A team at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois have successfully used a beam of the near-massless particles to transmit the word “neutrino” to a detector 1 km away, including a 240-metre journey through solid rock. Read Article
My original post ‘Neutrino Communication’ from September 2011.
Add comment October 31st, 2012
Neutrinos. Faster than light and unaffected by ordinary matter, the idea of a neutrino communications transceiver could be a possibilty. So instead of dragging fibre optics across the seabed for miles and miles and all the technical challenges that brings to light, such technology could channel a stream of encoded neutrinos straight through the center of the earth, unhindered, without the need for focusing or amplification.
Current research into crystalline structures such as sapphire for detecting neutrinos is not exactly successful…yet. There is also a big problem in actually producing them, one theory (that we all are familiar with) is that if a crystal can detect such illusive particles and oscillate, then the same crystal if oscillated in the same manner, will produce neutrinos, these can then be encoded and directed more precisely than a laser.
“A neutrino beam a few centimetres wide and with the same energy as a 20-watt light bulb would interact with normal matter so infrequently, it would lose barely a few million billionths of its power as it journeyed through the Earth!” [1]
Oddly, Pirelli (Yes The Tyre Manufacturer) are providing funding for the project, they are a world leader in fibre optics, something that would be superceded by this technology so it makes sense they want a piece of it. Naturally there is sceptism but also enthusiasm out there on this subject, but all the same it’s kinda cool this sort of research is being undertaken, although the product of this research is unlikely to affect our lives for many years, if not decades, if at all.
[1] Matin Durrani – New Scientist vol 182 issue 2443
2 comments September 27th, 2011
Another week at work endured and a weekend that has passed before my eyes before I had a moment to blink, one thing I have managed to accomplish though is that I have repaired an old Roberts radio I have had my eye on in a local bric a brac shop for months. Apart from the broken pulley that guides the dial, it would turn on with audio for about 3 seconds then nothing. On dismantling I recognised the aroma of cooking silicon and pinpointed some very hot power amplifier transisitors, it turns out the thermal conduction to the heatsink was inadequate, and luckily the thermal runaway was controlled enough not to blow buggers to bits. A spot of heat transfer compound and a rearrangent of the bracketry and and a good tightening has done the trick. Radio currently on soak into hour number two 😉 Oh and a PP9 battery cost £4.95! Let’s hope it lasts more than a week.
On another level, my diet is improving. I couldn’t find the time to manage bloody prescriptions and surgery appointments that were necessary, so Lisa took control thankfully and things are getting back on track. My mood has been difficult to summarise as influences have moulded things uniquely of recent, which is a kind of pattern that ironically I can familiarise with, so I’m not discontented. Again it’s a head down and get on with it scenario, I occasionally lift myself up and catch a breath of fresh air, question the point of it all, see the insanity around me and quickly bury my head once again.
Add comment January 25th, 2011
Hmmm… It’s 5.25am and I’ve been up since 1am, but I’ve found time to test the UPS and determine that the battery (12V 12Ah SLA) is totally knackered, looking around online they are reasonably cheap @ ~20quid… so mees wont be geddin one of dem den… being a little short of the old spondoolies so to speak. I did connect it to a 13.8V PSU to test it and got some odd results, can’t think why right now. Radio’s next, first off the handie I blew up while repairing the battery pack, not sure what is wrong, I believe I over volted it at about 22V so could be something simple like a regulator or supervision device I’m hoping, just don’t want to have blown up the uP coz that’ll mean binning the whole thing. And of course the Yaesu 2/70, can’t remember how that stopped operating. Oh look, sunlight, will be drinking more coffee and finding more random stuff to keep me occupied before I inevitably pass out.
Add comment July 29th, 2010
Reading back it seems I need to dedicate my entries to some kind of theme… I may start off with some things which are running through my mind at the moment. First off I need to do a bit of study for my Gas assessment next week, I am re-taking my gas safety exam so I can again become CORGI registered (although it’s not Corgi anymore but thats a different subject) the problem is where do I find the necessary material to study? That’s my problem, secondly and more bloggably, I need to donate some of my free time to the design and development of a bit of test kit for the production team at work, this is basically a flat bed made of copper that can be meticulously regulated between -10 degrees and +50 degrees centigrade. My design concepts are quite simple:
This is a Peltier Heat Pump:
Now this device is used prolifically throughout electronic design for cooling power hungry integrated circuits in the form of Processors and power electronics, note I deliberately left out the prefix “micro.” One fantastic property of this device is that it is polarity dependant, meaning one side will heat and the other will cool, but if you reverse the polarity of the supply current, the side that heated now becomes the cold side etc… So i need to cool and heat a plate, the electronics are simple, but I need to study the mathematics to determine the size of heatsink. There are hundreds of pre-manufactured heatsinks available with detailed technical specification, but my method is slightly “out of the box” in so much as I want to cool the plate and “heat” it, which means using ambient heat as the source. I know there is a simple formula to determine the parameters I am working with, but it seems that the ideal solution is difficult to find, on continuing research I believe I will eventually have to develop a bespoke set of maths to deal with this issue.
1 comment March 15th, 2009
Wednesday I began a course in microcontroller embedded design run by The Product Development Centre (PDC) who support businesses, designers and engineers with their understanding in rapid product development at a seemingly misplaced venue called The Innovation Centre, a paradox in the cultural vacuum that is St. Leonards-on-Sea. The building itself is specifically designed to help firms with an innovative approach to business grow and thrive. In the building are offices, studios and workshops, all fully equipped including meeting rooms and a reception, although the receptionist on duty when I attended was a sour faced old cow who was obviously not getting any. The course continues for a further 4 weeks presenting microcontroller circuit design and simulation using a software package called Proteus VSM, this uses an innovative method of allowing you to design a circuit and write the processor code together and then run it in real time, simulating its function. 
The PDC also have a Rapid Prototying area, a subject I have touched on before, click here to read, I got to see a Rapid Prototype machine or 3D printer in action, at which point I proved what a Geek I am and videoed it on my phone, due to poor resolution and reflections from the door screen though, it’s very bad quality so I haven’t uploaded it. The course is funded by Brighton University and the lecturer is a Martin Bates who is an author of several books on programming and interfacing microcontrollers, he has also introduced the foundation degree to us which I will be seriously considering…maybe.
Add comment October 26th, 2008
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