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Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and Chalmers University of Technology have created a superfast optical chip capable of transmitting the entirety of the internet in a single second. The chip, detailed in a new paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, is part of new experiments to push optical fiber communications to the next level.
The engineers were able to create a superfast optical chip that transmits data at a terrifyingly fast rate of 1.84 petabits (Pbits) per second. For reference, the entirety of the internet is believed to be a little lower than 1 Pbit a second, which means that it could all be transmitted using this new chip.
Additionally, 1.84 Pbits a second is more than 20 times faster than ESnet6, which scientific networks are just now upgrading to. For even more context, the fastest internet available to the public right now is 10 gigabits, but most places aren’t even able to constantly offer one-gigabit speeds in most places. But a petabit is one million gigabits, so the advances the optic chip offers are clear.
The new chip is so powerful it could transmit the entire internet in just one second. Image source: gonin/Adobe
What’s even more impressive, though, is that this superfast optic chip delivers these amazing speeds using just a single light source, as well as a single optical chip. The researchers created the chip by using an infrared laser that beams into what is known as a frequency comb. This is then split into hundreds of different light frequencies and colors.
It can then encode data on these various light streams before recombining them into a singular beam and transmitting it through the optical fiber. It’s this design that allows the superfast optical chip to be as powerful and fast as it is.
With some companies pushing to put wi-fi on the Moon, as well as internet companies pushing to offer faster speeds, having tech that utilizes a super-fast optic chip like this could literally change how we access the internet and transmit data around the world.
The U.S. national debt surpassed $31 trillion this week and will balloon further as federal government spending continues to accelerate along with interest paid on the balance.
American leaders have been on a spending binge for decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and not since Republican President Calvin Coolidge, who departed the White House in 1929, has an American president reduced the national debt over their tenure in office, according to an analysis by Sound Dollar.
The dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite / AP Newsroom)
Both the executive and legislative branches have a say in spending: The president submits a proposed budget each year to Congress, which ultimately holds the power of the purse.
With that in mind, Sound Dollar adjusted the figures to account for the fact that in a president’s first year in office, they operate on a budget they inherited from their predecessor.
The national debt took a significant leap for the time under GOP President Richard Nixon, who racked up $121.3 billion — nearly three times the debt of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson — before resigning during his second term in 1974. A few years prior in 1971, Nixon famously took the U.S. off the gold standard.
President Richard Nixon, left, in 1971; President Biden on April 1, 2022. (Keystone (L), Anna Moneymakers (R)/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Since that time, the debt has continued to surge.
Following Nixon, Republican Gerald Ford was able to tack another $223.8 billion onto the debt in only three years in office during a period of stagflation. Democrat Jimmy Carter added $299 million during his single term, marred by a recession.
Ronald Reagan was the first president to push debt accumulation into the trillions, contributing $1.86 trillion to what the U.S. owed during his terms from 1981 to 1989. The Republican implemented tax cuts as part of a plan to pull the economy out of recession and boosted military spending during his time in office.
President Ronald Reagan sits at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House on March 1, 1987. (Diana Walker/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Fellow Republican George H.W. Bush nearly matched the amount of debt accumulated under Reagan but did so in a single term, adding another $1.4 trillion during his presidency due in part to U.S. involvement in the First Gulf War.
National debt growth slowed some after that during the two terms of Democratic President Bill Clinton, who famously worked with a GOP-controlled House of Representatives to balance the budget. But the debt still grew by $1.4 trillion by the time Clinton left office in 2001.
President Bill Clinton, left, and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) share a few words on June 4, 1998. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Spending surged again, however, under GOP President George W. Bush when another $6.1 trillion was added to the debt from 2001-2009. Bush was president during the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, which led to the U.S. war in Afghanistan that lasted 20 years. The U.S. also launched the Iraq War under Bush in 2003, and Congress famously passed a $700 billion bank bailout during his tenure in reaction to the financial crash of 2008.
After George W. Bush, Democratic President Barack Obama added another $8.34 trillion during his time in the White House from 2009 until 2017. During the Obama administration, Congress implemented some tax relief proposed by the president and also passed his signature “Obamacare” health insurance reform, the Affordable Care Act.
President-elect Donald Trump, left, and President Barack Obama smile at the White House before Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2017. (Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Republican President Donald Trump added nearly as much national debt during his four years in office as Obama did in eight, posting another $8.2 trillion. Trump vastly expanded the defense budget under his watch and cut taxes, but much of the debt incurred happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when Congress passed trillions in relief spending to combat the virus.
President Joe Biden also submitted a record military budget last year, and the Democrat-controlled Congress further passed his American Rescue Plan Act to provide additional pandemic relief. Less than two years into office, Biden has added $1.84 trillion to the national debt.
“Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotopeuranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production. One advantage of thorium fuel is its low weaponization potential. It is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233 that is bred in the reactor. Plutonium-239 is produced at much lower levels and can be consumed in thorium reactors.
After studying the feasibility of using thorium, nuclear scientists Ralph W. Moir and Edward Teller suggested that thorium nuclear research should be restarted after a three-decade shutdown and that a small prototype plant should be built. Between 1999 and 2022, the number of operational thorium reactors in the world has risen from zero to a handful of research reactors, to commercial plans for producing full-scale thorium-based reactors for use as power plants on a national scale.
Advocates believe thorium is key to developing a new generation of cleaner, safer nuclear power. In 2011, a group of scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology assessed thorium-based power as “a 1000+ year solution or a quality low-carbon bridge to truly sustainable energy sources solving a huge portion of mankind’s negative environmental impact.” However, the development of thorium power has significant start-up costs. Development of breeder reactors in general (including thorium reactors, which are breeders by nature) will increase proliferation concerns.”
Considering that there have been thousands of times more deaths from coal mining than from nuclear plants why are we not spending more resources on developing nuclear energy sources. Over 70% of France’s energy is supplied by nuclear plants.
