Nexilist Notebook

       I have always been fascinated by astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, etc. Knowing more about our neighborhood, as it were. But we generally think of these subjects are spectator sports. We look, we catalog, we theorize, we look again. And that about does it. However, that is not always the case.

        Sometime ago, I read about a theoretical explanation of powerful blasts of energy coming from a dense rotating star. The idea was that there was a dust cloud around the star and a very intense magnetic field. The star was rotating so rapidly that out in the dust cloud, the magnetic field  was being swept along faster than the speed of light. This resulted in a “luminous boom” effect, analogous to a sonic boom in our atmosphere. And the result was the observed burst of energy.

        The English astronomer who coined this theory had a son who was an electrical engineer. He thought about his father’s idea and decided that he might be able to duplicate the effect with technology. His idea was to have a disk with elements around the rim. If he could switch them on and off faster than a pulse of light could travel around the rim of the disk, he should be able to create the luminous boom effect.

        One of the possibilities for this technology would be a transmitter whose power did not diminish with distance to the same degree that our current communications systems suffer. In other words, a very powerful transmitter in a small package. He might be able to create a cell phone that could reach all the way to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. No more cell towers. Cell phone service anywhere on the planet.

        Years later, I happened across a brief mention of a company that had purchased an old abandoned air base in England. They were setting up receivers along a runway to measure the attenuation of a signal transmitted by a new technology they were developing. Wonder if it was the astronomer son?