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I came across this intriguing video of a banana being levitated in the air. This isn't the first time I've discussed this strange new technology of quantum levitation, but it's been a while. The last time I brought it up was back in November 2011, when talk show host and comedian Stephen Colbert levitated his ice cream flavor on his show.
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Physicists like it when things crash together. Okay, not so much when they do so unexpectedly. Just like anyone else, physicists prefer to keep their cars out of the body shop.
One of the deepest questions in physics is the attempt to provide an answer to the seemingly simple questions: Does time really exist?
Though we all experience time moving in one direction (the "arrow of time" as it is called), the curious thing about the laws of physics don't actually require this. If you tried to apply the equations with time moving the opposite direction, they would actually still make sense. Why, then, do we experience such an unrelenting forward motion in time?
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If you've been paying any attention at all to astrophysics or cosmology over the last couple of decades, you'll be aware that one of the major mysteries science has been exploring is the composition of matter in the universe.
Did you know that every moment, your body is being bombarded by particles with their origin in distant galaxies? These cosmic rays, as they're called, come from supernovas in distant star systems. Upon reaching the Earth's atmosphere, these particles from the "primary cosmic ray" collide with the molecules there and emit other particles that are part of a "secondary cosmic ray." It's these secondary particles that actually reach us on the surface of the Earth.
Okay, not really. April Fool's Day! Sort of. Actually, the exaggerated title comes from a very real exchange with my son which showed me that I seem to be doing something right, at least if one of my parenting goals is raising a child who asks the right questions.
The popular desk toy Newton's Cradle show off the conservation of momentum in a fun way. What are the equations that govern momentum? How is it useful in physics?
Momentum is a calculated quantity, derived from multiplying the mass of an object times its velocity. Momentum is a conserved quantity, which means that it is transferred between objects during collisions. (You can actually derive this fact from Newton's laws of motion.) This means that momentum can be calculated based on information before or after objects interact and can give us information that is useful in determining what happened either before or after the collision.
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Can science prove anything with absolute certainty? The short answer is no ... but the virtue of science is the degree to which it tries to contain and even quantify its level of uncertainty, while recognizing that it cannot be truly eliminated. I would argue that one of the greatest shortcomings in our world is the inability to recognize the difference between good evidence and bad evidence, and that this is precisely why scientific thinking is so crucial!
Getting straight information about the Higgs boson can be hard work. When Time magazine nominated the Higgs boson their "Person of the Year," each sentence in the nomination paragraph contained serious factual errors. (Some of these are errors I've been guilty of, as well, such as calling physicist Peter Higgs a Scottish physicist, even though he was born in England, not Scotland. Sorry for that slip, Dr. Higgs.)
The magazine Popular Science has announced a virtual science fair. The Popular Science science fair allows students from Kindergarten through college to sign up. Don't worry, though ... the college students won't be stealing prizes from the Kindergartners. Here are the categories, along with what the applicants need to submit (along with their registration form):
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For the last couple of years, I have been reviewing episodes of CBS's The Big Bang Theory ... and, more importantly, have been pulling out the scientific references and trying to provide explanations for them. Here are the last four of our episode reviews for the current season:
I came upon an intriguing article on Britain's Huffington Post from political reporter Mehdi Hasan, who was confronted by British biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins about whether he believed in a "winged horse." (I have been told the "winged horse" characterization is an over-simplification for the Islamic steed called Al-Baruq.) Hasan is a Muslim, so he concedes that he does believe in this entity, and in Allah as well.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will be returning to his position as a professor of physics at Stanford University upon leaving the Department of Energy. Earlier this month, the Nobel laureate announced that he would be stepping down from the helm of the U.S. Department of Energy. The word now is that he'll be returning to Stanford, though news reports have not indicated when he would return ... in part because he hasn't yet announced an exact date for his departure, nor has a successor been officially named by President Obama.
Readers of this blog may well be familiar with Leonard Susskind, one of the physicists considered a father of string theory and who co-discovered the holographic principle. He is well known for taking a firm stance against Stephen Hawking on whether or not black holes cause information to vanish from our universe. And for the last decade or so, he's been advocating the scientists could apply the anthropic principle to make scientific predictions about the physical parameters of our universe.
On Friday, Feb. 1, Dr. Steven Chu announced that he would not be continuing as U.S. Secretary of Energy for a second term under President Barack Obama. I don't normally follow how these things work, but from what I gather it normally involves a pro forma letter written announcing the intention not to serve a second term. Chu ended up writing a 3,781 word term paper discussing his successes and failures as Energy Secretary and also outlining his vision for where American energy policy needs to head.
Physics got its start with people looking toward the heavens and trying to make sense of the cosmos, and many of the greatest mysteries in modern physics still lie along that distant border. Books that try to explain this are quote popular, and a recent one is Paul Halpern's Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond. In this book, Halpern discusses a wide range of topics, from well-accepted science concepts like the Big Bang theory to more exotic ones like whether it might be possible to create a bridge to other parallel universes. The book contains a lot of speculation, to be sure, but this isn't a case of Halpern trying to promote his own pet theory, but rather an attempt to show how broad the inquiries are that are taking place within the field of cosmology and astrophysics. Anyone who wants to understand what could possibly lie on the limits of our universe would find this book to be a welcome starting point.
Today, I went over to Amazon and purchased an MP3 of the theme song from the television series The Big Bang Theory. This song is written and performed by the group Barenaked Ladies and is a catchy little tune with the official title "History of Everything."
Non-Newtonian fluids are those which do not have a constant coefficient of viscosity. Fluids such as the popular science experiment nicknamed Oobleck become more viscous as force is applied, but not in a linear relationship with the force being applied. As you push on Oobleck, for example, it partially solidifies in response to the pressure. So you can take a lump of Oobleck, squeeze it in your hand so that it forms a ball, and then as you hold it in your hand you'll see the ball dissolve back into a liquid.
... Temperature has long been understood as a measurement of the average energy of a set of atoms, with the absolute zero temperature representing a system in which the particles no longer have any kinetic energy at all, having ceased all movement. For this reason, while we frequently talk about negative temperatures in the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, the idea of a negative temperature on the Kelvin temperature scale was believed to be a nonsensical concept. After all, you can't have less motion than none, can you?
... It's been a big year for physics, most notably with the possible discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. But if you think that's the only thing physicists have been working on, you'd be wrong! Check out our 2012 Year in Review to find some of the other scientific curiosities that may have slipped through the cracks, such as the possible discovery of Majorana fermions. What the heck are Majorana fermions, you ask? Well, you'll have to read the article to find out!
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