June 2010
4 posts
2 tags
Wired.com: Japanese Spacecraft Deploys First-Ever... →
Miniscule but numerous photons striking a super-thin sail? Sounds like interstellar travel to me! Everythinginthesky:
The first solar sail ever to be used by a spacecraft has been deployed. Awesome.
My favourite part is with regards to how they deploy it:
The key difficulty with such a thin and large object is that it’s hard to deploy. “The things we’re watching for are all their dynamical ...
Noether's Theorem →
This is one of the few laws of physics that are named after a woman (in fact, I’m not sure I can name another one). Noether’s theorem, proved by Emmy Noether in 1915, shows (as far as I understand it) that if you have a physical system that obeys certain requirements — requirements that almost all systems studied by physics do obey — if you have symmetry under translation,...
