for torturing you. Now I feel I have the complete picture.

[Kramerman]

What is an ion engine?

basically it is an engine that uses an electric field to charge particles. By ejecting these charged particles, thrust is created. (thrust can be created, however, by ejecting any type of particle, by Newton's 3rd law. im not sure what advantage charging them has )

[KrazyHorse]

If you don't charge them you can't accelerate them using electric fields.

[mrmitchell]

Re: Future/near Future technologies

Originally posted by NeOmega
Can anybody give a brief description of the theroies behind:

*Why Plasma is considered a fourth element

State, not element. IIRC Plasma is elements that are stripped of thier electrons. (Not that I'm a physics professor or anything...)

*speculation on what dark matter is

Dark matter? Dunno what it is, but IIRC it's the undetectable stuff that gives the extra gravity required to hold the universe together.

*neutrinos, and if they are in any way controllable, capturable, detectable.

They're detected. IIRC pools of water are built deep underground (where a lot of other particles are weeded out) and somehow water acts as a reflector or detector or some other stuff.

*Fission vs Fusion..... and cold fusion

Sure you already know this, but fission is when atoms break apart. Fusion is when atoms join together. Our sun is powered by fusion, hydrogen bombs use fusion, and fusion produces helluva lot more energy than fission.

What is a quantum computer?

IIRC a quantum computer is a computer capable of creating an infinite number of parallel universes to each work on a seperate part of the problem. (To use a classical computing example, breaking an encryption with 1 processor at 2GHz is going to take ~4billion years, but with 2 only ~2bill, 4 only ~1bill, etc. The more power you have, the faster it is, and when you have infinite power, it's truly immediate.

Hope this helps

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Frogger
If you don't charge them you can't accelerate them using electric fields.

ah yes i forgot!

thank ya

[NeOmega]

There are five states of matter, by the way. Urban Ranger forgot about absolute zero matter - when it's so cold that the atoms have stopped vibrating altogether.

Has this ever been achieved, and what are some potential uses for such a state? Can it cause a chain reaction, (create more around it) and is it impossible, (by defintiton of heat), to go lower than 0 K?

Then there is the Bose-Einstein condensate, which is even more exotic.

Eenput! Eenput! explain please!

[Sava]

I want either a holodeck or a Matrix-style computer hookup so I can have sex with women all day.

[Sheik]

and is it impossible, (by defintiton of heat), to go lower than 0 K?

I think it is impossible. It seems to also be impossible to reach 0 K because the matter would fall apart.

[Skanky Burns]

The 0 Kelvin state is useful as you can store energy indefinately with no loss.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by NeOmega
Eenput! Eenput! explain please!

Bosons are integer-spin particles. The fundamental property of bosons is that the Pauli Exclusion Principle does not apply to them (as it does to fermions)

As such it is possible for an infinite number of bosons to occupy the same quantum state. At low energies, bosons will all "choose" to occupy the same, lowest-energy state. The phenomenon of a single, superdense collection of bosons in this lowest energy state is called a "Bose-Einstein condensate", since Bose (after whom the boson is named) and Einstein contributed to the mathematical treatment of statistical ensembles of bosons (the "Bose-Einstein statistics").

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by NeOmega
So what makes a quantum computer more desirable than a binary computer?

Supposedly, you can do interesting things with it, like factoring large numbers quickly.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
The 0 Kelvin state is useful as you can store energy indefinately with no loss.

You don't need 0K, just superconductivity.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Frogger
Maybe if you had 10 or 20 jupiters and banged them into each other...or if you had some sort of nuclear catalyst that would drop the activation energy of the H-H reaction (I'm not aware of any such energy path).

IIRC, Jupiter is just a bit below the mass of a brown dwarf.

[Skanky Burns]

You don't need 0K, just superconductivity.

I thought one meant the existance of the other?

[Urban Ranger]

Sure, if you achieve 0K, you get superconductivity. However, to get superconductivity, you don't need to get to 0K, just sufficiently low temperatures will do.