Physics posts
- July 21, 2011
- 02:00 PM
- 539 views
We’re cosmic dust but you’re everything to me
by Kelly Oakes in Basic Space
On February 23rd 1987, the journey of some light that had been travelling for 168,000 years came to an end. Astronomer Ian Shelton at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile was observing the night sky as usual when he saw something out of the ordinary.... Read more »
Matsuura M, Dwek E, Meixner M, Otsuka M, Babler B, Barlow MJ, Roman-Duval J, Engelbracht C, Sandstrom K, Lakicevic M.... (2011) Herschel Detects a Massive Dust Reservoir in Supernova 1987A. Science (New York, N.Y.). PMID: 21737700
- July 14, 2011
- 03:31 AM
- 1,355 views
What it feels like for a sperm
by aatishb in Empirical Zeal
We don’t usually learn about the physics of squishy things. Physics textbooks are filled with solid objects such as incompressible blocks, inclined planes and inelastic strings. This is the rigid world that obeys Newton’s laws. Here, squishiness is an exception and drag is routinely ignored... Continue reading →... Read more »
Purcell, E. (1977) Life at low Reynolds number. American Journal of Physics, 45(1), 3. DOI: 10.1119/1.10903
Avila K, Moxey D, de Lozar A, Avila M, Barkley D, & Hof B. (2011) The onset of turbulence in pipe flow. Science (New York, N.Y.), 333(6039), 192-6. PMID: 21737736
Reynolds, O. (1883) An Experimental Investigation of the Circumstances Which Determine Whether the Motion of Water Shall Be Direct or Sinuous, and of the Law of Resistance in Parallel Channels. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 35(224-226), 84-99. DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1883.0018
- July 12, 2011
- 12:34 PM
- 1,309 views
It's Magnetic Moment Season: Measuring Various g-Factors
by Chad Orzel in Uncertain Principles
Among the articles highlighted in this week's Physics is one about a new test of QED through a measurement of the g-factor of the electron in silicon ions. This comes on the heels of a measurement of proton spin flips (this includes a free PDF) a couple of weeks ago, and those, in turn, build on measurements of electrons from a few years back, which Jerry Gabrielse talked about at DAMOP. Evidently, it's magnetic moment season in the world of physics.
The media reports on the proton experiment t........ Read more »
Sturm, S., Wagner, A., Schabinger, B., Zatorski, J., Harman, Z., Quint, W., Werth, G., Keitel, C., & Blaum, K. (2011) g Factor of Hydrogenlike ^{28}Si^{13 }. Physical Review Letters, 107(2). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.023002
Ulmer, S., Rodegheri, C., Blaum, K., Kracke, H., Mooser, A., Quint, W., & Walz, J. (2011) Observation of Spin Flips with a Single Trapped Proton. Physical Review Letters, 106(25). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.253001
Hanneke, D., Fogwell, S., & Gabrielse, G. (2008) New Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment and the Fine Structure Constant. Physical Review Letters, 100(12). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.120801
Odom, B., Hanneke, D., D’Urso, B., & Gabrielse, G. (2006) New Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment Using a One-Electron Quantum Cyclotron. Physical Review Letters, 97(3). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.030801
- July 7, 2011
- 03:00 PM
- 581 views
Cassini helps us peek underneath the surface of Enceladus
by Kelly Oakes in Basic Space
The Cassini spacecraft is zooming around Saturn as I type, currently in between two flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan – one was in June, the next will be September. It was supposed to explore Saturn and its moons for only four years between 2004 and 2008.... Read more »
Postberg F, Schmidt J, Hillier J, Kempf S, & Srama R. (2011) A salt-water reservoir as the source of a compositionally stratified plume on Enceladus. Nature, 474(7353), 620-2. PMID: 21697830
- July 5, 2011
- 07:51 AM
- 1,919 views
The truth, the hole truth…
by thesoftanonymous in the.soft.anonymous
In October 2009, an otherworldly cloud formation appeared over Moscow. The Sun (the newspaper, not the yellow ball in the sky) promptly announced the appearance of a ‘mystery UFO halo’ and, before too long, internet message boards were awash with … Continue reading →... Read more »
Heymsfield, A., Thompson, G., Morrison, H., Bansemer, A., Rasmussen, R., Minnis, P., Wang, Z., & Zhang, D. (2011) Formation and Spread of Aircraft-Induced Holes in Clouds. Science, 333(6038), 77-81. DOI: 10.1126/science.1202851
- July 5, 2011
- 03:55 AM
- 609 views
Throwing Rocks From the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
I’m teaching my son to think like a scientist. He is two years old. We frequently go for walks together through the woods and along the coastlines of British Columbia where I allow his curiosity to run free. His current research project is throwing rocks into the ocean (this is just the exploratory phase mind [...]... Read more »
Michael Elazar. (2011) Projectile Motion and the Rejection of Superposition. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 169-187. info:/10.1007/978-94-007-1605-6_16
- July 2, 2011
- 08:21 PM
- 875 views
A new spin on computing
by Charles Harvey in Charles Harvey - Science Communicator
Spin, as anyone who has ever heard Alistair Campbell speak, is a tricky thing to figure out. Quantum spin – a property many subatomic particles have – is equally confounding, but, if understood, could lead to a powerful new breed of computer technology called spintronics.
Despite its name, quantum spin does not actually refer to a rotating ball such as the Earth. “The electron is not physically spinning around but it has a magnetic north pole and a magnetic south pole,” ........ Read more »
Göhler B, Hamelbeck V, Markus TZ, Kettner M, Hanne GF, Vager Z, Naaman R, & Zacharias H. (2011) Spin selectivity in electron transmission through self-assembled monolayers of double-stranded DNA. Science (New York, N.Y.), 331(6019), 894-7. PMID: 21330541
- July 1, 2011
- 08:50 PM
- 1,061 views
Q&A's with a Science Journalist: 'It's All Relativity'
by Paige Brown in From The Lab Bench
This week I am interviewing Louise Ogden, a science blogger on our own community blog Student Voices, which is hosted on Scitable by Nature Education. Louise also has her own science blog, It’s All Relativity, where she talks about space missions, climate change, exoplanets, solar eclipses, and much more! Louise is currently finishing up her Masters project at City University in London, which will earn her an (exciting!) degree in science journalism.... Read more »
Alison Wright. (2010) High-energy physics: Top of the class . Nature Physics, 6(644). info:/10.1038/nphys1783
- July 1, 2011
- 08:07 PM
- 921 views
How does boiling work?
by Anne Hanna in Icarus Swims
This post is a joint outcome from a couple classes I took in the spring term, on of which was on two-phase fluid flow and the other of which was on scientific communication. The science communication class included a project in which we were to translate a bit of technical literature to a popular science level, and I selected for this purpose the discussion of boiling processes presented in my two-phase flow course. It turns out that boiling processes are a lot more interesting than I'd ex........ Read more »
Van P. Carey. (2008) Chapter 7: Pool Boiling, Section 1: Regimes of Pool Boiling. Liquid Vapor Phase Change Phenomena: An Introduction to the Thermophysics of Vaporization and Condensation Processes in Heat Transfer Equipment, Second Edition. info:other/978-1591690351
- June 21, 2011
- 04:44 PM
- 1,171 views
More magic numbers
by nuclear.kelly in Miss Atomic Bomb
I was alerted to some interesting work by a recent report in the IoP's Physics World magazine. Researchers have finally worked out that there is, in fact, a correlation between group size and quality of research.The paper (available on arxiv and published in Scientometrics, which is apparently the research of... research) took information from a survey of UK universities (and a few French) and determined the "quality vs quantity" of the research output (the "quality" metric is described in more ........ Read more »
Kenna, R., & Berche, B. (2010) Critical mass and the dependency of research quality on group size. Scientometrics, 86(2), 527-540. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0282-9
- June 21, 2011
- 03:47 PM
- 965 views
Evidence of a QCD critical endpoint at RHIC
by Marco Frasca in The Gauge Connection
A critical endpoint in QCD is a kind of holy grail in nuclear physics. It has been theorized as a point where deconfinement occurs and hadronic matter leaves place to some kind of plasma of quarks and gluons. We know that the breaking of chiral symmetry is something that people has proposed several years ago [...]... Read more »
Marco Frasca. (2011) Chiral symmetry in the low-energy limit of QCD at finite temperature. arXiv. arXiv: 1105.5274v2
Z. Fodor, & S. D. Katz. (2001) Lattice determination of the critical point of QCD at finite T and \mu. JHEP 0203 (2002) 014. arXiv: hep-lat/0106002v2
Philippe de Forcrand. (2010) Simulating QCD at finite density. PoS (LAT2009)010, 2009. arXiv: 1005.0539v2
M. A. Stephanov. (2008) Non-Gaussian fluctuations near the QCD critical point. Phys.Rev.Lett.102:032301,2009. arXiv: 0809.3450v1
Christiana Athanasiou, Krishna Rajagopal, & Misha Stephanov. (2010) Using Higher Moments of Fluctuations and their Ratios in the Search for the QCD Critical Point. Physical review D. arXiv: 1006.4636v2
Xiaofeng Luo. (2011) Probing the QCD Critical Point with Higher Moments of Net-proton Multiplicity Distributions. arXiv. arXiv: 1106.2926v1
- June 21, 2011
- 12:05 PM
- 790 views
Carbon dioxide could fight global warming
by Charles Harvey in Charles Harvey - Science Communicator
Carbon sequestration and geothermal energy could be combined together in a system that could produce electricity with a negative carbon footprint.... Read more »
Randolph, J., & Saar, M. (2011) Combining geothermal energy capture with geologic carbon dioxide sequestration. Geophysical Research Letters, 38(10). DOI: 10.1029/2011GL047265
- June 19, 2011
- 01:42 AM
- 1,073 views
Imaging Sciences Pathway Retreat - A Conference Covered
by Paige Brown in From The Lab Bench
Coverage of a recent conference on Medical Imaging in St. Louis. Not only are we increasingly being able to image the intricate inner workings of the human body, but we are beginning also to use medical imaging as a tool to monitor disease treatment and even to design and implement new drugs in the treatment of diseases such as cancer. ... Read more »
Tsien RY. (2003) Imagining imaging's future. Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology. PMID: 14587522
- June 17, 2011
- 04:03 PM
- 1,408 views
Fast Calculation of van der Waals Volume as a Sum of Atomic and Bond Contributions
by egonw in Chem-bla-ics
I was recently asked about a volume descriptor in Bioclipse, which is not yet available. Jmol can calculate surfaces, so that was my first thought. However, I then ran into a paper from 2003 by Zhao, called Fast Calculation of van der Waals Volume as a Sum of Atomic and Bond Contributions and Its Application to Drug Compounds (doi:10.1021/jo034808o).
The paper presents a very simple mathematical model, which approximates the molecular volume by a sum of atomic contributions, and a three terms t........ Read more »
Zhao, Y., Abraham, M., & Zissimos, A. (2003) Fast Calculation of van der Waals Volume as a Sum of Atomic and Bond Contributions and Its Application to Drug Compounds. The Journal of Organic Chemistry, 68(19), 7368-7373. DOI: 10.1021/jo034808o
- June 17, 2011
- 07:40 AM
- 885 views
Why Click Beetles Cannot Control Their Landing Orientation
by Michael Long in Phased
Physics calculations lend support to the idea that click beetles evolved their jumping mechanism for righting themselves after landing on their back, rather than as a predation escape mechanism.... Read more »
Gal Ribak, & Daniel Weihs. (2011) Jumping without Using Legs: The Jump of the Click-Beetles (Elateridae) Is Morphologically Constrained. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0020871
- June 15, 2011
- 12:15 AM
- 1,133 views
Cultural Evolution and the Impending Singularity
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Prof. Alfred Hulber is an actual mad professor who is a danger to life as we know it. In a talk this evening he went from ball bearings in castor oil to hyper-advanced machine intelligence. However, will hyper-intelligent machines actually give us a better scientific understanding of the universe, or will they just spend their time playing tetris?... Read more »
Sperl, M., Chang, A., Weber, N., & Hübler, A. (1999) Hebbian learning in the agglomeration of conducting particles. Physical Review E, 59(3), 3165-3168. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.59.3165
Bettencourt LM, Lobo J, Helbing D, Kühnert C, & West GB. (2007) Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(17), 7301-6. PMID: 17438298
West, G. (1997) A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology. Science, 276(5309), 122-126. DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5309.122
Chater N, & Christiansen MH. (2010) Language acquisition meets language evolution. Cognitive science, 34(7), 1131-57. PMID: 21564247
- June 13, 2011
- 11:33 PM
- 1,228 views
Computers and Electrifying Bacteria
by Paige Brown in From The Lab Bench
Computer-based simulations that use an organism's hereditary information are revealing previously unknown but essential life functions of special bacteria that can be modified to help clean our water and produce electricity for our alternative energy needs... Read more »
Mahadevan R, Palsson BØ, & Lovley DR. (2011) In situ to in silico and back: elucidating the physiology and ecology of Geobacter spp. using genome-scale modelling. Nature reviews. Microbiology, 9(1), 39-50. PMID: 21132020
- June 13, 2011
- 03:43 PM
- 475 views
Back from Paris
by Marco Frasca in The Gauge Connection
It is several days that I have no more posted on the blog but for a very good reason: I was in Paris for the Eleventh Workshop on Non-Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (see here). It has been a beautiful chance to see Paris with the eyes of a tourist and being immersed in a lot of [...]... Read more »
P. Castorina, V. Greco, D. Jaccarino, & D. Zappalà. (2011) A reanalysis of Finite Temperature SU(N) Gauge Theory. arXiv. arXiv: 1105.5902v1
Marco Ruggieri. (2011) The Critical End Point of Quantum Chromodynamics Detected by Chirally Imbalanced Quark Matter. arXiv. arXiv: 1103.6186v1
Irene Amado, Karl Landsteiner, & Francisco Pena-Benitez. (2011) Anomalous transport coefficients from Kubo formulas in Holography. JHEP 05 (2011) 081. arXiv: 1102.4577v3
O. Oliveira, W. de Paula, & T. Frederico. (2011) Linking Dynamical Gluon Mass to Chiral Symmetry Breaking via a QCD Low Energy Effective Field Theory. arXiv. arXiv: 1105.4899v1
Marco Frasca. (2011) Chiral symmetry in the low-energy limit of QCD at finite temperature. arXiv. arXiv: 1105.5274v2
H. M. Fried, Y. Gabellini, T. Grandou, & Y. -M. Sheu. (2009) Gauge Invariant Summation of All QCD Virtual Gluon Exchanges. Eur.Phys.J.C65:395-411,2010. arXiv: 0903.2644v2
- June 13, 2011
- 06:06 AM
- 530 views
Scientists show the evolution of the Amphitheatre
by Ben Good in B Good Science
Back before the internet, twitter and megaphones it was a great deal more difficult to get your voice heard. However, those clever Greeks and Romans had a way of using the science of acoustics to get their message out. They constructed great amphitheatres which seated thousands. An example of which is the image below I … Read more... Read more »
CHOURMOUZIADOU, K., & KANG, J. (2008) Acoustic evolution of ancient Greek and Roman theatres. Applied Acoustics, 69(6), 514-529. DOI: 10.1016/j.apacoust.2006.12.009
- June 10, 2011
- 03:13 PM
- 1,464 views
Why a quantum particle is not like a water drop. A tale of two slits, part 1
by aatishb in Empirical Zeal
I want to describe a certain beautiful experiment, perhaps the most beautiful experiment in science. This is an experiment that has captivated me from the time that I first heard about it in high school. That’s because it’s simple to understand, and yet it captures the essence of what is truly messed up about quantum mechanics.... Read more »
Richard P. Feynman. (1988) QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. Princeton University Press. info:other/978-0691024172
Young, T. (1804) The Bakerian Lecture: Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1-16. DOI: 10.1098/rstl.1804.0001
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