Posts by Cheng Fan Soon

1) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Fusion power on the grid within 15 years? (Message 2011353)
Posted 9 Sep 2019 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Unfortunately, solar photovoltaic has life expectancy of about 30 years.
2) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Fusion power on the grid within 15 years? (Message 1991379)
Posted 25 Apr 2019 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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I think the secret to success is how to use minimal energy input to start fusion reaction.
Think about this, superconductive magnetic coils connect to capacitor bank.
As the capacitor bank discharge through superconductive magnetic coils, this energy input is not loss as waste heat after discharge.
Instead the magnetic coils will recharge the capacitor bank, and so it can be used for the next magnetic plasma compression.

On the other method (pinch), the capacitor discharge through plasma, energy input is totally lost as waste heat after discharge.

On the mirror confinement method, plasma ejection from north pole and south pole is not bad thing.
those positive ions ejection from both end can be used to generate electricity directly without the need "to boil water to run the steam engine".
3) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Science that doesn't make sense (Message 1962542)
Posted 30 Oct 2018 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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When you fired atomic-scale entities, such as a single electron, towards a double slit, you can imagine there are gravity forces between this single electron with every atomic-scale entities on the screen.
And it is the gravity forces between this single moving electron with every atomic-scale entities on the screen that produce the interference pattern.
That is why even a single electron will produce an interference pattern on the screen.

(Imagine the yellow dashed lines are the gravity forces between this single electron with every atomic-scale entities on the screen.)
4) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Fusion power on the grid within 15 years? (Message 1934358)
Posted 8 May 2018 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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We already have a natural fusion reactor ---> The Sun.
All we need to do are to built more solar power plants, either photovoltaics or solar thermal plants to convert the heat and photons energy to electricity.

Total cost of all the space programme so far > 200 billion.
If you invest 200 billion into fusion reactor research, starting 60 years ago, by now we might already have success construct many fusion reactor plants to produce electricity.
5) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Macbook air 11.6" (Message 1757311)
Posted 18 Jan 2016 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Can we run seti@home on Macbook air 11.6" ? ( model A1465 )
This Macbook air doesn't seem to has a ventilation fan.
Will running seti@home on it causing too much heat? possible shorten the life of the CPU?
6) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : Is it possible to run Seti@home on live Ubuntu or live Fedora DVD? (Message 1737390)
Posted 27 Oct 2015 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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My laptop doesn't has any harddidsk.
I just insert a live Ubuntu DVD and boot from it.
Tried install seti@home but so far no success of running the application.
But there is no problem of install and running other applications like google-chrome-browser and download manager.
7) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Planet Hunters Report Record-Breaking Discovery, Search for other habitable planets (Message 1650283)
Posted 7 Mar 2015 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Latest news (6 March 2015):
Astronomers believe mysterious signals - previously dismissed as stellar bursts - are coming from an Earth-like planet.
The Gliese 581d planet has conditions that could support life, and is likely to be a rocky world, twice the size of Earth.
Signals from the planet were initially discovered in 2010, but last year dismissed as noise from distant stars.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2983202/Alien-noise-Earth-like-world-Mystery-signals-suggest-habitable-planet-exists-22-light-years-away.html
8) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Skunkworks breakthrough (Message 1634575)
Posted 29 Jan 2015 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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No it's not an item about planes.
Lockheed Martin Claims Breakthrough on Fusion Energy
Oct 15 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Look similar to the Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF-B) project that was canceled by the Reagan administration Department of Energy during 1986.
So, Lockheed Martin is going to re-start the mirror fusion?

Story of MFTF-B:
In all it took nine years to build MFTF-B machine at a cost of US$372 million. On 21st February, 1986 staff and guests gathered for the official dedication ceremony. The Secretary of Energy, John Herrington, had traveled over from Washington along with other DoE staff and he commended the Livermore team for their work. But it was not the joyous occasion everyone had been expecting.
The political climate in the mid 1980s was very different from a decade earlier. Ronald Reagan had come into the White house in 1981 and had aggressively cut public spending. The high oil prices and frantic search for alternative energy sources of the 1970s were now just a memory. To the Reagan-era DoE, funding a second type of fusion reactor just to provide competition for tokamaks was an expensive luxury. So the day after congratulating Livermore on its achievement, DoE shut the doors on MFTF-B without ever having turned it on. A few years later it was dismantled for scrap and to this day the scientists, engineers and technicians who spent years working on the machine do not know if it would have worked. (from the book "A Piece of the Sun" by Daniel Clery)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Fusion_Test_Facility
9) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Skunkworks breakthrough (Message 1633954)
Posted 28 Jan 2015 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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And this bit made me wrinkle my nose in distaste...

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

:(

...even though I concede that patents and intellectual property rights may be a necessary evil (in the sense of recouping costs and getting a return on investments) ... they've become a blockade to further research in the past...

If any self-proclaimed amateur scientist trying to do hot fusion experiment at home and created a portable fusion reactor...he is going to infringement of Skunkworks's compact fusion patents?...Yes?...No?
10) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : What are you reading? (Message 1554903)
Posted 11 Aug 2014 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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"The 12th planet" by Zecharia Sitchin
Bought yesterday, am 1st time read Sitchin's book
Later going to get the "Lost book of Enki".
11) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : No new task? (Solaris 11.1) (Message 1457192)
Posted 24 Dec 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Installed SETI@home 6.03 (from www.dotsch.de) on my Solaris 3 days ago,
but until now still no work unit downloaded.
12) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Anunnaki (Message 1442262)
Posted 14 Nov 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Carl Sagan's "Cosmos":
"With a continuous 1 g acceleration, after one year in space we would be traveling very close to the speed of light [(0.01 km/sec2) x (3 x 107 sec) = 3 x 105 km/sec]."

Correction to the calculation above, should be
[(0.01 km/sec^2) x (3 x 10^7 sec) = 3 x 10^5 km/sec]

3 x 10^7 sec is 30,000,000 sec (1 year = 31,536,000 sec )
3 x 10^5 km/sec is 300,000 km/sec (light speed = 299,792 km/sec)
13) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Anunnaki (Message 1439873)
Posted 7 Nov 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Is interstellar space travel possible?
Well, after reading Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", I believe it is possible.

Carl Sagan's "Cosmos":
"If we lived in an interstellar spacecraft that could accelerate at 1 g, we would find ourselves in a perfectly natural environment. In fact, the equivalence between gravitational forces and the forces we would feel in an accelerating spaceship is a major feature of Einstein’s later general theory of relativity. With a continuous 1 g acceleration, after one year in space we would be traveling very close to the speed of light [(0.01 km/sec2) x (3 x 107 sec) = 3 x 105 km/sec]."

But, where can you get the energy to push a spaceship at 1 g acceleration for one whole year? The answer is, nuclear energy, whether it is deuterium+tritium or uranium.
Human's modern science and technology started only about few hundreds years.
If there are alien species out there who are science and technologically thousands or even millions of years more advance than us, they might already have the technology to built rocket engines that powered by nuclear energy.

For a space ship that travel near light speed (80%-90% maybe), interstellar space travel from nearby star system takes about 10 to 50 years(planet time), but on space ship time it is only about a few months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
14) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : 55 years of NASA (Message 1398649)
Posted 4 Aug 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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So far NASA had spent nearly US$200 billion on space shuttle programme.

Just wondering, isn't it more useful if the money is spend on new renewable energy research. Example more funding for ITER project? More funding means higher chance of success? And Shorter term to achieve the success?

The first duetrium-tritium reactor might be too expensive for producing electricity, but as more research is carry out, later improved design reactor might one day become economically viable for large scale electricity generation.

Just like the first computer was very expensive but as the technology improve, the cost of computers have decreased tremendously.

http://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html
15) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Hackintosh - Install Mac osx to a windows desktop and run seti@home (Message 1377427)
Posted 6 Jun 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Yesterday, my Hackintosh unable to bootup.
re-install Mac osx...and so i lost 100 work units !
16) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Hackintosh - Install Mac osx to a windows desktop and run seti@home (Message 1354882)
Posted 9 Apr 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Thanks, the system is now running 4 CPUs in full speed.
17) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Hackintosh - Install Mac osx to a windows desktop and run seti@home (Message 1353207)
Posted 4 Apr 2013 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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The desktop i am using is constructed from Intel mainboard DH67CL and the CPU is Intel I5.
Installing Mac osx (10.8.2) is quite straight forward by following instruction in
http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

But for network, i use product from Edimax because their product come with driver for Mac.

This desktop is now running seti@home but it utilise only one CPU although the 'Activity Monitor' showing there are 4 CPUs in the system.
18) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Clean energy from Deuterium Tritium (Message 1264003)
Posted 24 Jul 2012 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Will a simple device like this works?

19) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : New Virus threat (Message 1191518)
Posted 4 Feb 2012 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Am i right of saying this:

"When my pc infected with malicious software (sent by the hacker),
and the hacker take over my pc (or my pc got hijacked by the hacker).
It is like the hacker sitting infront of my pc.
He can do what ever he like...download/upload any files/pictures he like.

But the person who face the consequences is me because it is my pc and the internet account is under my name. The hacker is totally hidden, i don't know who the hacker is, and the ISP also unable to trace who the hacker is?

20) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Some thoughts about the possible fate of the universe. (Message 1187576)
Posted 23 Jan 2012 by Profile Cheng Fan Soon
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Scientific America Oct 2008: Forget the Big Bang now it's the Big Bounce


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