Ahmed M. Hala

"What is your day-to-day job?" The promo for the young news anchor show on my favorite news channel keeps repeating while portraying her in action elsewhere too. I think the question is fitting and universally applicable especially from places around the world where people take liberty for freedom to act, which is pretty much around nowadays.

Yes, jobs come with "job description", so there are no surprises here. Therefore, acting above and beyond may come based on management directives or on one's own time. Such voluntary actions themselves are increasingly regulated and in many instances are even encouraged after business hours in what is called now the non-profit sector, but in fact it does have many benefits and are worth engaging in.

Having said that, and in case you have not noticed yet, AI is increasingly positioned by its developers to provide self-services to professionals. Indeed, this does mean that an individual is being provided a higher level content of these services to carry out their duties, but so does everyone else will too.

In addition, recent analysis by tech experts indicates that this trend and the giant investments that is provided for its development will make it last in its basic structure for at least a decade to come where such AI features can only improve before transitioning to the next level of using these valuable tools.

Image is due to Google's AI Gemini Imagen 3 model.

It is a phrase in French that caught me attending a news variety show when the lady anchor started to alert guests (or maybe audience for this matter) that the subjects under discussion are exceeding the topic set for the episode. It means in English something like: we have covered so much, and we are heading for concluding remarks.

I have argued before that if you have not selected your favorite live news bulletin or a daily variety show, the disconnect you will experience is not only from what happens in the real world around us, but live events broadcast are valuable for the very reason the seasoned news anchor signaled, even under the technical conditions that very few can perform with. This teaches lessons of "real time bound" performance added to the content delivered.

Again, this has nothing to do with synthetically breaking one's winning streaks, to the contrary it reinvigorates them and gives them a much-needed boost. But by now we are all used to "cramming" since school days. In professional life, and depending on your craft, this may last for weeks or even months. However, invariably one emerges from such hunkering down with enough material to work with for a successful while to come.

Image is due to ChatGPT AI search engine.

We live inside a planet-sized electrical system. The same invisible forces that let your phone or radio work are shaped by the Sun, the upper atmosphere, and even the ground beneath your feet. Modern electronics and broadcast technology don’t just sit on top of nature — they constantly interact with it.

The Atmosphere as a Living Electrical System

Earth’s atmosphere contains a thin “tenuous plasma” — a mix of charged particles. This physical plasma has a natural oscillation frequency (roughly hundreds of kHz to several MHz depending on conditions). Radio waves below this frequency behave differently than those above it. This is why shortwave radio (3–30 MHz) can travel around the world: Signals bounce off the ionosphere (a natural plasma layer high up), a process called skywave propagation.

In addition, the Sun constantly modulates this system. During the day, solar radiation increases ionization. At night, cosmic rays play a bigger role. Over the 11-year solar cycle, solar wind strength changes how many cosmic rays reach Earth. These natural rhythms directly affect how well radio signals travel — something broadcast engineers have worked with for decades.

Your Body Is Part of the Antenna

When you extend the telescopic whip on a shortwave radio, you’re making the antenna electrically longer so it can better “catch” radio waves. Interestingly, many people notice that touching the extended whip with their hand doesn’t hurt reception — and sometimes improves it. This happens because your body acts as an extension of the antenna. It provides a natural counterpoise (a kind of electrical ground reference) and increases the effective size of the receiving system.

The same principle appears in professional TV studios: anchors and guests often keep their feet elevated on non-conductive platforms. This isn’t random. Their bodies are part of the wireless microphone antenna system. Letting feet touch a grounded floor can detune the system or create unwanted electrical paths. By “floating” the body, engineers maintain cleaner, more stable wireless performance. In both cases — hobby shortwave listening and live broadcast — we are quietly managing how the human body couples to natural and artificial electrical fields.

From Radio Waves to Space Weather

Solar activity doesn’t just affect radio propagation. It influences the entire global electrical circuit between the ground and the ionosphere. During strong solar events, Earth’s magnetic field wobbles slightly. These changes can induce tiny currents in long conductors — power lines, pipelines, and even (very weakly) the human body.

Research has found subtle correlations between geomagnetic storms and things like heart rate variability, sleep quality, and cardiovascular strain in sensitive people. These effects are generally small compared with the direct dangers of heat and ultraviolet radiation during sun exposure. Still, they show that space weather reaches all the way down to biological systems through the same electrical environment that broadcast technology uses every day.

The Bigger Picture

Whether we’re designing compact metamaterial antennas to replace long whips, controlling grounding in a TV studio, or simply extending a radio antenna, we are working with the same underlying physics:

Charged particles and plasma in the atmosphere

The Sun’s influence on Earth’s electrical and magnetic fields

The human body as a conductive object that participates in these fields

The “technical” details we notice in electronics and broadcasting are often practical solutions to the same natural electrical behaviors that have always existed around us. In short: Radio, wireless microphones, and even how we position our bodies outdoors are all connected to the quiet electrical conversation between the Sun, the atmosphere, and the ground. Understanding one side helps us understand the other. This connection becomes especially visible during heat waves and strong solar activity, when both thermal and electromagnetic influences are heightened at the same time.

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The ion acoustic (sound) wave is excited by applying a voltage pulse to a gridded antenna, which launches a density perturbation that propagates through a physical plasma source. A movable Langmuir probe can be used to record the arrival time of the wave at multiple spatial positions.

The group velocity is then extracted from the slope of a linear fit to the time-of-flight data (arrival time versus probe position). In the long-wavelength limit, this measured velocity is compared versus the cold-fluid dispersion relation. A small but systematic upward correction (~2–3%) relative to the fluid prediction is observed and attributed to finite ion temperature effects, as confirmed by solving the kinetic dispersion relation using the plasma dispersion function.

The close agreement between the fluid model and experimental results validates the use of the simpler fluid approach for ion concentration measurements via ion acoustic waves in this regime, with ion Landau damping remaining negligible due to the cold ion population.

Figure: Fluid vs Kinetic comparison of ion acoustic wave propagation in a multi-dipole plasma: Time-of-flight measurements confirm that the cold-fluid model accurately predicts group velocity, with kinetic corrections remaining below 3% in the long-wavelength regime.

More than 50% of the steps required to fabricate computing chips involve processing with physical plasma tools including silicon wafer processing. In silicon plasma etching, the flux and energy distribution of key ion species such as F⁺ and SF₅⁺ directly influence etch rate, profile control, and selectivity. Modeling their phase space evolution under realistic hybrid plasma heating and cathode fall (sheath) conditions provides critical insight into species delivery at the substrate.

The attached video illustrates the evolution of ion phase space for the two dominant species affecting silicon substrate processing: F⁺ and SF₅⁺. The model begins with a low-energy base case and progressively incorporates energy input from hybrid heating methods (Helicon and ECR).

Physics: The simulation captures realistic RF sheath dynamics, where ions experience time-varying electric fields rather than ideal free-fall acceleration. This leads to broadened and partially overlapped velocity distributions. Hybrid heating increases plasma density (Helicon) and enhances dissociation and ion energy (ECR), driving the evolution of the phase space.

Chemistry: Energy-dependent reactive processes are included, notably the conversion of SF₅⁺ into F⁺ as ions gain kinetic energy while traversing the sheath. This chemistry alters the arriving ion mix at the substrate, with lighter F⁺ ions becoming more prominent at higher energies.

The resulting distributions reflect a realistic balance between mass-dependent acceleration, RF modulation, and sheath chemistry — providing insight into species delivery, energy spread, and potential impact on silicon etch uniformity and selectivity.

The simulation demonstrates that reactive chemistry and RF dynamics significantly modify the ion mix and velocity distributions compared to ideal free-fall models. Understanding these effects enables better engineering of the cathode fall and power strategies to achieve controlled, low-damage ion delivery for advanced silicon processing.

Data animation: Numerically simulated data showing F⁺ advances aggressively yet uniformly ahead of SF₅⁺, revealing mass-dependent velocity separation in the cathode fall field taking into account active sheath chemistry and hybrid plasma heating.

"I have the impression that you are not working enough." Professor Noah, my late PhD advisor caught me once strolling down the lab hallways. I had not produced enough data from my experiment since I passed my PhD qualifying exam then, so he selected the timing of delivering a profound message to me after which I worked feverishly toward completing my graduate work under his supervision.

However, the direction of me going to graduate school from the beginning was motivated by many items as the technology that I wound up working on was only taught overseas. I knew I liked physics, for example, since high school but studied engineering in college. However, I combined both in graduate school as my eventual degree was in engineering physics.

But there was a "parallel career" that drew me since college which was trading in the stock market. Aside from the winnings and losses tallies over the ensuing three decades in the market, I developed a sense of knowing a good stock from a bad stock. This came about through consuming countless "business newswires" as they were called in the pre-internet era (the early 1990's).

Then, I used to log in via the screeching sound of the modem connecting to such services where I was charged per "a thousand" characters download as an example. Afterward, and as the internet developed rapidly with streaming real-time quotes, I chose to pair the displayed quotes on the screens in my workspace with analysts' ratings and reports. Nevertheless, breaking news still struck me as the most effective way to deliver trading and investment insights.

Back to my dear professor, God blesses him, and only after I did defend my thesis, and was spending the extra time I had then tuning in to the stock market, that he'd ask me questions like: "How is your stock market trading doing?", for example. His interest was really genuine, and that too made all the difference.

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"As should be obvious by now, I’ll be giving an applied mathematician’s take on the story and significance of calculus. A historian of mathematics would tell it differently. So would a pure mathematician. What fascinates me as an applied mathematician is the push and pull between the real world around us and the ideal world in our heads. Phenomena out there guide the mathematical questions we ask; conversely, the math we imagine sometimes foreshadows what actually happens out there in reality. When it does, the effect is uncanny.

To be an applied mathematician is to be outward-looking and intellectually promiscuous. To those in my field, math is not a pristine, hermetically sealed world of theorems and proofs echoing back on themselves. We embrace all kinds of subjects: philosophy, politics, science, history, medicine, all of it. That’s the story I want to tell—the world according to calculus".

(From the introduction of the book"Infinite Powers" by Steven Strogatz)

The original Verhulst’s model of the 19th century described population growth by counting discrete individuals whose numbers were limited by available resources. It treated people as countable units — either present or not.

An electric probe in plasma works differently. It does not count individual charges. Instead, it measures the flow of charge reaching the probe as voltage is changed. What is recorded is a rate of charge change with time (current), not a headcount.

Physical plasma is also more complex than a simple collection of independent particles. Charge can behave as discrete particles, as waves, and as a fluid — all at the same time collectively. Because of this, the probe’s I-V curve reflects the combined dynamics of these overlapping behaviors rather than the addition or subtraction of separate units.

In this view, the familiar sigmoid shape of a Langmuir probe trace is better understood as a path traced by the plasma-probe system in a multi-dimensional space, rather than the result of simply counting charges. Saturation, for example, appears when the flow of charge becomes limited by what the plasma can supply, not because a fixed number of particles has been reached.

This shift — from counting individuals to observing flows in a complex system — changes how we interpret probe data and why modern digital measurements can reveal features (such as periodic or chaotic patterns) that were less visible in earlier analog techniques.

Data plot: Animated 4D phase space trajectory of a thermionically produced plasma during a Langmuir probe voltage sweep, with color representing fluctuation/wave activity level.

Is the arabic calligraphy ur own??

New research reveals critical limitations in classical Child-Langmuir space-charge models in plasma physics at high currents, identifying non-linear “kinetic braiding” of the potential manifold — driven by inductive back-pressure (−∂A/∂t) — as a source of chaotic oscillations leading to current quenching. It introduces the Hala Operator, a novel non-dissipative geometric controller that stabilizes the system into a limit cycle, offering a new paradigm for surpassing traditional confinement thresholds in high-power plasma devices.

The Child–Langmuir Law (also known as Child's Law or the three-halves-power law) states that the maximum space-charge-limited current density that can flow between the cathode and anode in a planar vacuum diode increases with the three-halves power (1.5) of the anode voltage and decreases with the square of the distance between the cathode and anode. Discovered independently by Clement Child in 1911 and Irving Langmuir in 1913, it defines the threshold where the electrical charge of moving electrons forms a "cloud" (space charge) that repels further electron emission from the cathode.

Key Novelties of the new research are:

Identification of "Kinetic Braiding" Phenomenon: Demonstrates that classical Child-Langmuir space-charge-limited models are incomplete in high-current regimes, revealing non-linear "braiding" of the potential manifold caused by previously neglected inductive back-pressure (−∂A/∂t), which acts as a chaotic precursor to current quenching.

Unreduced Maxwellian Formalism: Extends traditional electrostatic models by incorporating the full dynamic coupling between scalar potential (ϕ) and vector potential (A) via the complete Maxwell equations, explaining the breakdown of the 3/2 power law at high thermionic emission.

Hala Operator: Introduces a novel non-dissipative geometric controller (topological filter) that realigns the phase-space manifold into a stable limit cycle without energy loss, unlike conventional dissipative damping methods.

Diagnostic Sensitivity Manifold & Real-Time Control: Develops a practical computational diagnostic framework (including gain-mapping tables and stability heatmaps) that correlates ripple amplitude with control gain (β), enabling predictive stabilization and dynamic adjustment in plasma systems.

Practical Paradigm Shift: Establishes a scalable approach for exceeding classical space-charge thresholds in high-power plasma devices through topology-aware geometric stabilization rather than hardware-dependent damping.

In conclusion, this new study bridges the gap between classical electrostatic theory and high-current plasma kinetics by introducing the Hala Operator — a non-dissipative geometric controller that effectively suppresses chaotic braiding. It provides a robust, energy-efficient pathway for stable operation beyond traditional space-charge limits, paving the way for transformative advances in next-generation plasma confinement technology.

Video: Simulation of space-charge-limited current using the full scalar-vector potential formulation (φ, A) of Maxwell's equations, showing the deviation from the classical Child-Langmuir potential dip, with the Hala Operator applied as a feedback gain controller to suppress the resulting inductive braiding instability.

Success accumulation can only lead you to multiple choices of ways to proceed ahead with a project or to enter in a competition. However, it is only reasonable to assume that your competitors possess a similar set of ways to square up in any confrontation, say, in the marketplace.

But still, success is success and achievements are hard to give themselves away, so you resort back to selection from which one you want to spring to another success. Whenever you find yourself having a "rich" such portfolio of ways and means, the level of worry will be reduced while keeping the score of your winnings ready to increase.

Real poverty is the poverty caused by running out of choices and increased dependence even on one's own accomplishments. In this regard, keeping the wheel of innovative thinking rolling enhances the content of your portfolio in addition to tried and tested measures so proper decisions become easier to make and take.

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Mathematics rules. It touches every aspect of science there is, even the literary arts and sciences. The reason behind this is the language of mathematics itself as it is an abstract enough language to be compatible with such diverse sciences.

Mathematics- it is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories, and theorems that are developed and proved either in response to the needs of empirical sciences or the needs of mathematics itself.

If physicists boast that they can relate to topics from metaphysics, for example, as they are trained to deal with the world of the unseen scales, then mathematics toolbox matches astonishingly natural behavior and phenomena.

Mathematics operator-at its most fundamental level, a mathematical operator is a rule or a mapping that takes an object (an input), performs a specific action or transformation on it, and outputs a new object. An operator can be thought of as a mathematical "machine." It cannot exist by itself; it requires an operand—the object it acts upon.

Further, and after spending the last couple of years studying chaos in the physical plasma medium (which is the physical state of matter that constitutes more than 99% of the visible universe), and developing an innovative mathematics operator that bears my name, I am observing how its particular aspects are filtering around, and I am increasingly finding striking observations.

T. B. C.

Petrodollars, love them, no I really do. But I have my reasons for this. First of all, and aside from the reliability of exploration and sales of crude oil in return for monetary liquidity, oil byproducts proved to be a great wealth maker too, in the most open and efficient of markets, so what is not to like.

Do not be surprised to discover that in reality I am a plasma physicist who maintained a career to innovating renewable sources of energy. However, these "renewables" cannot be immediately cashed out, nor do they represent material assets themselves that can be kept stored and tapped whenever needed.

But wait, it gets better. Buring plasma to produce fusion energy is vastly different than burning oil or gas for this matter. The reliability does not stem only from the age-old methods to utilize oil and gas energy efficiently; it is that the very science of heat transfer and thermodynamics has been well established for the last three centuries with associated steam turbines being that technology that keeps advancing with a well-established industrial base.

What is more? Once oil and gas are discovered somewhere, more similar resources will be discovered nearby. Moreover, the argument against using fossil fuel in general is met by increasing the efficiency of their utilization whenever an evident case is presented that their emissions are exceeding allowed limits.

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New research describes a way to keep close watch on complex, fast-moving systems — especially ones where people or materials might try to slip away or break rules without being noticed. The research proposes a smart monitoring setup that works like an invisible net. It tracks many individual "particles" or moving parts at once while also watching the big-picture flow around them. When the system senses too much activity building up in one spot (crossing a clear alarming line), it doesn't slam on the brakes suddenly. Instead, it gently but firmly pulls everything back toward a safe central point.

The method uses a smooth, gradual adjustment rather than an all-or-nothing switch. This causes some initial shaking or ringing (like a bell slowly settling), but it steadily calms the whole system down. Over time, almost nothing can escape the monitored area anymore. The research shows through a computer simulation that this approach works well in different conditions — whether the environment is "thick and sticky" or completely smooth and slippery.

In the end, the system locks everything into a stable, controlled state and keeps it there. In simple terms, it's a clever control system designed to catch hidden problems early, respond smoothly without causing new chaos, and reliably bring everything back under tight control.

Data animation: Optimized simulation successfully calms chaotic motion into stable containment in 8 seconds, with clear ringing transients followed by smooth energy dissipation and boundary locking.

"Nobody wants to pay royalties." Noah, my late PhD. advisor deliberately declared to our class. He was referring in particular to inventions in the physical plasma systems used for semiconductors fabrication, a process he helped develop scientifically where his research group managed to dig "clean and straight" trenches the order of microns deep on the chips substrate using dry plasma etching.

He further explained that if a plasma physicist manages to design a rectangular antenna to produce radio frequency plasma, for example, and which did perform the processing, and further patented this design, another one might as well change the design to a horse track shape for example, gets the job done and obtain a different patent for it. This is to avoid paying royalties associated with the first design, and so on.

But there is no question that getting a patent is the highest form in terms of protecting a certain intellectual property, superior of course to refereed publications or even trade secrets. However, there is a crafty way about going around getting and maintaining patents. These days, inventors are required to develop a strategy by itself to gaining such patents right from the very beginning of applying to earn them.

While many complain about the length of time to getting a patent, they should not be, especially if they get the "patent pending" status for their application right from the beginning which is a universal procedure by now. In fact, this is a plus because the initial application is attached to the inventor's name, so they can go ahead and publish more results on it, talk about it in meetings and trade convention or even go about marketing it. By the time it catches the attention of interested parties, the patents may be conferred already and truly to the name of their inventors.

Concept image of a "plasma tool" typically used for semiconductor chips manufacturing.

Where will the next promising experiments and applications of clean explosives industry be carried out? The global explosives and energetic materials industry is valued at approximately $35 to $40 billion and is projected to surpass $40 billion globally. The explosives industry is primarily driven by the mining and quarrying sector, which accounts for over 70% of total volume through the use of bulk explosives for metal and coal extraction.

Beyond these industrial uses, the market is sustained by the high-value defense and aerospace sector, as well as commercial specialties such as oil-well perforating. This global demand is currently most concentrated in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, fueled by massive infrastructure investments and critical mineral exploration.

However, in reality the detonation schemes of explosives for a variety of applications are as important as the explosive material itself.

Shunt circuit - In blasting and demolition, a shunt circuit is a fundamental safety device designed to prevent accidental detonation. It creates a short-circuit across the lead wires of a detonator or blasting circuit, diverting stray electrical currents away from the sensitive internal bridge wire. 

But even as controlling the entire detonation process for any useful application is important, particularly to this industry, the proper tracking and handling of the explosive material itself becomes the important factor in carrying out subsequent processes. In this regard, rigorous handling of such material requires producing numerous tracking scenarios for both deployment and contingency.

Most start up companies begin with one team, one product for one market. This is why their chance of success is small. Even if they initially succeed, they may add a research & development (R&D) department for their long-term operations. This is done as an afterthought by employing workers in this department with different skills and often a disconnect with company management.

​Mantra - means literally "a tool for the mind". In practice, it is a word, sound, image or short phrase repeated to anchor your attention, quiet mental chatter, and shift your emotional or mental state. You can use it silently or aloud and apply it across many areas. 

​However, if these companies, particularly those in the technology field, work under the umbrella of a business sector dedicated for the commercial R&D, they can start a diversified portfolio of innovations in their area of specialty.

Each item of this portfolio will have its team, its line of products for their suitable markets. In addition, starting out from the R&D department, all employees of the company, including the innovator founders, will operate with direct connections to understand the opportunities & challenges of the company so they can tackle them right from the start.

​So, this is the general principal and concept of our company’s way of doing business: Yes. it is possible, if not convenient, to establish a technology company with a diversified innovations portfolio in its field of specialty with multiple teams and multiple products for multiple high profitability markets. In this regard, our mantra as pioneers, entrepreneurs and trail blazers in this sector is: "who will come after us, will find it easier to start".