EMPTY space may really be empty. Though quantum theory suggests that a vacuum should be fizzing with particle activity, it turns out that this paradoxical picture of nothingness may not be needed. A calmer view of the vacuum would also help resolve a nagging inconsistency with dark energy, the elusive force thought to be speeding [...]
Image: 1) NASA/SOHO Explosive bursts normally seen only on the surface of the sun can now be captured in a 13-foot-long tube using lab-created plasmas and bursts of laser light. Physicists have created a scaled-down model of solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections, which can wreak havoc on satellites and create beautiful northern-light displays on [...]
Staff attempt to load the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) detector into a U.S. Air Force Galaxy aircraft during last preparations at Cointrin Airport in Geneva August 25, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse (Reuters) – A huge particle detector to be mounted on the International Space Station next year could find evidence for the anti-universe often evoked [...]
Our most successful theory of nature is bewilderingly remote from reality. But fixing that may require a weirder theory still A world with this degree of correlation would be weird indeed (Image: Jon Krause) 1 more image PHYSICS, its practitioners will proudly tell you, is the most fundamental of sciences. Its theories and laws distil [...]
The Juelich method makes it possible to resolve molecule structure where only a blurred cloud was visible before. (Credit: Forschungszentrum Jülich) ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2010) — Looking at individual molecules through a microscope is part of nanotechnologists' everyday lives. However, it has so far been difficult to observe atomic structures inside organic molecules. In a [...]
My belated education in nuclear energy continues. I just read Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens, a petite, energetic novelist and journalist. Cravens contacted me after seeing my chat with Rod Adams, a nuclear-trained Naval officer, on Bloggingheads.tv last May (which I followed up with a post). I [...]
ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2010) — A large collaboration of physicists working at the Fermilab Tevatron particle collider has discovered evidence of an explanation for the prevalence of matter over antimatter in the universe. They found that colliding protons in their experiment produced short-lived B meson particles that almost immediately broke down into debris that included [...]
A thin, patchy cloud cover with clusters that seem to continuously form, dissipate and reemerge might not be just flowing at random. When these cloud fields appear over the ocean at least, their cycles and patterns are in fact quite regular, and new research explains how precipitation keeps an accumulation of these clouds knit closely [...]
Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory – inspired by pencil lead – that could make it all very simple Is it time to tear apart the fabric of space-time? (Image: Chrisos Maggans) IT WAS a speech that changed the way we think of space and time. The year was [...]
The metamaterial patterns are directly sculpted on the highly doped GaAs facet of the device. Artificial coloring in the figure indicates deep and shallow micron scale grooves, which have different functions. The shallow "blue" grooves efficiently couple laser output into surface electromagnetic waves on the facet and confine the waves to the facet. (Credit: Courtesy [...]
Quality Science & Technology news and images, which may possibly support or even inspire one's interests.
