Tesla Roadster

Let's take a look at the roadster that's named after Tesla. Notable details:

Lotus-assembled
0-60mph = 3.9 sec
All-electric plug-in
reduced dependence on oil
An all-in-all fun sports car
Top speed = 125mph (201kmph)
248 horses 13,000rpm redline
range on one single charge = 200+ miles

What's holding some people back?
$98,000

Now, enjoy a teaser clip


test-driven


Tesla Motor
Tesla Roadster's wikipage

Tesla- sane in a mad time

There are many versions to this following story:

"A horseman comes to an end-of-the-world town where the entire population seems to be insane. After further investigation he realizes the town's well, its only regular water source, is poisoned with chemicals that induce madness. Since there is no where else to go, he's faced with two choices - (1)he'll drink from it and go insane, or, (2)he'll stay away from it and drink only from rainwater and fruit juice, but forever treated as a mad man."

Nikola Tesla was that mad man.

Free worldwide wireless energy, death rays, earthquake machines, remote control and green power, all from the fertile mind of the genius who electrified the world. Now, Nikola Tesla's Mad Electricity, on Modern Marvels.more

In addition, he was an unparalleled genius, a man who was able to out-envision the Inventor- Thomas Edison. He was the futurist of the future, hindered by short-sighted townpeople.

What does the Universe expand into?

I was reading reddit and came across this comment to the question above.

the growth is uniform?

In general. There are local areas where galaxies are gravitationally bound, but the expansion of spacetime means other groups become increasingly more distant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

the growth can be measured?

This is the most solid area of the cosmological science. We've known about the expansion since the 20s, and despite its unintuitiveness, discovered that the rate of expansion is increasing.

there is no central point from which the expansion is happening?

There are no privileged frames of reference. Within our 3-dimensional experience, there is no center. Every point is expanding away from the others equally.

But 4-dimensionally, you can view the instant of the big bang as the point in spacetime from which everything expands. As we move along the axis of time, the spacial dimensions all increase.

Alternately, if you view our universe as the surface of a hypersphere, the center of that sphere can be viewed as the central point; however it is "outside" the space we occupy.

The Bad Astronomer attempts an explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw5W3CszeAI

that still indicates that the balloon is expanding IN something... know what I mean?

Not really; that's where the analogy breaks down. Space and time are both metrics internal to the Universe. They only make sense in reference to things within space and time. You can have no "space outside space" or "time before time".

The Big Bang wasn't an explosion of matter into an already-existing expanse of space. Space and time themselves emerge from that singular point, along with all the matter and energy in the universe.

If the universe exists at its origin point as a singularity, then that is how it exists relative to anything "outside". Everything else happens "inside" and has no bearing on what occurs "outside". One model is that our universe is one of an infinite number of "bubble universes" that simply pop into existence as a consequence of quantum vacuum fluctuations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaotic_inflation_theory
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm

Here's a few links that may address your question better than I can:

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=274
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=651
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/011021a.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=according-to-the-big-bang-1999-10-21&catID=3

http://reddit.com/info/6iz44/comments/c03z5jd

Hey Mike!

First off the bat, let me condemn commercialism. EVIL EVIL I tell ya!



Despite the moral setback, enjoy this convincing CG where Michael Jordan plays 1-on-1 with his younger self. Their taunts crack me up. "Get your young butt out there." Wouldn't that be something?

YADS

YADS - yet another doomsday scenario

Our solar system wades through the Milky Way not unlike mother Earth orbits the Sun. Every so often we come to a dense section of the spiral disc where comets and other space debris hurl towards us ten times more frequently. Is it time the dinosaurs went distinct again?

Scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology built a computer model of our solar system’s movement and found that it “bounces” up and down through the plane of the galaxy. As we pass through the densest part of the plane, gravitational forces from the surrounding giant gas and dust clouds dislodge comets from their paths. The comets plunge into the solar system, some of them colliding with the earth.

The Cardiff team found that we pass through the galactic plane every 35 to 40 million years, increasing the chances of a comet collision tenfold. Evidence from craters on Earth also suggests we suffer more collisions approximately 36 million years. Professor William Napier, of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, said: “It’s a beautiful match between what we see on the ground and what is expected from the galactic record.” Cardiff University