tron to move to a lower orbit around
the proton. This generates power in the
form of heat, light, and plasma. The
energy released from the process is
claimed to be hundreds of times
greater than that needed to start it, and
the by-product would constitute an
entirely new class of chemistry referred
to as hydrino hydride compounds. The
only problem is that the rules of quantum mechanics tell us that electrons’
orbits are strictly defined and cannot
be changed, thus indicating that the
Black Light process is impossible.
Is this a breakthrough or just
another incarnation of room-tempera-ture fusion? Time will tell. In the
meantime, there are some very interesting graphics and animations on the
company’s website, so you might want
to visit www.blacklightpower.com and
make your own assessment.
COMPUTERS AND
NETWORKING
NEW SUPERCOMPUTER
PERFORMANCE RECORDS
Late last year, the National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA)
officially dedicated two new supercomputers to ensure that the US nuclear
weapons stockpile remains safe and
reliable without nuclear testing. The
IBM machines are housed at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL;
www.llnl.gov) and are the culmination
of a 10-year campaign to use supercomputers to run three-dimensional codes
at lightning-fast speeds to achieve
much of the nuclear weapons analysis
that was formerly accomplished by
underground nuclear testing. One of
the machines, BlueGene/L, performed
a record 280.6 trillion operations per
second (teraflops) on the industry
standard LINPACK benchmark. Purple,
the other half of the most powerful
supercomputing pair on Earth, is capable of 100 teraflops as it conducts simulations of a complete nuclear weapons
performance. In a recent demonstration
of its work capability, BlueGene/L ran
a record-setting materials science
application at 101.5 teraflops sustained
over seven hours on the machine’s
131,072 processors. Working together,
the machines can generate an astounding half a petaflop, or 0.5 quadrillion
operations per second.
BlueGene/L will move into classified operation in February to address
critical problems of materials aging.
The machine is primarily intended for
stockpile science molecular dynamics
and turbulence calculations. Purple
consists of 94 teraflop classified and
six teraflop unclassified environments.
The machine’s architecture, with large
memory, powerful processors, and
massive network bandwidth, is
designed for running newly developed
3D weapons codes needed to simulate
complete nuclear weapons performance. The insights and data gained
from materials aging calculations to
be run on BlueGene/L will be used for
the creation of improved models
designated for future full weapons
performance simulations on Purple.
IF YOU THINK CABLE
STINKS NOW ...
how it is done, it is known that two
approaches have been demonstrated
by researchers at the University of
Missouri-Rolla over the past few years.
One is to use the pipeline as a
microwave waveguide, and the other is
to use the metal pipe as a conductor;
both methods were shown to be feasible. According to Nethercomm, their
technology “requires no modification
to existing natural gas distribution
infrastructures and can carry enormous
amounts of data by simply making use
of the entire spectrum buried within
the existing natural gas pipelines. The
technology delivers connectivity over
the last mile of broadband networks
without interference or degradation of
other wireless transmissions.
By not consuming or sharing costly
spectrum, and not requiring installation
of last mile cable or fiber, Nethercomm
is prepared to make broadband substantially more affordable while
increasing end-user bandwidth to
unprecedented levels.” And if a report
from West Technology Research
Solutions ( www.westtechresearch.com)
is correct, BiG will be connected to as
many as 18 million homes by 2010. This
is theoretically possible, given that
something like 70 percent of homes
and 35 percent of businesses in the US
have access to gas lines. Weird concept
perhaps, but anything that can provide
an alternative to your local monopoly
cable company can’t be all bad.
It may sound strange, but
Nethercomm Corp. ( www.nether
comm.com) has come up with a
technology that may soon bring you
television, telephone, and Internet
communications through existing
natural gas pipelines. The technology
has been dubbed,
appropriately
enough, broadband-in-gas (BiG). While
the company’s press
release didn’t provide
the specifics about
CIRCUITS AND
DEVICES
SOLAR-POWERED
SENSOR ELIMINATES
BATTERIES
PHOTO COURTES Y OF LLNL, BY JOSEPH MAR TINEZ.
■ BlueGene/L, with
its distinctive eight
slanted-front cabinets,
hits 280.6 trillion operations per second.
EnOcean ( www.enocean.com), a
German company specializing
in energy-harvesting wireless technologies, has introduced the STM250
solar-powered radio frequency (RF)
magnet-contact sensor. Its claim to
fame is that it eliminates a major
deficiency of wireless security systems:
their dependence on batteries. By
doing away with the burdens of battery
monitoring and replacement, the
new magnet contact theoretically can
operate for years without mainte-
January 2006 9
