26 2GM Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
News
Superfast and highly efficient
computing could be closer after
scientists designed a superconduc-
ting material that works in only
one direction.
Scientists at Delft University of
Technology (TU Delft) said in a
paper in Nature that the material,Superconductor could make computers even faster
made from ultra-thin sheets of
niobium compounds, allows elec-
trons to pass in one way with no
resistance but not in the other,
without using a magnetic field.
This means it is the supercon-
ducting equivalent of the silicon-
based junctions that form the basis
of much modern computing.
Superconductors are materialsthat under certain conditions —
involving extreme cold — are able
to conduct electricity with almost
zero resistance. The technology is
already used in industry and
healthcare, including in the
powerful electromagnets used in
MRI machines.
“If the 20th century was the
century of semiconductors, the21st can become the century of the
superconductor,” said Mazhar Ali,
associate professor at TU Delft.
He said the discovery could lead
to “faster computers with up to
terahertz speed, which is 300 to
400 times faster than the comput-
ers we are now using. This will
influence all sorts of societal and
technological applications.”Tom Whipple Science EditorIN THE TIMES TOMORROW
HARRY WALLOP
Is exercise the new
luncheon vouchers?
MAIN PAPERBUSINESS
ARTS
SPORT
BULGING BREECHES
AND HEAVING BODICES
Why Robert Crampton loves a costume drama
PULLOUTROB KEY
My plan to
rescue English
cricket
MAIN PAPERBRICKS&MORTAR
THE REGENERATION GAME
Inside the century’s biggest
new urban scheme
PULLOUTHELEN MURRAYSpringy space
robot is giant
leap forward
Rhys Blakely Science CorrespondentA robot no taller than a bottle of wine
that can jump as high as a ten-storey
building could power a giant leap in
lunar exploration.
The robot, which is about 30cm tall
and weighs about 30g, is equipped with
a spring mechanism that allows it to
jump to a height of 33 metres on Earth.
On the moon, where gravity is about
one sixth of that experienced on our
planet and where there is no air to
provide drag, it should be able to jump
forward 500 metres in a single bound,
while reaching a height of 125 metres,
according to the engineers who have
developed it.
“The application we are currently
most excited about is space exploration.
The moon is a truly ideal location for
jumping,” Professor Elliot Hawkes of
the University of California, Santa Bar-
bara, said. “This opens up new possibili-
ties for exploration because it could
overcome challenging terrain. For in-
stance, it could hop on to the side of an
inaccessible cliff or leap into the bottom
of a crater, take samples, and return to
a wheeled rover.”
The robot uses a geared motor to
winch in a string. This serves to com-
press a spring mechanism built from
carbon fibre beams, which flex like
bows, and rubber bands, which are put
under tension. Once the mechanism is
loaded, a latch is released, accelerating
the body of the jumper upwards.
Hawkes and his colleagues have been
influenced by a tiny insect known as a
froghopper which can jump to a height
of 70cm — equivalent to about 115 times
its body length. The results were re-
ported in the journal Nature.Jodie Comer, making her stage debut, plays Tessa, a barrister who is sexually assaulted and must fight the judicial systemPrima Facie
Harold Pinter, SW1
HHHHIShapeshifter takes the stage by storm
If you’ve seen Jodie Comer play the
murderous Villanelle in Killing Eve
you’ll know she is a gifted
shapeshifter. Nothing, though, can
quite prepare you for the range,
energy, resilience, emotional clarity
and sheer presence she offers in this
play by the Australian lawyer turned
writer Suzie Miller.
Prima Facie is a polemical
monologue about a criminal barrister
who finds herself far less in command
of the law that she is used to when
she becomes a plaintiff in a rape trial.
It is — though you’d never guess it —
Comer’s theatrical debut. Awards will
follow.
So if you’re one of the fans who
have already made this West End run
a sell-out — give or take day seats,
returns and a weekly ticket scheme,
with a cinema broadcast to come —
rest assured you are in for something
special. And if the play itself, first seen
in Sydney in 2019, is unabashedly
driven by an agenda that Comer’s
character has then been created to
serve, it still makes its point in style.
Is the legal system ill-equipped to
offer justice for the one in three
women who have been sexually
assaulted? These 100 minutes of stage
time make a strong case, which might
make it an impassioned yet over-
instructive evening in lesser hands.
With Comer at its centre, Justin
Martin’s inventive, propulsive
production clears the space for its
closing arguments thanks to the
vividness with which it draws us into
Tessa’s upturned world.
The first half in particular is played
at a serious lick, as Comer’s Tessa
makes us feel her excitement at
knowing how to win at “the game of
law”. Pacing around the stage,
changing costumes, she sometimes
jumps up to perform from on top of
the two large tables that dominate a
smart set by Miriam Buether. Comer,
performing primarily in her ownLiverpool accent, barely draws breath
as she becomes Tessa’s working-class
mum or the posh kids who
intimidated her at Cambridge or the
QC’s son she’s having a fling with who
rapes her in her bed after a night of
drinking.
Comer delineates each moment
minutely without ever disrupting the
fluidity of her performance. There is
an extraordinary set piece in which a
curtain of rain falls on her as she triesto flee home to her mother’s. She
shows us a woman who knows the
game but still ends up vulnerable to
its caprices.
If it’s a great case study rather than
a great play exactly, the cumulative
effect is still quite something. Comer
brings it to life in a way that suggests
she has it in her to be a true stage
great.
To June 16, primafacieplay.com
In cinemas July 21, ntlive.comTheatre Dominic Maxwell