DISQUS

kurt9 · 7 months ago

High tensile strength. Safe tensile stress is MILLIONS of times greater than the Safe tensile stress of steel OR NANOTUBES!

Does this mean we can make Banks Orbitals?

nextbigfuture · 7 months ago

Yes, if it is actually possible to create AB Matter. Taking neutrons or protons; elements of the core of every atom; and making it into strings, and then crossing the strings into a mesh, then the technological magic becomes possible.

It is the size of the mesh opening which gives it certain properties and the absence of electrons which gives it other properties.

Engineering elements of nucleus into strings instead of clumping up.

jackn34b · 7 months ago

George Washington on Israel


"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ~George Washington Farewell Address


"The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington


"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson

dirkbruere · 6 months ago

You forgot one area - chemistry.
Small sections of mesh would act like novel atoms.

cybrbeast · 6 months ago

Wow, this sounds like awesome science, but mostly fiction. I do really hope that it's possible though.
Is there any theoretical research being done on if and how it would be possible to create these states?

GeneralOreo · 6 months ago

Wait, what, I don't get how this protects humanity from all conventional and unconventional weapons...? @_@

nextbigfuture · 6 months ago

in the list of benefits that could be achieved by IF it can be done.

Reflectivity: reflex nuclear most of the output of a nuclear power.
It can also handle radiation and heat.
Plus super strength armor thousands of times stronger than carbon nanotubes that would be resistant to nuclear bombs and regular bombs.

You would have to accelerate AB-matter at AB-matter armor.

But the defences only work if you can make a lot of it cheaply. Bolonkin has discussed doming cities with regular polymer and having pebbles on it so that missiles would hit and the kinetic energy would slam the pebbles onto the missile as it tried to penetrate.

kurt9 · 6 months ago

AB Matter is pure speculation. However, I agree it is more plausible than the Accuberrie "warp drive" or some variant. I consider concepts such as femtotechnology and AB matter to be aspects of the larger area of nuclear science. Nuclear science, in general, has not developed much in the past 50 years. Some of this is due to politics (anti-nuclear hysteria), but I think much of it is due to the fact that the apparatus and tools necessary for the research are simply very expensive and there is no immediate payoff. Also, the research has been the exclusive domain of government funded R&D bureaucracies, and we all know how ineffectual these can be.

Biotechnology and nanotechnology are inherently cheap. A state of the art biotech lab can be had for around $100,000. The apparatus and tools are also following a Moore's Law like progression that promise to make them far better and much cheaper. Thus, progress can be quite rapid in these fields.

I am coming to believe that nuclear science offers as much of a technology revolution as biotech and nanotech. The fact is we know very little about nuclear reactions and sub-atomic science at all. As this field becomes more researched, I expect to see developments such as transmutation of the elements on an industrial scale as well as developments like AB matter.

nextbigfuture · 6 months ago

I understand Alexander Bolonkin has a scheme that he wants funded (the last couple of paragraphs of the press release in the article) which could start making some AB-matter. AB-matter / passive femtotech even in small quantities would enable superior tool tips which would bootstrap molecular nanotechnology, which would in turn enable better and more passive femtotech. The plan specifics are not revealed.

Basic nuclear transmutation is done already and doing it on a large scale is easier than commercial nuclear fusion.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/non-electric-u...

XiXiDu · 6 months ago

Femtoscience provides a total performance increase of septillions (over nanotech): http://bit.ly/17o0Fj
“Femtotech? (Sub)Nuclear Scale Engineering and Computation” http://bit.ly/GcNv4
Wiki: Limits to computation - http://bit.ly/RnfjX
Lloyd, Seth (2000). "Ultimate physical limits to computation" http://is.gd/Autf
"Universal Limits on Computation" Lawrence M. Krauss , Glenn D. Starkman (2004 ) http://is.gd/Auwo
Nature: Quantum hologram pushes back the limits of information density. http://bit.ly/2Zf1w8 (35 bits per electron)

Brett_Bellmore · 6 months ago

I have a hard time taking this the least bit seriously without at least *some* explanation as to how this new state of matter is supposed to be stable.

cybrbeast · 6 months ago

Been searching Google Scholar for a while and mostly came up empty concerning femtotechnology. Too bad, I hope some feasibility research is done. Nothing to get your hopes up for I think. If possible I guess it will take a 100+ years to get there.

Brett_Bellmore · 6 months ago

About those monopoles: You do realize they're not actual particles, but persistent interactions between the ions in the spin ice? You can't make a piece of spin ice with a net magnetic charge, the 'monopoles' and their effects exist only within the spin ice.

Think of it as the spin ice creating a region with *simulated* monopoles.

qraal · 6 months ago

Hi Brian

Is there a web-link for their company and press-releases?

Sounds a bit like Pugno's "Einsteinon" which is hypothetical matter with a binding energy equal to its mass-energy.

Dior Sunglasses · 6 months ago

laser protective goggles with variable spacing would be similarly blocking-- making selective invisibility possible, and invulnerability to nuclear flash. Cool it has a lot of uses and have a great fearures