The year in science

Ramael Slater, Washington, DC — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:07:20 GMT

Coming soon-FLYING CARS? Martian Colony? Space Hotel?

The year in science

Skip Goddard — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:49:24 GMT

With the upcoming election, political science and the understanding of our politicians stands on science and funding for same is paramount. Knowledge is the only thing that can save our butts, not reliance on unproven beliefs

The year in science

Doug — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:30:16 GMT

Given that energy production and use ties directly with Global warming, political stability, and fiscal well being; I for one would like to see more reporting on innovative science in this field of endeavor. Some examples might be genetic manipulation of micro organisms to produce fuels, advances solar cells, nuclear fusion, etc.

The year in science

Mark Wakely — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:17:27 GMT

Here's my list of science predictions for 2008:

The discovery of more Earth-size planets in the habitable zone ("Goldilocks" zone, because it's "just right" to support life) around other stars.

A major policy shift in favor of nuclear power plants as part of the solution for global warming, with renewed debate about what to do with all the spent nuclear fuel we already have stockpiled and waiting disposal.

A new “space race” thanks to the growing success of the Chinese and Japanese space programs. India too will play a bigger role in space, as might Brazil.

There will be a renewed push for the development of nuclear propulsion to vastly speed up trips to Mars and beyond. Faster trips will lessen astronaut’s exposure to weightlessness, cosmic rays, and high-energy particles from solar flares.

At least one significant discovery will be made aboard the ISS, one that will somehow improve our quality of life.

Scientists will continue to be amazed at the hardiness of life with the discovery of some microbe or other life form in yet another inhospitable place on Earth where it was always assumed life could not exist.

A breakthrough in quantum computing will bring us one step closer to supercomputers the size of laptops.

And my boldest prediction: time travel will prove to be a reality (of sorts) when a quantum retrocausality experiment at the University of Washington is demonstrated next year. The experiment involves photons- not people- but will still be a headline-making success.

The year in science

Chaz Lawrence, Portsmouth, VA. — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:42:03 GMT

the country would be better off if we started pushing for better energy sources, and started focusing on matters of earth and space science. of course that is just my belief

The year in science

Orin Hollander Jamison, PA — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:25:54 GMT

Time travel is, of course, possible. We do it all the time. We move into the future at one second per second in our individual inertial frames. High speed travel is not a form of time travel any more than suspended animation is.
But travel into the "past" is something else again. All that is needed is for every particle in the universe to occupy the same position and momentum relative to all other particles that it had at some "previous" space-time event coordinate. That, like violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is a matter only of probabilities. Just like watching a pot of water on a hot stove freeze while the stove gets hotter, the event is possible, but so highly improbable as to have no chance of occuring in a stupendously long time.
But if the "future" is infinite then the "past" will be re-created. A truly depressing thought when you think that George Bush will once again be President!

The year in science

Ferris Valyn, Ann Arbor, MI — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:36:33 GMT

My major predictions for this coming year?
- SpaceX will get to orbit this year with its Falcon 1, and we'll see a full hold down test of it Falcon 9
- No company will actually fly into space, but by years end we'll see the rollout of a vehicle that can (maybe Xerus, or Rocketplane XP, or something from Armadillo)
- someone will definitely win the Lunar Lander Challenge, and their be more than one competitor
- we'll see Rocket League Exhibition racing (and possibly full competitive racing)
- we MIGHT see the first attempt at super high skydiving (it will begin to approach spacediving).

Thats good enough for now.
While I don't think we'll see any one actually get into space (

The year in science

Jim Moser — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:44:27 GMT

I agree with the idea that we must focus on science. Without science, who would want to live shoulder to shoulder with the population that is projected to be. We must advance in all sciences otherwise the human species is doomed. That and I feel we should have a crash program in all sciences to advance our knowledge imensely. Full public spending.

The year in science

Adam Simms, Kent, OH — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:30:11 GMT

We have to be on the verge of creating/finding a truely creative analytical machine! We see it in nature everywhere but still not in the lab.

The year in science

Mark wakely — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:22:33 GMT

The U of W time travel experiment is being conducted by physicist John Kramer with private donations. He tried for public funding, but was denied because the experiment was deemed too speculative.

The principle of quantum retrocasaulity relies on the same principle that Einstein refered to as "spooky action from a distance," also known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Two subatomic particles split from a single particle do somehow instantaneously communicate no matter how far apart they get in space and time. The phenomenon is described as "entanglement" and "non-local communication."

The experiment has a very real chance of success. If only partly successful, Kramer hopes to attract more funds for the project to do more sensitive experiments.

The year in science

Ben Winter — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:26:11 GMT

Dear Sirs:
Politics aside (Bush recreated, previous blog),there will never be a time regression--nor will there ever be progression into a future time frame, excepting the next moment, and which hardly represents an extraordinary occurrence. As to the integrity of mechanical movement at the speed of light: no, such is impossible; for, all things traveling at the speed of light become light. The Higgs boson quest will not establish the ultimate particle definition. This theorist predicts the Ultimate Particle to define at about 4.77 x 10 to the 33rd power eV (Jan. 2007). They will eventually find dark matter and dark energy to be the same and realized as a compromised-light component. (By the way, the Higgs boson art work cannot represent a particle signature.)
Ben Winter

The year in science

Ben Winter — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:02:19 GMT

The year in science

Frank Glover, Rochester, NY — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:51:09 GMT

"Time travel is, of course, possible. We do it all the time. We move into the future at one second per second in our individual inertial frames."

Technically that's true, but if there's no control over it, if it's just the normal unfoldment of nature, it ain't 'travel' in the sense we normally think of it.

It's not unlike the occasional assertion that Earth and the solar system are 'traveling' through interstellar space. That too is technically true, but don't take the old 'spaceship Earth' metaphor too lterally. If I can't find the 'bridge' and change speed or direction, just being on Earth isn't really space travel, either.

The year in science

Chuck Sweet, Portland OR — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:29:21 GMT

I think that our near future will bring us a much deeper understanding of dark matter, that it is actually more linked to what we know as real matter, I think we will see breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence and shortly thereafter we will see a major change in the way we do microprocessing and dealing with a "Live Internet" that is able to find information in a helpful manner, eliminates the misses and focuses on the most useful information for the individual customer, which is something our present internet just cannot do.

I think that the next few years will see vast changes in the way we produce energy, if not here in the US then other parts of the world will develop them and we will have to buy the tech ourselves later, when we could have been the very cutting edge of that technology, if we had not had an industry friendly President and Administration, that worked so industiously at denying Global Warming so they could real billions upon billions of dollars in profits with the way things are already set up, which is causing the problem to begin with! Has we Not gotten involved in Bush's Iraq Folly, and had that money instead been spent, along with the money spent in actively denying global warming, had all of this money been gone to changing the energy infrastructure we could have been so far ahead of the Kyoto Protocols that it is not even funny. We could all be driving Electric vehicles, like the ones GM destroyed after finding they were a huge success in trials. We could have our rail and heavy transit systems and infrastructure brought up to Real World Industry Standards, instead of falling apart as it presently is. I think that the US is going to HAVE to wake up very soon to the fact that we depend on stability within the world's ecological system and our own lopsided responsibilities for causing much of the problem.

Presently we have third-world nations asking us for the Technology so that they can build their new infrastructures from the ground up (as they still have to in many places) in a 'green' and clean, efficient energy sources and distribution equipment. We need to find a way that those that have the patents can be reimbursed by our govt. for being able to give them to these needy nations, It would help us greatly in the near future as far as climate control and also help propel those people into a better future. Clean and efficient technology should not be held by the greedy and controlling corporations that unfairly hold back these data. Such technology should belong to all people and be widely available so that countries like China and India could also rebuild in a cleaner manner instead of having to try to ferret out this tech by spying and the like. The present Energy Consortiums have intentionally kept us from having efficient electric power and clean transportation simply because the present, dirty, way of doing things makes them Trillions of dollars world wide every year and have bought off the governmental watchdogs with campaign cash, amongst other bribe methods, and managed to get regulations made based on their own data and their baselines as far as what they "Can" do and how much profit can be inbuilt to the system, guarantees of minimum pricing and subsidies for exploration and exploitation.....It is truly no wonder why there is so much inertia being applied by the energy corporations, They Would have to SPEND money, realize years of lessened or near zero actual profits for their pockets just so they could bring their systems up to modern.

We have to wake up to all of this and tackle it in a head on fashion, or else we will all, literally, be in hot water soon!