Barry B. Luokkala

• Carnegie Mellon University

More often than not, science fiction movies involve crisis management. A serious problem arises—alien invaders, natural disasters, or unforeseen consequences of some new technology, to name just a few—and a solution must be found urgently. The solution requires the best scientific minds and the latest technology, often preceded or followed up by mi...

A major goal of the present work is to increase public awareness and appreciation of science, but the approach is somewhat unorthodox. We will use science fiction as a vehicle for exploring actual science and as a springboard for discussing some of the exciting topics that are currently being researched. Our examples will be drawn almost exclusivel...

One of the major characters in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation is the android Commander Data (played by Brent Spiner). Created by Dr. Noonien Soong (also played by Spiner), the twenty-fourth century’s foremost authority on cybernetics, Data are more than just an intelligent, humanoid robot. He is a sentient being. He is so soph...

As we discussed in the previous chapter, the distant future of our technological society will depend on the decisions that are taken now and in the near future, regarding what research projects to fund or not to fund, and how to use the new discoveries that are made and the new technologies that are developed. In this chapter, we will explore some...

The most successful science fiction television series in the history of the medium is undoubtedly Doctor Who. The lead character, whom one refers to as “the Doctor”, is a Time Lord, who travels through space and time in a sentient device called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space). From the outside, the TARDIS looks like a 1950s Britis...

The commercial towing vehicle Nostromo, en route back to Earth, with its cargo of ore and crew of seven in suspended animation, intercepts a radio signal from a planetary system along the way. The ship’s computer determines that the transmission has a very high probability of originating from an intelligent civilization. This triggers an override o...

Humans are the highest form of intelligent life on Earth. But what is it that makes us distinctly human? From a purely scientific perspective, what, if anything, sets us apart from other forms of life? Are there other important considerations, apart from the natural sciences, which might be necessary, if we want a complete picture of what it means...

Having considered the nature of space and time, we now turn our attention to the stuff of the universe: what do we know about the things—both material and immaterial—which inhabit space and time? The state of our current understanding of matter and energy is both highly detailed and very incomplete. We still have a lot to learn. As already hinted i...

How does Einstein’s description of space and time compare with Doctor Who? Can James Bond really escape from an armor-plated railroad car by cutting through the floor with a laser concealed in a wristwatch? What would it take to create a fully intelligent android, such as Star Trek’s Commander Data? Exploring Science Through Science Fiction addres...

More often than not, science fiction movies involve crisis management. A serious problem arises—alien invaders, natural disasters, or unforeseen consequences of some new technology, to name just a few—and a solution must be found urgently. The solution requires the best scientific minds and the latest technology, often preceded or followed up by mi...

As we discussed in the previous chapter, the distant future of our technological society will depend on the decisions that are taken now and in the near future, regarding what research projects to fund or not to fund, and how to use the new discoveries that are made and the new technologies that are developed. In this chapter, we will explore some...

A major goal of the present work is to increase public awareness and appreciation of science, but the approach is somewhat unorthodox. We will use science fiction as a vehicle for exploring actual science and as a springboard for discussing some of the exciting topics that are currently being researched. Our examples will be drawn primarily from fi...

The commercial towing vehicle Nostromo, en route back to Earth, with its cargo of ore and crew of seven in suspended animation, intercepts a radio signal from a planetary system along the way. The ship’s computer determines that the transmission has a very high probability of originating from an intelligent civilization. This triggers an override o...

Humans are the highest form of intelligent life on Earth. But what is it that makes us distinctly human? From a purely scientific perspective, what, if anything, sets us apart from other forms of life? Are there other important considerations, apart from the natural sciences, which might be necessary, if we want a complete picture of what it means...

Having considered the nature of space and time, we now turn our attention to the stuff of the universe: what do we know about the things—both material and immaterial—which inhabit space and time? The state of our current understanding of matter and energy is both highly detailed and very incomplete. We still have a lot to learn. As already hinted i...

The most successful science fiction television series in the history of the medium is undoubtedly Doctor Who. The lead character, who calls himself the Doctor, is a Time Lord, who travels through space and time in a sentient device called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). From the outside, the TARDIS looks like a 1950s British pol...

One of the major characters in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation is the android Commander Data. Created by Dr. Noonien Soong, the twenty-fourth century’s foremost authority on cybernetics, Data is more than just an intelligent, humanoid robot. He is a sentient being. He is so sophisticated in design that he is aware of his own ex...

Surfactant solutions exhibit a wide variety of wetting and dewetting behaviors on high energy surfaces. These behaviors are driven by surfactant self-assemblies at the moving contact line. To probe these self-assemblies, we study the structure of C12En (1 ≤ n ≤ 8) surfactants at the three interfaces near a contact line receding across a hydrophilic...

Interactions among the multiple degrees of freedom of surfactant molecules cause fascinating richness in the structure of their monolayers. Beyond this scientific motivation for studying surfactant monolayers, the technological use of monolayers for interfacial control and molecular assembly demands a clear understanding of monolayer structure. X-r...

The atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of styrene and acrylates from silicon wafers modified with an initiator layer composed of 2-bromoisobutyrate fragments is described. In the presence of the proper ratio of activating and deactivating transition-metal species, controlled radical polymerizations of styrene were observed such that the th...

We have developed a novel approach to the production and measurement of sandpile avalanches, using the PASCO Variable Frequency Mechanical Drive as the basis for the grain distribution system. The original version of the apparatus, designed as part of a team research project for the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences, made use of the V...

Fabry-Perot interferometer measurements of the Doppler shifts and widths of the nightglow 630.0 nm line at Laurel Ridge Observatory, Pennsylvania are presented for the period 1975 to 1979, covering both solar minimum and solar maximum conditions. The F-region neutral wind vectors vn and temperatures Tn deduced from these measurements show both day-...