March 30

6:10 I don't think most people know to what level of energy the particles (sometimes, vaporized gold) are accelerated inside the 27 km circumference underground ring near Geneva.

They have some built in safety systems that can literally dump the beams outside the ring if anything goes wrong. An 8 meter long under one meter diameter cylinder made of steel surrounded by concrete filled with graphite. One load of particles being dumped in that cylinder heats the graphite at 1000 degrees C. And yes it makes a thunderous sound. Thinking of the momentum transferred to the foundation of that construction.

I was thinking this morning, why don't we use particle accelerators to accelerate space ships. By pointing a much weaker beam from a "small" accelerator on a high mountain (to take advantage of low density air) on a shield behind the space ship it theoretically can be accelerated to maybe relativst speeds. Don't know about decelerating or coming back to Earth though. I think this idea is much more realistic and feasible than solar sails.

Could this be done for sending ships to orbit? You'd have to first raise and accelerate the ship with classical chemical engines to a speed that stabilizes the aerodynamics and can take small eccentricities (the beam could not be possibly pointed perfectly in the center of that shield), chemical engines would also be needed for final orbit parking, but having the bulk of energy transferred to the ship from the ground, i think it can be done and we could finally solve the problem of very costly launches and evolve from the pioneering von Braun design.

6:41 Yes he's up for about half hour now and balances from one foot to another above me in the bedroom (he just took off), making noise, releasing paint dust from the ceiling, insulation dust from cracks, etc.. effectively sabotaging my work.

7:32 The dust is finally clearing up here, after one hour. Out of frustration, i went in the kitchen and over ate. Two slices of pizza, two servings of mashed potatoes and only one chicken leg calmed me down. Where my diabetes is coming from. And yes, i learned how to make coleslaw after i figured i can grate cabbage (with a little skill) on a regular grater and mix it with ranch dressing. I wish cabbage lowered my blood sugar as well as cucumber cause i like it so much better but i'm not sure.

9:00 News annoyingly related to my recent posts.

Bellatrix.