Adam Savage and Jamie Heineman can be called the main magicians of our time.
THE SCIENCEAttack in the teethAnastasia Mazneva, Alexander ChubenkoTooth decay is an infection that almost all inhabitants of our planet are infected with today. According to epidemiologists, even in the Middle Ages, the prevalence of caries in Europe was three times less than modern. The reason for the victorious march of dental disease lies primarily in the fact that we eat.
INSTRUCTIONSTin WoodmanSergey ApresovAt first glance, it is clear that the harvester is a very powerful machine. Upon closer acquaintance, it turns out that her main strong point is not so much the power of the motors as advanced artificial intelligence.
TECHNOLOGIESBreakthrough of the Year 2013"Before any idea is considered revolutionary, it is considered just idiotic." Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize Foundation.
TECHNOLOGIESSingle spaceTim SkorenkoOften, when playing computer games, we regret the absence in them of various gadgets that are familiar to us from other games. For example, how the magic abilities of the hero Clive Barker’s Undying were lacking in Half-Life – with such capabilities, all monsters would instantly be turned to dust! But the laws of the genre do not allow dragging weapons and abilities from game to game. Although some people would not mind breaking these laws.
TECHNOLOGIESRobocop-5Sergey ApresovCould you name a few products that meet three criteria: they are made according to the most advanced technologies, they can be freely purchased and they have the inscription “Made in Russia” on them. No matter how many fingers you bent, prepare another one for the Traral Patrol autonomous security robot.
TECHNOLOGIESExplosions for the sake of truthOleg MakarovAdam Savage and Jamie Heineman can be called the main magicians of our time. Their television show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel looks like a stunning performance by an illusionist. However, the "destroyers" have no tricks or illusions. Everything is for real, everything is as it is.
CARSIn buffalo skinOleg MakarovIn early October, on a well-known website, we saw an advertisement for the sale of an amazing custom car. And everything was amazing about him. And the idea itself – the car completely, including the engine elements, is covered with the skin of Canadian bison – and the price: 88,000,000 rubles. We couldn’t miss such an event.
WEAPONProtection from friendsOleg MakarovLosses from "friendly" fire have always accompanied and will continue to accompany military conflicts, especially since international coalitions have become fashionable lately. And where troops from different countries are assembled, the likelihood of organizational chaos and misunderstanding is always higher. Therefore, today, as never before, there is a demand for technical means that will help reduce the number of victims of "fratricide". A number of approaches have already been outlined in this area.
WEAPONThe ocean has become smallConstantin RichesThe intensity of shipping is growing every year. And sometimes ships in the ocean get cramped. This is especially noticeable in coastal areas, in the area of large ports and naval bases. Here collisions of ships, as well as of surface warships, do not happen so rarely.
WEAPONWar whale flightOleg MakarovThe era of the Cold War, like the era of the dinosaurs, created the conditions for the emergence of large forms. Giant missiles, leviathan submarines, floating airfields and very, very large military transport aircraft for the transfer of troops and equipment to transcontinental ranges appeared.
EXPERIENCETim SkorenkoIn old Soviet magazines, amusing advice from a home craftsman was often found. For example: “Take your time to throw away your empty can. It can be used to make excellent kitchen towel hooks … ”We will follow the wise advice, but use the saved jar for completely different purposes – scientific.
ADRENALINLegendary experienceSergey Apresov"Boy, do you want to act in films?" – something like this sounded to me the invitation of the ADM circuit in Myachkovo to take part in the final race of the season of the Legends series. As a pilot. On a combat vehicle that exchanges the first hundred in 3.8 seconds. Side by side with professionals. No fools. There was no time to think: there were only a few days left before the race, and I had to show up for training the next morning.
ARTIFACTJennifer Townley’s Perfect PatternsTim SkorenkoGeometry. Absolute correctness. Reconciled, refined symmetry. It would seem that such works should hide a bald pedantic mathematician in round glasses. But no. Jennifer Townley is young, pretty, interesting. She just thinks so – and embodies her thoughts in metal.
STORYTaste in a cubeIt seems to us that they have always been. The trademarks associated with these items have in many cases become so commonplace that they have become household names. These things have so firmly and naturally blended into the world around us that we tend to forget about the history of their origin. Popular Mechanics decided to fill this gap.
IN EACH ROOMLetter from the editorReaders’ lettersTime MachineTechnoparadeTechnoshowWhat you need!Professions
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THE SCIENCEInterplanetary cartography (28)Roman FishmanEven a faint point source is enough to reconstruct key details on the surface of a distant planet, including possible structures of an alien civilization.
THE SCIENCEDisease Zoo (32)Svetlana YastrebovaSome of them, it would seem, are completely different from us – but, like us, they suffer from cancer, leprosy and headaches. Others, on the other hand, are surprisingly immune to common diseases.
TECHNOLOGIESSpacecraft Engine (34)Konstantin PredachenkoSABER combines the qualities of a turbojet ramjet and rocket engines and works efficiently in all parts of the trajectory from the runway to orbit.
AVIATIONBoomerang Flight (44)Oleg MakarovThis helicopter will be able to reach a record speed of about 400 km / h, but … it will not be exactly a helicopter. We are talking about a vehicle that is a hybrid of an airplane, a helicopter, a tiltrotor and an autogyro.
THE SCIENCENobel cuisine (54)Alexander Ershov“Take the scotch tape, run it along the sticky side with a graphite pencil. Then glue the tape in half, then unstick and glue again. That’s all, graphene is ready. "
THE SCIENCEMaze Runner (58)Anastasia ShartogashevaDistant future, post-apocalypse. A mysterious epidemic that turns people into bloodthirsty monsters.
TECHNOLOGIESConstruction Printer 2.0 (60)Oleg MakarovIn Russia, they have developed a printer that will work differently from anywhere else. Well, if only on Mars.
TECHNOLOGIESTime Saved Capsules (62)Alexander ErshovAs you pour detergent onto a sponge to wash the dishes, out of the corner of your eye you notice the tracking video cameras …
TECHNOLOGIESFifth Generation Future (64)Oleg MakarovAG’s time is running out. 5G will seriously change our lives.
TECHNOLOGIESAlexander the GreekBrain Phone (68)Honor 7X is the best choice for those who want to get a smartphone with a full set of modern functions, a frameless screen and at the same time save money.
WEAPONInstant Threat (72)Oleg MakarovIt will take tens of minutes from the moment the ICBM starts to hit the target. Short and medium-range missiles are another matter. There will be no time for reflection if they are applied.
EXPERIENCESoft power (86)Alexander ErshovToday, engineers are more interested in devices that move using artificial muscles. And although this is not even tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow of robotics, our experiment has shown that you can make them yourself in your garage today.
ARTIFACTJohn Bisbee’s assorted nails (88)With a confident hand, the artist weaves a wide variety of nails, forges, welds and ties in thousands of patterns.
ADRENALINChief Woodcutter of the Planet (92)Anastasia ShartogashevaVictories, defeats and wanderings of the king of the ax and saw.
IN EACH ROOMEditor’s Letter (4)From readers (8)Questions & answers (10)Calendar (12)Technoparade (14)Slideshow (26)Car chip (70)What you need! (78)What common? (98)
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LETTERSReaders’ lettersThe author of the best letter of the month receives a spare battery for the GP Portable PowerBank smartphone and tablet as a gift. Its capacity (10400 mAh) is enough to charge a smartphone four times (for example, iPhone 4S) or fully charge a tablet (for example, iPad 2). Two USB ports allow you to charge your smartphone and tablet at the same time, and a special NTC microprocessor does not allow the device to heat up above 46.5 ° C.
EXHIBITThe world’s first polyphonic musical synthesizer ANS
INSTRUCTIONSOne Pilot TheaterSergey Apresov“The list of tasks that this aircraft must and is already solving is huge. It is characterized by a colossal range of heights and speeds, an impressive range and duration of flight, a huge range of weapons that can be used at any time of the day and in any weather conditions. And all these possibilities are managed by just one person. " Sergey Chernyshev, test pilot of the Sukhoi Design Bureau
THE SCIENCEBold questionSergey BelkovOne of the most serious food chemistry horror stories is trans fats. "Popular mechanics" figured out what they are and how scary they really are.
LETTERSFrom the editorSergey ApresovThe gradual erasure of the boundaries between the virtual world and the real is a fashionable and fruitful topic today. And this is not only about the fact that for many of us it is easier to go not to visit a friend, but to a page on a social network. You’ve probably heard about the GT Academy project, which selects the best players in computer simulators and offers them to become real racers. Practice has already shown that outstanding gamers make world-class pilots – after all, a good reaction is important in any race, both real and virtual.
TECHNOLOGIESWater at the doorstepOleg Makarov“Oh Lord, there is a flood! We say goodbye to flesh and blood. " Not only was Peter Gabriel, whose song we just quoted, was inspired by the fearsome image of the flood – an inexorably advancing powerful element. You can also recall the picture of Flavitsky, in which the unfortunate impostor is about to meet death, and Nekrasov’s grandfather Mazai, and much more.
TECHNOLOGIESSecrets of information intrigueJoe PappalardoIn the summer, the world was stirred up by sensational news: Edward Snowden, an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), orchestrated the leak of classified documents detailing how the US government uses information technology to track potential terrorists. Through this gap, reports have poured into us that the secret services are collecting millions of phone calls, emails, photos and videos from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other communications giants. But then what do agencies like the NSA do with this information?
THE SCIENCEWhite spots of scienceWe have prepared ten notes on events and phenomena for which there is no generally accepted scientific interpretation to this day. However, in order to save face, we approached this with the utmost severity: we highlighted the opposing theories most respected in academia and turned to the most serious consultants, world luminaries of the relevant sciences.
TECHNOLOGIESTo the moon for 20 millionTim SkorenkoThroughout history, only three lunar rovers have plowed the surface of the moon – the Soviet automatic Lunokhod-1 and Lunokhod-2, as well as a controlled American LRV, a lunar vehicle. Is it really that difficult to build a research lunar rover, simple and reliable? Google promises to pay a lot of money for the answer to this question embodied in metal!
WEAPONArmor falls from the skyOleg MakarovAs you can see, the style of the new leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense presupposes a serious revitalization of combat training in the armed forces. We are increasingly hearing about different-scale exercises being carried out in different parts of the country. And this is a chance, after endless talks about reforms, to finally see the army and its equipment in action.
WEAPONAndrey Sakharov’s mistakeAndrey SuvorovThis year marks 60 years since the testing of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb RDS-6s – the famous Sakharov’s puff.
EXPERIENCEDrawings on milkTim SkorenkoFill a wide bowl with milk. Now take a Q-tip. Soak it in dish soap. Dip in milk. Nothing happens? You are deeply mistaken. There is a lot going on. You just need to correctly visualize the process.
ADRENALINShark hunterBill MorrisEveryone is afraid of sharks. This terrible predator is able to bite a person in half with one movement. But there are people who themselves are looking for encounters with danger. These are animalists – photographers and cameramen of popular science programs. Andy Casagrande is one of the world’s most renowned animal operators and shark specialist. For his dangerous filming, he developed a number of technical tricks …
ARTIFACTKafkian art by Teo KakkufaTatiana AlekseevaIt’s hard to believe, but all this happens in reality: the familiar things around us begin to live an independent life. Briton Theo Kakkufa turns commonplace pieces of furniture and household appliances into unexpected kinetic art objects.
STORYVasily Petrov’s arcIt seems to us that they have always been. The trademarks associated with these items have in many cases become so commonplace that they have become household names. These things have so firmly and naturally blended into the world around us that we tend to forget about the history of their origin. Popular Mechanics decided to fill this gap.
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Roman Fishman"Popular Mechanics" # 12, 2019
First predicted at the end of the 18th century and described by the Theory of Relativity at the beginning of the 20th century, black holes are too small or too distant to be distinguished with ordinary telescopes. The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A * in the center of our Galaxy has about 4 million solar masses packed in space with a radius less than the orbit of Mercury.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) brings together a network of powerful radio telescopes operating around the world into a single ultra-long baseline interferometer. Their observations are synchronized with a precise atomic observation clock and are combined through lengthy calculations on supercomputers, allowing images to be obtained with enormous resolution. The apparent size of the event horizon M87 * is only 7 angular microseconds – tens of millions of times smaller than the disk of the full moon, the resolution achieved by the EHT is 20 microseconds (at a wavelength of 1.3 mm). In the future, the EHT telescopes (purple) are slated to be able to survey the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, and the telescopes combined into the GMVA interferometer (yellow) will examine the surrounding accretion disk.
To observe it, a huge radio interferometer EHT – "a telescope the size of the Earth" was launched several years ago. But the first prey of the new instrument was the supermassive black hole of the galaxy M87. It is located thousands of times farther from Sagittarius A *, but thousands of times larger than him. The processing of the data obtained back in 2017 took about two years, but it was worth it: “It’s like looking into the gates of hell, beyond space and time,” one of the authors of this grandiose work described his impressions.
