Notable Women in Astronomy As has been true in other branches of scientific endeavor, it has taken a long time for women astronomers to be given their place alongside men. Notwithstanding this injustice, women have been making tremendous contributions to the field of astronomy for more than 100 years. Yet, their contributions have not been…
Photographing the Rare Transit of Venus A pinhole camera is an inexpensive means to capture images of the Sun, including the transit of the inner planets, Venus and Mercury. When a planet passes in front of a star (e.g., our Sun) between the viewer and the star, one can see the dark spot passing across…
Photos of Oct. 14, 2023, Solar Eclipse I was able to capture some decent photos of the annular solar eclipse today. (Annular eclipse = a “full” eclipse that does not fully cover the sun because, due to the position of the Moon and Earth relative to the Sun the shadow the moon casts on the…
Telpher Power Conduit Telepathic Teleportation of Electric Power Remnant, the fourth novel in my Telpher series, improves the Telpher to provide telepathic teleportation of power over long distances. In addition to teleporting a person, a mini-Telpher can teleport a superconducting electrical cable (ordinary copper cable could also be used). Two mini-Telphers are used, one at…
The Telpher: Telepathic Teleportation New Perspectives on a Common Science Fiction Tropeby Steven Eckroad Teleportation is now a reality—at least at the quantum level. It is information, not matter, that is teleported in the subatomic world. Science fiction sometimes invokes quantum teleportation of information to explain teleporting. The information encodes a person’s matter (e.g., for…
Stable Super-heavy Element in Nature In this post I briefly outline the nuclear chemistry that is the background for my novel, Copernicium-296. If a stable super-heavy element in nature is found it could be the basis for harvesting quantum energy from the vacuum of space. This post discusses the chemistry of a stable super-heavy element…
Sci-Fi Weapons: How the Peacemaker Works As I explain in my novel, Copernicium-296, I have my female lead, Jana Anders, learning the truth about a sidearm issued to her as a Federation Navy Ensign, fresh out of Academy. The weapon was initially designed to be more than the simple stun gun for crowd control. The…
The “Peacemaker” I had fun inventing the handgun used by Jana in Copernicium-296. The Peacemaker, aka PKR, is the 24th-century Federation Navy’s working name for a sidearm issued to Federation Marines for personal self-defense. In coming up with the name for the weapon I remembered that a handgun used in America’s wild west had been…