subatomic
Latest
Photography and the subatomic world collide in a new documentary
First it was Andy Warhol's obsolete digital archives and then the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. Now, the Hillman Photography Initiative's documentary team has set its sights on the CERN physics laboratory in its newest film, Subatomic. Famously known for housing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this facility is also home to the AEgIS experiment and the ATLAS Detector, one of the world's largest digital cameras. The scientists there use a variety of photographic technologies, from a cutting-edge 100-megapixel sensor that captures 600 million pictures per second, to antimatter experiments that use traditional photo emulsion to track particles. CERN even has an artist in residence program, showcasing outsider perspectives on the scientific world. These are all captured in this fifth and final installment of The Invisible Photograph film series from the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) and Hillman Photography Initiative, which seek to reveal the hidden aspects of images whether obscured, lost or forgotten. Subatomic: The European Organizaton for Nuclear Research debuts online today, and you can watch the latest film below or stream the entire series on CMOA's website.
Large Hadron Collider may have produced a previously undetected form of matter
Teams at the Large Hadron Collider must be developing a knack for producing tangible evidence of theoretical particles. After orchestrating 2 million collisions between lead nuclei and protons, like the sort you see above, the collider's Compact Muon Solenoid group and researchers at MIT suspect that stray, linked pairs of gluon particles in the mix were signs of color-glass condensate, a currently theory-only form of matter that sees gluons travel in liquid-like, quantum-entangled waves. The clues aren't definitive, but they were also caught unexpectedly as part of a more routine collision run; the team is curious enough that it's looking for more evidence during weeks of similar tests in January. Any conclusive proof of the condensate would have an impact both on how we understand particle production in collisions as well as the ways gluons and quarks are arranged inside protons. If so, the CMS and MIT teams may well answer a raft of questions about subatomic physics while further justifying CERN's giant underground rings.
Rovio and CERN teaming up on education: hopefully the Angry Birds help us this time [update]
The last time CERN and an angry bird met, it didn't end so well: the Large Hadron Collider overheated after a feathered creature reportedly dropped its breakfast on outdoor machinery. Things should go much more smoothly this time around, with CERN and Rovio partnering on an educational initiative that will be unveiled in full at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 12th. Although the two are shy on just what's entailed beyond the presence of some Angry Birds material at the event, the union will mark the start of Rovio's learning brand and likely represent more in the long run than another Angry Birds Space tie-in. We're mostly wondering if subatomic physics research will explain why we still can't three-star some levels in a physics-based game. Update: Rovio and CERN announced "Angry Birds Playground" this morning, which the company describes as, "a learning program for 3- to 8-year-olds based on the Finnish National Curriculum for kindergarten." In so many words, CERN and Rovio are partnering on an educational initiative aimed at young children which employs the iconic Angry Birds characters. It's unclear whether the initiative will spawn games or books or ... what exactly, but there you have it.
Fieldrunners 2 surpasses $1 million in sales, Subatomic defends premium App Store pricing
Fieldrunners 2 recently broke $1 million in sales, about a month and half since launch. The original Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios launched during the infancy of the iOS App Store nearly four years ago and was a runaway hit, eventually being ported to several platforms. It wasn't a sure bet by Subatomic that a sequel would do well, given the increased competition in the marketplace now and, particularly, at the premium price of $2.99 for the iPhone version and $7.99 on iPad."These high price points have generated a lot of criticism," Alec Shobin, marketing manager at Subatomic, told Joystiq. "But when I explain our strategy to fans, they always understand our situation. Fieldrunners 2 was made over the course of two years by a team of about 20 people. When I explain that we have to go with premium prices because we want to cover our costs in order to continue making super high quality games for a niche, hardcore audience, it really clicks with them and makes them want to support our cause."Shobin notes Fieldrunners 2 launched and immediately became the second-highest paid app on the US App Store. What he thinks is more important is the game reached number eight in the top-grossing category without being free-to-play nor having in-app purchases.
CERN confirms existence of new particle consistent with Higgs boson (video)
Physics' big announcement had more in common with a leaky product launch than the serious business of re-writing the science books. But slack asset management aside, it's official: a new boson has been observed with a standard deviation of 5 (confidence of 99.9%). The highly anticipated announcement came this morning direct from CERN's press conference (via ICHEP in Melbourne,) and is the result of an intense, ongoing search for the elusive particle. The observation is of a boson particle with a mass of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV, at a significance of 4.9 sigma. Joe Incandela -- giving the presentation -- said that this is "In agreement with the standard model at 95% confidence range." The boson is the heaviest ever found, and although this is still a preliminary result, it's by far the strongest case yet for the existence of the elusive Higgs. The sought-after particle is essential for supporting the current understanding of sub-atomic world, and its bearing on nuclear, and electromagnetic interactions. The next stage will be to determine the exact characteristics of the new particle and whether it matches the expectations of the Higgs, or is it in fact something more "exotic." This part will take much more time, but for now, a (very) small, but important piece of the puzzle has been found. Update: We're sure you've got many questions, and CERN apparently anticipated this. Check out the more coverage link for a helpful FAQ about everything Higgs. [Image credit: CERN]
German scientists shoot world's fastest movie: gone in 50 femtoseconds
No, it's not another Fast & Furious sequel, it's something much quicker -- 800 billion times quicker, to be precise. Scientists at DESY (Germany's largest particle physics center) are premiering the Guinness World Record-holding fastest "movie" to a select audience at its light sources users' meeting. The film was shot using an X-ray Laser, and splitting the light in two. By firing one beam off on a minuscule detour (0.015 millimeters) and delaying its arrival by 50 femtoseconds, two separate images are captured. Okay, so two frames isn't exactly Lord of the Rings, but it's still the smallest interval ever recorded. This technique won't be popping up in Hollywood any time soon -- instead, it's actually used for snapping subatomic glimpses of ultra-fast molecular processes and chemical reactions. Despite the brevity of this record-breaking flick, the plot is apparently still more complex than Tokyo Drift.
Pour one out for the Tevatron particle accelerator, because it's shutting down today
The eyes of the physics community are collectively fixed upon Illinois today, where, later this afternoon, researchers at Fermilab will shut down the Tevatron particle accelerator... for good. That's right -- the world's second-largest collider is being laid to rest, after a remarkable 25-year run that was recently halted due to budgetary constraints. Earlier this year, Fermilab's scientists and a group of prominent physicists pleaded with the government to keep the Tevatron running until 2014, but the Energy Department ultimately determined that the lab's $100 million price tag was too steep, effectively driving a nail through the accelerator's subterranean, four-mile-long coffin. First activated in 1985, the Tevatron scored a series of subatomic breakthroughs over the course of its lifespan, including, most notably, the discovery of the so-called top quark in 1995. Its groundbreaking technology, meanwhile, helped pave the way for CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which will now pursue the one jewel missing from the Tevatron's resume -- the Higgs boson. Many experts contend that the collider could've gone on to achieve much more, but its ride will nonetheless come to an inglorious end at 2PM today, when Fermilab director Pier Oddone oversees the Tevatron's last rites. "That will be it," physicist Gregorio Bernardi told the Washington Post. "Then we'll have a big party."
Scientists manipulate electron, this time everyone wins
Notoriously difficult to pin down, electrons have always been free spirits -- until now that is. According to a paper published by science journal Nature, folk at Cambridge University much cleverer than we have tamed single electrons, succeeding in coaxing them directly from point-to-point. The technique involves creating a small hole in gallium arsenide, called a "quantum dot," then creating a channel of energy higher than the neighboring electrons to shuttle cargo off to another empty "dot." Why should you care? Well, while you might not see this technology in the next smartphone, it should give quantum computing a bit of a nudge forward, smoothing the rate of information transfer. If the concept works out, it'll improve the way qubits move around those sub-atomic circuits, where jumping around like a frog in a sock is generally considered bad form. [Image courtesy of the io9]
App of the Day: Subatomic for iPhone and iPad
App of the Day is TUAW's new App Store spotlight. One great app, every single day. Subatomic is a game that's available for the iPhone and the iPad. The premise is that you push molecules of different colors around a field with gravity. Portals sit on the gamefield full of molecules, and as they slowly fade away, it's your job to pull more in and match them up. By touching near a molecule, you can push it in a certain direction with a gravity vortex (the game has a cool blurred graphical feature whenever you touch the screen). The game ramps up pretty quickly; eventually you're trying to push molecules toward multiple portals while trying to keep different-colored molecules from reaching the wrong portals. Unfortunately, the difficulty curve can be a little high. It's sometimes hard to control the incoming molecules, and when you accidentally touch a little too close, you'll find yourself flinging molecules off into the distance instead of getting them where they want to go. At a basic level, though, it's an interesting control scheme that I haven't seen before. The game contains a full tutorial as part of its 31 levels, and the music and backgrounds (some of which contain actual electron microscope imagery from real-life scientists) add to the experience. The social features of the game are managed by OpenFeint. Subatomic is US$1.99 on the App Store, and a free version (with seven levels to try) is available as well.
Fieldrunners dashes onto Euro PSN Oct. 1
The European PlayStation Blog has announced that iPhone mega-hit Fieldrunners will be a PSP Minis launch title on October 1. The tower defense game went straight to the top of the App Store charts (and won an IGF mobile award) for its intuitive design and beautiful visual style, which appears to have made the trip over to PSP -- along with new maps and towers.No word from Sony America on whether the game will make it onto the next PSN update in the States or not. We've been told the next update will be gigantic because of the PSP Go's launch, so keep an eye out for an earlier-than-usual PSN Thursday and the mega update.
Sony's plan for "snackable" PSP game and application downloads revealed
Sony already announced its intentions to bring more developers to the PSP platform at the big E3 gaming show last month. And the move to simplify its development tools was seen as a hint of new PSP applications beyond games. Now Develop has laid bare Sony's PSP development strategy as explained by Zeno Colaço, Sony's head of developer relations. According to Zeno, over 50 studios are working on "new kinds of games and applications" that will be sold via a "specially-branded separate area" of the PlayStation Store accessible by PSP and PSPgo owners. In effect, Sony is going after the kind of "snackable content" made popular by Apple's App Store -- inexpensive games and apps that can be downloaded in less than a minute for immediate gratification -- according to Subatomic Studio's Ash Monif. In fact, Subatomic, best known for its massive App Store hit, Fieldrunners, is developing a PSP-exclusive version of its tower defense game. Unlike Apple, however, Sony is charging for its PSP SDK in a bid to keep things, uh hem, "professional," as Zeno calls it.[Thanks, Calvin H.]
