Fulfilled dreams of Robert Boyle. Part 2

    Robert Boyle wrote a “wish list” 350 years ago, and many of his dreams were brought to life by mankind. The last time we looked at the first six points - the second youth, organ transplantation, telemedicine, art flight. Today we’ll talk about our growth, tomato and potato mirrors and telescopes.

    Stamp for the 350th anniversary of the Royal Scientific Community
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    The contents of the wish list in the original language of 1662
    1) The Prolongation of Life
    2) The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of It, as New Teeth, New Hair Color'd as in Youth
    3) The Art of Flying
    4) The Art of Continuing Long under water and the Exercise of Functioning Freely There
    5) The Cure of Wounds at a Distance
    6) The Cure of Diseases at a Distance or at least by Transplantation
    7) The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions
    8) The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only
    9 ) The Acceleration of the Production of Things out of Seed
    10) The Transmutation of Metalls
    11) The Making of Glass Malleable
    12) The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals and Vegetables
    13) The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums
    14) The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses
    15) The Making Armor Light and Extremely Hard
    16) The Practicable and Certain Way of Finding Longitudes
    17) The Use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to Watches
    18) Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc
    19) A Ship to Sail with All Winds and a Ship Not to be Sunk
    20) Freedom from necessity for much sleeping exemplify'd by the Operations of Tea and What Happens in Mad-Men
    21) Pleasing Dreams and Physicall Exercises by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French author
    22) Great Strength and Agility of Body Exemplify'd by That of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall Persons
    23) Varnishes Perfumable by Rubbing
    24) A Perpetuall Light

    7) Reaching giant sizes


    Over the past two hundred years, the average height of men has increased by 10 centimeters, women - by 9 with a small centimeter. We, of course, are not giants, but the men and women playing basketball and volleyball would have seemed to Boyle huge. But if you think about it, even today the point of view of the average person, a two-meter person seems high.

    And if you are not lucky with growth, then there are ways to increase it in two ways - surgical and physiological. In the physiological case, we are talking about hormonal drugs, and surgeons increase the growth due to the legs in the calf or femur.

    Gattack Feature Film


    8) Emulation of fish without engines using science


    To swim under water, even at a very great depth, modern technology allows. In a previous article, I mentioned the ability of a person to function under water. The maximum depth of immersion in autonomous equipment is 330 meters - this record was set by Pascal Bernabe.

    But can a person pose as a fish without resorting to the help of engines? Until we learned how to swim without equipment, like fish, and just as long without air. We are even far from dolphins.

    But we have scuba diving goggles, special suits and flippers - both for legs and for putting on hands. They also use a monofin - this wide flipper is attached immediately to two legs. The world record for breath holding belongs to Tom Cietas from Germany - he stayed under water for twenty two minutes and twenty two seconds. It remains only to embed the gills in a person.

    Monofin Freediver
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    9) Accelerating the growth of vegetables from seeds


    Scientists were able to fulfill this point on the top five. They created plant growth stimulants - synthetic and natural substances that enhance cell division. Like animals, hormones are responsible for plant growth. Stimulants are used in the form of aerosols, aqueous solutions, emulsions and vapors.

    Plant growth hormones were discovered by chance - in a weed puppet that loves cereals. Auxin was derived from cockle seeds, which stimulates the growth of wheat grains and their number in the ear.

    In addition to stimulating plant growth, there is another way to improve this characteristic of them: get into genes. Genetic engineers are able to modify plants, animals, and microorganisms using certain methods. To create GMOs, an isolated gene is obtained, introduced into a vector for transfer into the body, transferred, cells in the body are transformed, and those organisms that successfully pass all these stages are selected.

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    10) Transmutation of metals


    Transmutation is the transformation of one object into another. In Alchemy, the transmutation of metals meant the conversion of base metals to gold. In physics, this rarely used concept implies the conversion of atoms of some chemical elements into others as a result of the radioactive decay of their nuclei or nuclear reactions.

    Robert Boyle, most likely, had in mind the conversion of metals to gold. And this dream of all alchemists came true in 1947, when the American physicists Ingram, Hess and Haydn measured the effective cross section of neutron absorption by mercury nuclei. A similar experimental effect was 35 μg of gold. In economic terms, this discovery is useless - too expensive a process. It is better to mine gold even in the poorest mines.

    Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom
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    11) Making flexible glass


    Glass is one of the most ancient materials used by man. Glass existed in Egypt five thousand years ago, and a glass bead of five and a half thousand years old is stored in the Berlin Museum. Glass, as a rule, bends very poorly upon physical impact - it is too fragile. They are already able to deal with the fragility of glass. It is tempered and created by multilayer composites. In addition, glass is actively replaced with other materials - plastics. For example, in ophthalmology, contact lenses are made from polymers.

    But how can one live without flexible glass in the era of mobile devices? In 2014, the laboratory of Los Alamos developed elastic glasswith a partially crystalline structure - such a glass bends when subjected to mechanical stress. In the photo - a plate of “metallic” glass bent into a ring with a radius of 1 mm. If the glue is removed, it will unfold back.

    Elastic glass
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    12) Interspecific transmutation of minerals, animals and plants


    Scientists have long learned how to cross animals and plants. Unless the elephant was crossed with a mouse, but tomatoes with potatoes were only on the way. Moreover, scientists have learned to fit into genes. Genetically modified plant varieties and created animal breeds can differ in accelerated growth and increased productivity.

    Modification allows you to deter insects. Scientists have identified the gene responsible for scorpion venom and, making this poison harmless to humans, have introduced the gene into the cabbage - to kill the caterpillars. Fruits of plants may contain a vaccine: the researchers introduced the hepatitis B virus into a banana tree. A person eating a fetus filled with proteins of the virus activates the immune system - the creation of antibodies begins.

    Potato
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    13) The creation of alkagest and other solvents


    A universal solvent is impossible, which was proved back in the 17th century: “If alkagest dissolves all bodies, then it will dissolve and the vessel in which it is contained; if he dissolves the flint, he will turn it into a liquid and a glass retort ... ”

    There is a huge amount of solvents - these can be liquid, solid and gaseous substances. In organic chemistry, tetrahydrofuran is sometimes called a universal solvent - it is able to dissolve almost all low molecular weight organic substances, as well as many polymers, including polyvinyl chloride and rubber. A wholly universal solvent has not yet been created - as mentioned above, there simply would be nothing to do.

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    14) Production of parabolic and hyperbolic lenses


    Lenses are used in electronics, optical systems, ophthalmology, radio astronomy and even in the construction of plutonium nuclear bombs.

    Observatories use parabolic mirrors. Their production is a very complex process , it can be considered on the example of the production of mirrors for the Giant Magellanic telescope. The basis of its optical system is seven huge round mirrors, each twenty tons in weight. Mirrors make up of 1861 borosilicate glass blanks. The segments melt and form a single array of parabolic shape, which is then polished.


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