I ran across an interesting article on SLAC's website* called The Search for Dark Energy . It sounds like Science Fiction, but researchers will be conducting over 2 dozen experiments to find that missing 70% of the stuff that makes up our universe.
* It's interesting what you find while looking up something completely unrelated. I went to SLAC's website because of a Sun blogger talking about SLAC getting one of the first Sun Blackboxes.
(Full Article)
James P. Hogan has always been one of my favorite authors, this would be great to see his Giants series made into either a movie(s) or a series.
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It's interesting to see what Adsense picks up on in blog posting when deciding what ad(s) to place. For instance my recent Sci-Fi Friday mentions an exhibit hall, so naturally an ad about exihibit hall displays is posted. Not exactly my target audience, but then it got me thinking, who is my target audience? Some of what I post is biking related, but I don't make it the only topic. I document some of what I do; either at work, hobbies and observations. I like to show my creative side, that's why I like the Instructables site, which by the way is where I need to update or create a new posting for my Steadicam (bike mounted). It's gone through some changes since that first version that I documented, I've added a tripod head at the end of the arm so that I can swivel the miniDV 360 degrees and tilt it +/- ~90 degrees. I'll probably get a picture of it up here before I get the update on Instructables. So, it will be interesting to see what Adsense does with this posting.
Safe riding all -
The Ride Lead
Nov. 1895 - London Exhibition hall
A hushed crowd stands around what looks like several phonograph speaker horns, mounted on top of a large wooden box.
New York, NY
On the other side of the Atlantic, Nikola Tesla stands before a large voice transducer (microphone). A small crowd of people watch the clock on the wall. At the appointed time, 11:00AM, Tesla throws a large switch, and starts to read a short statement "This is Nikola Tesla, I am speaking to you from my laboratory in New York City, this is a demonstration of wireless communication based on my tuned circuit radio patents".
In London the crowd is silent as the first few words are spoken, then a roar of applause drowns out the rest of Tesla's broadcast. The first transatlantic broadcast has been an overwhelming success.
Now history would credit Tesla with the invention of Radio and JP Morgan would recognized that Tesla holds some of the most valuable patents of all time, and would, if left to his devices, produce even more. Tesla had also convinced his long time friend Mark Twain to invest in his company instead of what seemed to be a money pit that had something to do with an automatic printing press.
And so the third Tesla Company was established, with Nikola as the head of Research and Devleopment, it would be one of the first think tanks. With the right management in place, Tesla was indead "left to his devices" while others in the company helped him patent his many ideas. Tesla would now be credited with the discovery of X-ray, the electron microscope, fluorescent tubes and the most important: radio.
1896
Marconi, tries to get funding for his "version" of the Radio, but the publicity that had been generated by Tesla, now overshadows Marconi's efforts.
Nikola sits back in his chair in the restaurant of his hotel glancing down at his plate. In years passed, he used to fret about germs and spend his time calculating the cubic volume of each bite of food. But with his recent success, these things seemed not to creep into his mind as they used to, and what a waste of time and mental energy. He was also attracted to a beautiful socialite, who would be joining him for Dinner tonight.
To be continued...
For Part 1 see this posting to my blog .
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This single event will now set in motion more than a breeze of change in the course of history, for Tesla, it will be a virtual hurricane.
Summer 1895 (almost two years ahead of the previous timeline)
Nikola Tesla was as confident in his ability as he was in his equipment, he knew that if this demonstration was successful, he would be rich enough to pursue anything that interested him. Tesla took the podium of the outside stage in Madison Square Garden and announced, "The device that you see before you is being remotely controlled from this stage". With that he activated the switches in sequence to move, submerge and control the small boat in the water several yards in front of the stage.
This demonstration was only the beginning of several to occur in the next few months, which effectively showcased the priority of Telsa's radio patents. In his second demonstration he had transmitted signals (or intelligence, as he preferred to call it) for a distance of over 50 miles. The strength of the received signal was such, that Tesla was confident it would have been received at more than 5 times that distance. With this success, his financiers wanted the next demonstration to be a trans-Atlantic broadcast.
To be continued...
"The Outer Limits" is one of my earliest memorys of the Sci-Fi genre and I've dabbled now and then with a story idea or two. Here's a lead in to a short story that I'll publish in segments here in my blog each Friday.
