Technology Four-state material allows 'spintronic' computing SUPERFAST computers could be on the way now that we have the ideal "multiferroic" material to build them with. "Spintronic" computers calculate using four logical states and so should be far faster than today's binary computers, which use two. Multiferroics can create these states because they produce both electric and magnetic fields, and each can … 51¶¯Âþ
Space Comment: No place for target practice ON THE evening of 20 February, many parts of the world were treated to a spectacular lunar eclipse. That same day, off the coast of Hawaii, an even rarer spectacle could be witnessed in the late afternoon skies: the intentional destruction of a satellite. Some cheered the event. The obliteration of a dangerous "runaway" satellite … Opinion
Technology Nanotech: The shape of things to come IN THE late 1980s, the book Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler caused quite a stir. It described a coming revolution in nanotechnology – the design of machines and structures on the scale of billionths of a metre. Drexler predicted that within a few decades we would have swarms of molecular devices that could build … Features
Review: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku SOMETIMES Einstein isn't enough. Michio Kaku was 8 years old when Einstein died in 1955, and he remembers hearing adults talk in hushed tones about the physicist's life, his death and his "impossible dream" of unifying the laws of physics. Kaku was to make it his life's goal to carry on the cause. But another … Books & Arts
Feedback The ultimate Vegas show THE US government's nuclear test site in the Nevada desert is just 100 kilometres from downtown Las Vegas. There have been over 900 nuclear explosions there since it opened for business in 1951. Although the more recent "shots", as the explosions were called, were underground, in the 1950s gamblers would party … Regulars