physics
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Scientists create quantum entanglement at room temperature
Quantum entanglement, where two particles are inextricably linked, is a real thing. However, creating that odd behavior has been extremely difficult so far -- you have to cool things down to near absolute zero to pull it off on a significant scale. Or rather, you did. Researchers have successfully produced macro-scale quantum entanglement at room temperature through the one-two combo of an infrared laser (which aligned magnetic states) and electromagnetic pulses (for the actual entanglement). The experiment only included enough electrons and nuclei to fill the space of a blood cell, but that still amounts to linking "thousands" of particles.
Portable particle accelerators may soon become reality
Modern particle accelerators are big, to put it mildly -- even the smallest ones tend to occupy large rooms. Researchers at the University of Maryland, however, have found a way to shrink them down to where they're genuinely portable. By shooting plasma with a laser pulse in such a way that they intensify the pulse and create a wake, the scientists can accelerate electrons to near the speed of light without using nearly as much energy as current machines (just millijoules for every blast). With this technology, you'd need so much less equipment and power that you could fit an accelerator on a cart.
The Large Hadron Collider's next upgrade is moving forward
The Large Hadron Collider recently got back to work after a two-year layoff for maintenance and upgrades, but soon it will go under the knife again. Last week 230 scientists met at CERN in Switzerland to discuss the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project, and move it from the development phase to the construction stage. After two more Long Shutdown periods in 2019 and 2024, the HL-LHC will deliver 10 times the amount of particle collisions it does now. New technology coming its way includes 12 superconducting quadropole magnets (one is pictured above), "crab" cavities that tilt the particle beams before collisions and more. When we took a look at the science behind particle accelerators a few years ago, the HL-LHC was already in development and after a four year design study it's one (big) step closer to reality.
Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to neutrino 'flavor' change
The Nobel Prize for Physics has previously been awarded to scientists for things like the study of the Higgs Boson particle and for complicated work that deals with graphene. This year is no different with Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald coming across a discovery that has the power to change our current understanding of the universe. The two scientists are being awarded the prize for working out that neutrinos have mass. In case you're not down with physics-lingo, a neutrino is a subatomic particle that travels at (almost) the speed of light and passes through almost anything without effect. In fact, billions of neutrinos are passing through your body as you read this.
Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts an early Reddit video AMA
Reddit's Ask Me Anything videos are getting off to a very good start. The social site has just posted its first batch of these moving AMAs, and one of these stars none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Hayden Planetarium director known for making astrophysics accessible to everyone. As you might guess, the video format gives deGrasse Tyson the opportunity to answer with the kind of depth and expressiveness that you don't get with a text reply. Among other things, he chooses the universe's best art (spoiler: it's not a painting) and explains why he doesn't like mind-altering substances.
Microsoft buys 3D physics developer Havok to boost gaming efforts
Microsoft today announced the acquisition of Havok from Intel. Havok makes a 3D physics engine and licenses it to gaming studios; its work has been featured on more than 600 titles, including popular franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Destiny, Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls and Microsoft's own Halo. While Microsoft says it is delighted to add Havok's technologies to its robust portfolio of tools and components for developers, like DirectX 12 and Azure, it did point out that it won't stop supporting partners going forward. "We will continue to license Havok's technology to the broad AAA games industry," Microsoft said in a statement to IGN. "This also means that we will continue to license Havok's technology to run across various game consoles including Sony and Nintendo."
Physicists successfully map individual atoms in 3D
Technology can evolve at such a rapid rate that many scientific discoveries are not just pushing boundaries, they're practically barging them. Example, Physicists at UCLA have managed to 3D-map the position of individual atoms to a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter (that's several times smaller than a hydrogen atom, for those of you playing at home) using a creative scanning technique. The method will help scientists and engineers build things -- such as aircraft components -- that lack point defects (i.e. missing atoms) that can have detrimental effects on structural integrity.
The Big Picture: U2's tour art takes a page from particle physics
Who said that science can't be pretty? Certainly not artist Jeff Frost. When U2 asked Frost for tour art that reflected a "neural net of humanity," he went to CERN's Large Hadron Collider to capture timelapse footage and otherwise treat the particle smasher as a creative tool. As you can see above, the result is dazzling -- it looks like the internet made manifest in a painting. And while you'd think that physicists would be annoyed by this kind of interruption, they actually went out of their way to give Frost access to areas that even they couldn't always see. This doesn't quite make up for U2 foisting an album on millions of people, but it does give Bono and crew some extra geek cred.
See Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the universe in 8 minutes
Need proof that Neil deGrasse Tyson has a knack for explaining complex astrophysical concepts in simple terms? You don't have to spend the better part of an hour watching a Cosmos episode -- in fact, a short work break will do the trick. The famed astrophysicist has posted a video explaining the basic history of the universe within 8 minutes, ranging from the Big Bang to humanity itself. The clip notes that many things we take for granted (such as gravity and the prevalence of matter) were decided in the earliest moments of the universe, and that our Solar System largely exists thanks to giant stars ejecting heavy elements. That sounds like a lot to take in, but don't worry: this is quite accessible, and it's a good primer on the nature of... well, everything.
Large Hadron Collider finds a new 'pentaquark' particle (updated)
It didn't take long for the Large Hadron Collider to push the boundaries of science once more. The LHCb experiment team has discovered the existence of "pentaquarks," or subatomic particles where there are four quarks and one antiquark in specific states. Scientists have known for decades that these kinds of particles should exist under our current model for quarks, but they've never had solid evidence until now. As they explain, earlier tests were like "looking for silhouettes in the dark" -- the LHC test (which studied the decay of a baryon particle) had so much high-precision data that a pentaquark was the only possible explanation for the results. More tests will be necessary to see how this pentaquark behaves and what it can teach us about physics, but those will begin as soon as the collider starts its next run. [Image credit: CERN/LHCb experiment] Update: To be clear, the data used in this discovery is from the LHC's initial run, before the shutdown. It's during the second, ongoing stint that researchers will conduct follow-up tests.
Antimicrobial silver coatings could be hindering your chemo
Hospitals around the world use a silver coating on their chemotherapy equipment, such as IV catheters, because the noble metal prevents microbial growth. However, it turns out that this germ killing coating could be damaging chemo drugs that flow over it and harming patients. A team of researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Physics revealed this effect in a study recently published in the journal 2D Materials. "We wanted to find potential problem sources in the tubes used in intravenous catheters...Chemotherapy drugs are active substances, so it isn't hard to imagine that the medicine could react with the silver," Justin Wells, associate professor of physics at NTNU, said in a statement.
Neutrinos may not be faster than light, but they can shapeshift
About four years ago, CERN made a claim that sent shockwaves through the scientific community. During the course of an experiment, CERN scientists apparently discovered that neutrinos -- tiny subatomic particles that travel near light speed -- could possibly accelerate faster than light. That, however, turned out to be an error, apparently due to some faulty testing equipment [Sad trombone]. Why are we talking about this now? Well, scientists have finally completed the experiment's original goal, which was to see if neutrinos could shift from one type to another (also known as the Oscillation Project with Emulation-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) experiment). And, well, they can. Between 2008 and 2012, researchers were able to shoot a beam of "muon" type neutrinos through the Earth -- traveling a 730 kilometer distance from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to the Gran Sasso lab in Italy -- and found that they had metamorphosed into "tau" type neutrinos on the other side. Just recently, the team uncovered the fifth such "tau" neutrino, thus concluding the experiment. While the study's result won't spoil Einstein's theory of relativity, the discovery is still an important step forward in the world of particle physics. [Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]
Large Hadron Collider gets back to running science experiments
What's that strange circular shape, you ask? That, friends, is what particle physics looks like when it's getting back on track. After weeks of test runs following its return to service, the Large Hadron Collider has resumed smashing particles together for the sake of real, honest-to-goodness science experiments -- those criss-crossing lines in the image above are a few of the early collisions. And this time, there's much more energy involved. The LHC is now colliding particles at a level of 13 trillion electron volts, or nearly twice as much energy as it used before its two-year downtime. The boost will hopefully lead to physics discoveries that weren't possible in the previous go-round, which is saying something when some past results were enough to earn a Nobel prize. [Image credit: CERN]
Enjoy this LSD trip from the comfort of your web browser
It's time to stop what you're doing an enjoying some soothing visuals brought to you by physics. Created by George Corney, the browser-based GPU fluid simulation reacts when you click and drag your mouse. The resulting psychedelic dreamscape is a mesmerizing swirl of magic that's sure to destroy your productivity. A retractable controller in the top right corner adjusts the quality of the simulation and can reset the particles when you're ready to start over. You can check out Corney's GitHub page if you're interested in contributing to the project or just checking out his code. Or you can just keep watching the swirls. All the pretty swirls.
Powerful magnetic shield will test the limits of physics
The Standard Model of physics, as good as it is, has gaps: it can't really explain dark matter, gravity or the imbalance between matter and antimatter. Thankfully, German researchers have a new tool that could plug some of those holes. They've developed a magnetic shield whose several layers of nickel-iron alloy are 10 times more effective than the previous best, creating a magnetic field so low and consistent that it actually beats the average ambient field in space. That will let scientists measure particles with such a high level of precision that they could detect previously unknown physics behavior, and set the groundwork for finding new particles. Think of it as a complement to accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider -- rather than smash particles together, it'll help find subtle deviations from the norm.
NASA's next rocket will sniff the remnants of a supernova
There's been a lot of space stories this week, including rockets going up, satellites coming down and supply craft doing both, but not in the right order. Not to be deterred, NASA is talking up its next big experiment which will send a probe to examine the contents of the Cygnus Loop, a remnant of a supernova that exploded 20,000 years ago. The mission will involve a sounding rocket, which will sniff the x-rays that are still being emitted from the stellar event, which scientists hope will help them understand what it's made up of.
The Large Hadron Collider is back and stronger than ever
Yes, it's back -- after a two-year upgrade program, CERN's Large Hadron Collider is once again operational. Scientists are only firing collision-free proton beams right now to test the new system, but they'll ramp up over the next few months to the point where they're smashing protons together at 13 teraelectronvolts -- about twice the energy the LHC managed in its first season. The machine will have a relatively short three years to operate before its next shutdown, but the higher output should help researchers explore antimatter, dark matter and other aspects of physics that are relatively untested. Given that the collider appears to have discovered the mysterious Higgs boson during its first run, we're hopeful that its second season has more breakthroughs in store. [Image credit: CERN]
'Spooky' experiment proves quantum entanglement is real
Einstein was wrong -- about the quantum mechanical phenomena known as superpositioning and wave form collapse, at least. A team from Australia's Griffith University and Japan's University of Tokyo, have proven that both are tangible phenomena, not simply mathematical paradoxes. See, back when he was still reigning "smartest guy on the planet," Einstein just couldn't wrap his massive intellect around the theory of superpositioning (or as he called it, "spooky action across distance"). That is, a particle in superposition effectively exists in both places at once (not unlike Schroedinger's Cat) until you observe it at either location. At which time the particle you aren't looking at ceases to exist (a process known as wave function collapse). What's more, the disappearing particle seems to know that its twin has been discovered through some mechanism that happens instantly, literally traveling faster than the speed of light -- a clear violation of Einstein's theory of relativity.
Behold the first photo of light in both wave and particle forms
You've likely read in a textbook before that light behaves both as a particle and a wave at the same time. Scientists had previously seen it behave one way or another, but it's only now that someone finally found a way to photograph light as both in a single picture since Einstein proposed its dual nature in the early 1900's. In order to photograph light, a team of scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) used a novel technique and an electron microscope so powerful, there are only two in the world.
Super Mario World's gravity isn't possible on any planet
It goes without saying that Super Mario World is unrealistic, but have you wondered just how outlandish it is? PBS has. The broadcaster's Space Time show recently went out of its way to calculate the gravity of the game's planet based on Mario's jumps, and it turns out to be nearly eight times that of Earth. That's a figure that you don't even find on gas giants like Jupiter, and it's only feasible on stars. Moreover, Nintendo's plumber would need both superhuman strength to jump as high as he does as well as non-human blood -- the liquid would be so heavy that a heart couldn't pump it properly. Mario doesn't so much have his own world as his own universe, since there's no way that he or his environment could exist based on our understanding of physics.
