Beneath us all is a seething
cauldron of rock, wrapped
round an iron-nickel core
at temperatures similar to
the surface of the Sun.
Most of the heat comes
from radioactive decay of
elements like uranium in
the surrounding mantle.
As this process will
continue for billions of
years yet, the Earth is likely
to have been destroyed by
the death of the Sun before
it can solidify. RM
Will Earth’s
interior ever
become
solid?
In one sense, we can never know
because reaching absolute zero is an
impossible task as an infinite amount of
work is required to cool something down
that far. However, you can get close –
the world record coldest temperature is
0.0000000001°C above absolute zero.
At super cold temperatures, strangethings start occurring. Exotic states of
matter appear, such as superfluids
that have no friction and viscosity
and so climb out of their containers;
superconductors which have zero
electrical resistance, and Bose-Einstein
condensates, where atoms act totally in
unison and never collide. MLWhat happens at absolute zero?
What’s the biggest robot in the world?
According to the Guinness Book Of Records, the largest walking robot in the world
is reported to be Tradinno, a 15m-long dragon robot weighing 11 tonnes that was
used in a German theatre for the play Drachenstich. Powered by a two-litre turbo
diesel engine, it can breathe flames to a distance of 1.5 metres. However, in the
future, this dragon will be like a toy compared to the 200m-long robot container ship
Vindskip planned for construction, which would traverse the seas using its giant
sides as sails, and its computer brain to keep its course. PBThe high sides of
Vindskip act as sails24 April 2017VINDSKIP VED KAIUSE, GETTYIMAGES, ISTOCK18 April 2017