lightwave

Quite a lot of what Hollywood does is believable. I'm sure they do their research too. But the story comes first and many elements of science will be changed to suit scripts. The film was good, the book good too. If only scientists could write science fiction and we'd get more accurate representations of science in film.

There was an interesting BBC program on the topic. The dirty bomb was 'exploded' in Trafalgar Square. The BBC program claimed it would cause the evacuation of the city around the explosion site for 10 years. The number of deaths would be small but the disruption to the city large and the cleanup bill would be immense. They estimated the number of deaths but I forget the number. I believe it was less than 50. Dirty bombs exploding over the major cities would create havoc, but not many deaths. I believe the Japanese during WW2 may have had a plan similar to this. LA was their target. The uranium coming from Germany was intercepted. But really, what's at Trafalgar Square anyway but pigeons, tourists and those double deck red buses.

It's only the first movie about quantum physics. It definitely won't be the last. At least someone was brave enough to attempt a basic explanation of it. By the way, I own huge quantites of quantum physical devices... millions of them. They are transistors in my computer.

Would you like one of these on your desktop ? Earlier this week, IBM (NYSE: IBM - News) unveiled its latest and greatest supercomputer. The 91-teraflop monster, dubbed "Watson Blue Gene," is capable of cranking out a mind-blowing 91 trillion calculations per second. This ultra-powerful -- yet remarkably affordable, practical, and accessible -- computing tool is likely to give IBM a significant competitive advantage over competitors such as Affymetrix (Nasdaq: AFFX - News), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - News), and General Electric (NYSE: GE - News) in the life sciences, information technology, and material sciences sectors. IBM officials are confident that they'll be able to develop a successor capable of a 1 petaflop performance level by the end of the decade. That's 1 quadrillion calculations per second -- 10 times as powerful as Watson Blue Gene. http://news.yahoo.com/s/fool/20050617/bs_fool_fool/111903931827;_ylt=AtgSlcORRLSVEnePChhelZojtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl The word 'tera' originates from the Greek word teras meaning 'monster'.

People believed to be representing PETA have been threatening the NSW, Australian director of the RSPCA (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in Sydney. He has had to hire body guards, wear body armour and vary his path from home to office. The Australian Federal Police have warned him that animal rights crazies have threatened to harm the director because he will not introduce a ban on live animal exports, mainly sheep and cattle. The director is fearful he may be killed. The PETA crowd seem to be over the top.