Don Lincoln has produce another fun video on the speed of gravity.
SPOILER: It has the same speed as the speed of light!
But what is more interesting in this video is a brief description of LIGO and gravitational interferometry and how gravitational waves are detected.
Enjoy!
Zz.
It is not know if the public is aware of the economic impact of physics, not just in terms of industry to support the workings of physics, but also how new ideas and technologies have sprung new innovations and devices that made our world the way it is today. Of course, the most obvious example would be the invention of the solid state transistor, which is the heart of every modern electronic devices that we have now.
This Swiss study tries to quantify the impact of physics on the Swiss economy. One can clearly see the breath of the impact across many different disciplines and sector of the economy.
This is not that much different than the previous similar studies that were done for the US economy and for Europe. The significant conclusion one can draw out of these data is that one gets a lot of returns for the initial investment. But it is not just that. If one looks at the nature of the returns, many of them are vital to the advancement of our civilization, so these investments are important not merely for financial reasons.
BTW, I still encounter people (a few of them my students) who are surprised that physics has anything to do with their smarphones.
Zz.
In case you want to know our current view on how we came into being, here's a brief article on how we currently understand how the universe was created.
It's too bad he doesn't go into the evidence that we have to support each stage of the formation of the universe. Of course there isn't much to go by in term of good evidence for anything less than 380,000 since the Big Bang, but the CMB is such a strong evidence that it should have been elaborated.
Zz.
Most of you know this already, but it is always helpful to remind people on how quantum physics, as esoteric of a subject as it is, is the key to understanding many of the devices that we use everyday and take for granted.
The only drawback here is that the article listed only three, when there could be plenty more.
Zz.
