Car that runs entirely on air:
http://www.livescience.com/technology/050815_ap_hybrid_car.html

My uncle has a country place, that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the motor law
And on sundays I elude the ’eyes’ and hop the turbine freight
To far outside the wire, where my white-haired uncle waits.

Jump to the ground
As the turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me, an old machine ---
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red barchetta, from a better, vanished time
I fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime...

Wind in my hair ---
Shifting and drifting ---
Mechanical music ---
Adrenalin surge ---

Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly, ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires, to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase

Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I’ve got a desperate plan

At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside...

I bet they're very quiet cars. If I had one I'd sneak up behind pedestrians and then honk my horn.

That link brought me to the plugin hybrid. I found the air car at the bottom. I found an article about this some time ago, thought I posted it here but might not have. This one is newer, however.

There was a "commuter" car that was plugin that had a good range and speed. The problem is, I could buy two or three luxury cars for the price of that one all electric.

Yeah, a hybrid plugin seems like a good solution... but rather pricey!

Actually some of the links on the right side are very interesting.

Micromachines.

Silicone life-like female robots.




hmmm. makes one think of the possibilites.

I missed the bit about the robots. Cherry 2000 anyone?

I see it now, it looks a little strange but getting there. Asimov's Humaniform robot may yet live.

I missed the bit about the robots. Cherry 2000 anyone?

I see it now, it looks a little strange but getting there. Asimov's Humaniform robot may yet live.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050628_real_robot.html

This is weird:



Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light.



Or is it all an illusion?

Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is controlling the speed of light using simple off-the-shelf optical fibers, without the aid of special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids like in other experiments.



“This has the enormous advantage of being a simple, inexpensive procedure that works at any wavelength,” said Luc Thévenaz, lead author of the study detailing the research.

This car is deceptive. The car uses an expensive battery type, lithium ion. That battry requires energy from the electrical grid. The same electrical grid that uses coal to supply it with energy.

While it may be true that the gas consumption may meet the claim but you can expect to expend 2 to 3 times a similiar car's value just in batteries and your electric will will jump a lot. Also, in 10 years you will have to replace those batteries.

Energy consumption is related to weight and aerodynamics. Buying a battery powered tractory trailer to commute to work will not save you any more...

Pan, where did you get that quote?

It's not hard to get something to go faster than the speed of light. It's getting something to go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum that's believed to be impossible.

I think it was on livescience.com.

Pan, where did you get that quote?

It's not hard to get something to go faster than the speed of light. It's getting something to go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum that's believed to be impossible.

iirc, back in 2001 or 2002 they succeeded in accelerating a photon faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

The scientists admitted its lack of practical applicability and even questioned whether their own experiment actually counted against the theory that nothing can move faster than light, but they did it.

I think maybe this link discusses the experiment you're thinking of (it was done in 2000):

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=495

This was a group velocity phenomenon, not a true FTL case.

One of the more interesting effects of particles traveling faster than light.


http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae219.cfm



Water is not a vacuum, of course.
But the properties of water are more interesting than void anyday.