An Astrophysicist Describes Stephen Hawking's Last Paper

The astrophysicist in this case is, of course, Ethan Siegel, who I've cited here a few times.

In this article, he describes what Hawking's last paper is all about, if you want simple description of it. The link to the preprint (we'll update this post if and when it is published) is also given if you don't have it already.

Here is, in a nutshell, what they do. They create a (deformed) conformal field theory that is mathematically equivalent (or dual) to an eternally inflating spacetime, and investigate some mathematical properties of that field theory. They look, in particular, at where the border of a spacetime that inflates for an eternity (forward in time) versus one that doesn't, and choose that as the interesting problem to consider. They then look at the geometries that arise from this field theory, try to map that back onto our physically inflating Universe, and draw a conclusion from that. Based on what they find, they contend that the exit from inflation doesn't give you something eternally inflating into the future, with disconnected pockets where hot Big Bangs occur, but rather that the exit is finite and smooth. In other words, it gives you a single Universe, not a series of disconnected Universes embedded in a larger multiverse.

There! Do you even need to read the actual paper after that?

😁

BTW, let's also give some love to his co-author, Thomas Hertog, who seems to be left out in many of this discussion and news articles.

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Micro Fusion In Nanowires Array

This is a rather astounding result. The authors have managed to cause deuterons-deuterons fusion in an array of nanowires via igniting it using only joule-level pulsed laser[1], i.e. not using the huge, gigantic lasers such as that as the National Ignition Facility.

This is an open-access paper and you can get the full version at this link.

And no, before you jump all over this one and think that this is the next fusion power generator, you need to think again. The authors are touting this as a viable (and cheaper) ultra-fast pulsed neutron source, which can be useful in many applications and studies.

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[1] A. Curtis et al., Nature Communnications DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03445-

SQUID: History and Applications

No, this is not the squid that you eat. It is the Superconducting Quantum Interference Device, which is really a very clear application of quantum mechanics via the use of superconductors.

This is a lecture presented by UC-Berkeley's John Clarke at the 2018 APS March Meeting.



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Stephen Hawking: 1942–2018

Of course, the biggest physics news of the day is the passing of Stephen Hawking at the age of 76.

Unfortunately, as popular as he is in the public arena, it also means that he left us without being awarded the highest prize in physics, which is the Nobel prize. This isn't unusual, especially for a theorist, because there are many theorists whose contribution became of utmost importance only many years later after they are gone.

Still, as a scientist who had attained a highly-unusual superstar status among the public, I will not be surprised if he has had a lasting impact of the field, and the perception of the field among the public and aspiring physicists.

RIP, Stephen.

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Twin Paradox - The "Real" Explanation

So this thing doesn't seem to go away. The Twin Paradox is a common question that gets asked in class and online. And of course, the most common answer being given to explain away the paradox is that there is a broken symmetry between the two twins, and thus, they should not experience the same thing. But often, this involves one twin experiencing an acceleration/deceleration, which the other twin did not experience.

However, in this video, Don Lincoln tries to correct the explanation and argues that even without any acceleration/deceleration, one twin will STILL not have the same set of experience (he/she is in two different reference frame, while the "non-moving" twin stays in just one reference frame) when compared to the other twin, and thus, this broken symmetry resolves the twin paradox.



The math is simple algebra, but you do have to keep the notation straight, and the signs.

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Teaching Intro Physics To Life Science Students

Teaching intro General Physics to Life Science/Bio students is something I do regularly. And it can be quite challenging because, in my case, calculus is not required and isn't used in the lesson. So there are many things that can't be easily derived from scratch.

I've resolved, a long time ago, that the approach to teaching such a class has to be different than the approach to teaching the calculus-based class, which is often populated by physics, chemistry, and engineering majors. In my experience, the average math skill is lower in the non-calc-based general physics class, which isn't too surprising. But more challenging than that, there is less of an interest and inclination towards the physics subject from such students. Most, if not all, of the Life Science/Bio students are in the class because they have to, and some even have an active dislike of the subject matter.

So it is definitely a challenge to not only convey the material in an understandable manner, but also to perk up their interest in the material so that they will do well in the course. It is why I tend to read papers like this one, which studied the correlation between life science students' interest, attitudes, and performance in a general physics class.[1] In particular, I'm always interested in using examples from biology/medicine to illustrate the particular physics topics that we cover in a lecture. As concluded in this paper, tailoring the subject matter to overlap with what the students are majoring in can affect not only the interest in the subject, but also their performance. This is a no-brainer for many of us, but this paper clearly shows the correlation.

BTW, it helps if the text being used is also geared towards the life science students.  The one that I had used before is "College Physics" by Giambattista, Richardson, and Richardson. I like the part where at the beginning of each chapter, it lists out some of the relevant applications in biology, medicine, etc. I just wish that the text has more examples from such areas, and more homework exercises in those areas, the way the paper described the examples and problems that were used in the course.

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[1] C.H. Crouch et al. Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. v.14, 010111 (2018).

Fusion Power Is 15 Years Away?

This news article is reporting that "MIT scientists" is predicting that we will have nuclear fusion power in 15 years time.

The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. The team intend to use a new class of high-temperature superconductors they predict will allow them to create the world’s first fusion reactor that produces more energy than needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction going.

Bob Mumgaard, CEO of the private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which has attracted $50 million in support of this effort from the Italian energy company Eni, said: “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.”

Interestingly, there was no direct quote from any MIT scientists here who is working on the project. The article quoted MIT's vice-president for research, but she's not working on this project.

So essentially, it appears that no one from MIT is making this claim, but everyone else on the peripheral is.

Let's mark this and check back in 15 years. Still, I will not be holding my breath.

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Seeing Anyons With STM?

This is a very intriguing theoretical paper that proposes the detection of anyon using STM (you get free access to the actual paper from the website). The detection involves the measurement of the local density of states (LDOS), and then counting the resonance "rings". This is shown in Fig. 1 and 2 of the paper.[1]

This is quite a fascinating idea, because to get these fractional effects, one has to have a 2D confinement of the charges involved.

Now it becomes a race in seeing who might be able to produce such an experiment to detect these rings. STMs are pretty common, but it is now a matter of having the suitable material to see this.

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[1] Z. Papic et. al. PRX v.8, 011037 (2018).

Magnon Transistors

A number of papers appear almost simultaneously on the invention of "magnon transistors". Instead of a transistor that directs the direction of electronic current flow, these are transistor that direct magnetic spin current flow, i.e. magnon flow.

Magnonic devices run exclusively on spin currents. (Spintronic devices, another electronics alternative, include both charge and spin currents.) To picture a magnon, imagine a row of spins pointing up, representing a magnetic material, and then imagine briefly flipping the spin at one end. This motion leads to a propagating wave that moves through the material as each spin influences its neighbor. Magnons can travel quickly and efficiently over long distances—up to about a centimeter in the best materials—without significantly losing energy or heating up the material, a feat not possible for electrons. But before building fast and efficient magnonic circuits, researchers need components that can regulate magnon currents.

I know I have been repeating this over and over again, but this is another example where basic research in condensed matter/solid state physics is now finding application in modern electronics.

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Thermal Footprints of Early Stars

Imagine being able to detect signals coming from the first stars formed in our universe, almost 180 million years after the Big Bang. This is why this astounding feat has been receiving popular media coverage.

A new paper published in Nature this week reports on the measurements of thermal radiation from such events.

A long-standing theory that still awaits testing predicts that absorption of UV radiation from early stars by nearby clouds of hydrogen could have driven T_S back down to T_G, but not lower. In other words, the cosmic dawn would make the gas seem colder when observed at radio frequencies. This would create an absorption feature in the spectrum of the background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

Bowman et al. now report the possible detection of just such an absorption signal. The authors measured T_S , averaged over much of the sky and over a contiguous range of radio frequencies; each frequency provides a window on a different time in the Universe’s past. The measurement is very difficult because it must be performed using an extremely well-calibrated VHF radio antenna and receiver, to enable the weak cosmological signal to be separated from much stronger celestial signals and from those within the electronics systems of the apparatus used. 

For those of you who are not familiar with science, when you read the link, please read how the experimenters made the effort to ensure that their results are not due to their experimental technique or instrumentation.

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MinutePhysics Special Relativity Chapter 2

If you missed Chapter 1, check it out here.

Here's Chapter 2.



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How People Got Time Dilation Wrong

While we are still waiting for Minute Physics to continue with its Special Relativity series, Fermilab's Don Lincoln has a nice video on the things that many people got wrong with SR's time dilation concepts. I see these misconception often, so this might be quite beneficial to those who do not have a formal lesson in SR. Heck, I think even physics students might benefit watching this.



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Lawrence Krauss Hit By Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Oh dear. I knew it was going to happen that someone from within the physics community will be hit by such allegations (hey, we are all still human after all and not immune to doing such nasty actions). But it is still a bit surprising and disappointing when such allegations happens to someone whose writings I've enjoyed over the years.

I'm sure this will work through the legal system, and I'm not going to comment anymore than that. I think most, if not, all of us here in the US who work either in the academic settings or at a govt. lab had gone through training or classes on sexual harassment. In my case, I've had gone through several of these, including training on Title IX, etc.. etc.

This is an issue we all have to face, and we are now starting to see how pervasive it really is.

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New Measurement of Hubble Constant Brings New Puzzle

The most extensive measurement of the Hubble constant based on observations made by the Hubble telescope (how appropriate) has revealed a discrepancy between its value and those made earlier by ESA's Planck satellite.

Planck’s result predicted that the Hubble constant value should now be 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec (3.3 million light-years), and could be no higher than 69 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it is moving 67 kilometers per second faster. But Riess’s team measured a value of 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec, indicating galaxies are moving at a faster rate than implied by observations of the early universe.

The Hubble data are so precise that astronomers cannot dismiss the gap between the two results as errors in any single measurement or method. “Both results have been tested multiple ways, so barring a series of unrelated mistakes,” Riess explained, “it is increasingly likely that this is not a bug but a feature of the universe.”

The arXiv version of the paper can be found here.

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The Dark Life Of The Higgs Boson

I decided to modify a bit the title of the Symmetry article that I'm linking to, because in that article, the possible link between the Higgs boson and dark matter is made. This allows for the study of the decay of the Higgs to be used to detect the presence of dark matter.

The Standard Model not only predicts all the different possible decays of Higgs bosons, but how favorable each decay is. For instance, it predicts that about 60 percent of Higgs bosons will transform into a pair of bottom quarks, whereas only 0.2 percent will transform into a pair of photons. If the experimental results show Higgs bosons decaying into certain particles more or less often than predicted, it could mean that a few Higgs bosons are sneaking off and transforming into dark matter.

Of course, these kinds of precision measurements cannot tell scientists if the Higgs is evolving into dark matter as part of its decay path—only that it is behaving strangely. To catch the Higgs in the act, scientists need irrefutable evidence of the Higgs schmoozing with dark matter.

So there you have it.

If you are not up to speed on the discovery of the Higgs (i.e. you've been living under a rock for the past few years), I've mentioned a link to a nice update here.

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Observation of 3-Photon Bound States

They seem to be making a steady and impressive success along this line.

A new paper in Science[1] has shown an impressive result of the possibility of causing 3 different photons to be "bound" or entangled with one another after traversing through a cold rubidium atom gas.

In controlled experiments, the researchers found that when they shone a very weak laser beam through a dense cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms, rather than exiting the cloud as single, randomly spaced photons, the photons bound together in pairs or triplets, suggesting some kind of interaction — in this case, attraction — taking place among them.

Now, without going overboard with the superlatives, it must be stressed that this does not occur in vacuum, i.e. 3 photons just don't say hi to one another and decide to hang out together. The presence of the cold rubidium gas is essential for a photon to bound with one of the atoms to form a polariton:

The researchers then developed a hypothesis to explain what might have caused the photons to interact in the first place. Their model, based on physical principles, puts forth the following scenario: As a single photon moves through the cloud of rubidium atoms, it briefly lands on a nearby atom before skipping to another atom, like a bee flitting between flowers, until it reaches the other end.

If another photon is simultaneously traveling through the cloud, it can also spend some time on a rubidium atom, forming a polariton — a hybrid that is part photon, part atom. Then two polaritons can interact with each other via their atomic component. At the edge of the cloud, the atoms remain where they are, while the photons exit, still bound together. The researchers found that this same phenomenon can occur with three photons, forming an even stronger bond than the interactions between two photons.

This has almost the same flavor as the "attraction" between two electrons in a superconductor to form the bound Cooper pairs, which requires a background of lattice ion vibration or virtual phonons to mediate the coupling.

So photons can talk to one another, and in this case, 3 of them can hang out together. They just need a matchmaker as an intermediary, since they are just way too shy to do it on their own.

And with that sugary concoction, I think I need more coffee this morning.

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[1] Q-Y Liang et al., Science v.359, p.783 (2018).

Light From A Single Strontium Atom

The image of light from a single strontium atom in an atom trap has won the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council photography competition.

You can see a more detailed photo of it on Science Alert.

Unfortunately, there is a bit of misconception going on here. You are not actually seeing the single strontium atom, because it highly depends on what you mean by "seeing". The laser excites the single strontium atom, and then the strontium atom relaxes and releases energy in the form of light. This is the light that you are seeing, and it is probably a result of one or more atomic transition in the atom, but certainly not all of it.

So you're seeing light due to the atomic transition of the atom. You are not actually seeing the atom itself, as proclaimed by some website. This is the nasty obstacle that the general public has to wade through when reading something like this. We need to make it very clear when we report this to the media on what it really is in no uncertain terms, because they WILL try to sensationalize it as much as they can.

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What's So Important About The g-2 Experiment?

If it is covered in CNN, then it has to be a big-enough news. :)

I mentioned earlier that the g-2 experiment at Fermilab was about to start (it has started now), which is basically a continuation and refinement of what was done several years ago at Brookhaven. In case the importance of this experiment escapes you, Don Lincoln of Fermilab has written a piece on the CNN website on this experiment and why it is being done.

If you are not in science, you need to keep in mind this important theme: scientists, and definitely physicists, like it A LOT when we see hints at something that somehow does not fit with our current understanding. We like it when we see discrepancies of our results with the things that we already know.

This may sound odd to many people, but it is true! This is because this is why many of us get into this field in the first place: to explore new and uncharted territories! Results that do not fit with our current understanding give hints at new physics, something beyond what we already know. This is exploration in the truest sense.

This is why there were people who actually were disappointed that we saw the Higgs, and within the energy range that the Standard Model predicted. It is why many, especially theorists working on Supersymmetry, are disappointed that the results out of the LHC so far are within what the Standard Model has predicted.

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Shedding Light On Radiation Reaction

This is basically an inverse Compton scattering. The latest experiment that studies this has been getting a bit of a press, because of the sensationalistic claims of light "stopping" electrons in their tracks.

A review of the experiment, and the theory behind this, is sufficiently covered in APS Physics, and you do get free access to the actually paper itself in PRX. But after all the brouhaha, this is the conclusion we get:

The differing conclusions in these papers serve as a call to improve the quantum theory for radiation reaction. But it must be emphasized that the new data are too statistically weak to claim evidence of quantum radiation reaction, let alone to decide that one existing model is better than the others. Progress on both fronts will come from collecting more collision events and attaining a more stable electron bunch from laser-wakefield acceleration. Additional information could come from pursuing complementary experimental approaches to observing radiation reaction (for example, Ref. [7]), which may be possible with the next generation of high-intensity laser systems [8]. In the meantime, experiments like those from the Mangles and Zepf teams are ushering in a new era in which the interaction between matter and ultraintense laser light is being used to investigate fundamental phenomena, some of which have never before been studied in the lab.

I know that they need very high-energy electron beam, but the laser wakefield technique that they used seem to be providing a larger spread in energy than what they can resolve:

Both experiments obtained only a small number of such successful events, mainly because it was difficult to achieve a good spatiotemporal overlap between the laser pulse and the electron bunch, each of which has a duration of only a few tens of femtoseconds and is just a few micrometers in width. A further complication was that the average energy of the laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons fluctuated by an amount comparable to the energy loss from radiation reaction.

I suppose this is the first step in trying to sort this out, and I have no doubt that there will be an improvement in such an experiment soon.

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Therapeutic Particles

No, this is not some mumbo-jumbo New Age stuff.

While this technique has become more common, and there are already several places here in the US that are researching this, this is a nice article to introduce to you the current state-of-the-art in using charged particles in medicine, especially in treating and attacking cancer. It appears that the use of carbon ions is definitely catching up in popularity over the current use of protons.

When you read this article, pay attention to the fact that this is an outcome of our understanding of particle accelerators, that this is a particle accelerator applications, and that high-energy physics experimental facilities are often the ones that either initiated the project, or are hosting it. So next time someone asks you the practical applications of particle accelerators or particle physics, point to this.

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MInutePhysics Special Relativity Chapter 1

Here is Chapter 1 of MinutePhysics attempt at a series to teach Special Relativity to those of you who are not physicists. You might want to subscribe to it if this is of any interest to you.



Note sure if one needs to build that contraption that is shown at the end of the video, though. :)

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Are Religious People Less Smart Than Atheists?

OK, if that isn't an incendiary title, I don't know what is! :)

I took that title loosely from this article that reviews a new study on how various groups of people think. To be fair, the paper being cited actually debunks that myth that religious people are less intelligent than non-religious people.

However (you know that was coming, didn't you?), it points out that religious people tend to rely heavily on intuition when there is an apparent conflict between intuition and logic. In other words, the more religious a person is, the more likely he/she will abandon rational thinking and rely on his/her intuition.

This is actually consistent with an earlier study that I mention on here. In that study, it was discovered that non-scientists are more likely to ignore scientific facts and evidence in favor of a view that support their values. Flat-Earth believers, anyone?

The problem in all of this is that (i) logic and rational thinking are the best methodology that we know of to come up with a valid conclusion, (ii) facts and evidence are being ignored or dismissed, and (iii) our intuition has been known to be terribly wrong and unreliable.

In science, intuition can only go so far, and we often abandon our intuition once it has been trumped by facts and evidence. This is why science evolves and improves over time. So when someone goes against that, and lean more on faulty intuition than logic and rational thinking, we then are into no-rules and no-holes-barred territory. Is this why a lot of people still believe in irrational and uncorroborated ideas and opinions?

I don't know. To me, dealing with public opinions and why such-and-such group of people or individual thinks that way is more mysterious than any of the physics research that I've done. Human beings are irrational creatures by nature, I suppose.

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Weightlessness and Gravity in Space

Rhett Allain tackles the issue of gravity in space and weightlessness as he dissects the scene he saw from The 100.

This is a common problem that many of us who teach intro physics encounter. Students, and the general public, often have a severe misunderstanding of the concept of "weightlessness", and equate that to having zero gravity. Certainly the example of being in a free-falling elevator, or even the example of the zero-g simulation in airplanes (the "vomit comet") are clear examples where one can be weightless but still in an environment with g not being zero.

It is one of those topics where, as physics instructors, we are resigned to a life-sentence of educating people non-stop about this misconception.

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Muon g-2 Experiment To Start Run

Everything old is new again!

The old muon g-2 experiment that was at Brookhaven was taken apart, and rebuilt at Fermilab. Now, after the logistic challenge of moving the huge magnet from there, and after the long hard work of rebuilding the facility, the muon g-2 is now about ready to start its run.

The facility is now better than ever, and physicists are hoping that there will be an anomaly in the measurement, indicating new physics beyond the Standard Model.

In 2013, the g-2 team lugged the experiment on a 5000-kilometer odyssey from Brookhaven to Fermilab, taking the ring by barge around the U.S. eastern seaboard and up the Mississippi River. Since then, they have made the magnetic field three times more uniform, and at Fermilab, they can generate far purer muon beams. "It's really a whole new experiment," says Lee Roberts, a g-2 physicist at Boston University. "Everything is better."

Over 3 years, the team aims to collect 21 times more data than during its time at Brookhaven, Roberts says. By next year, Hertzog says, the team hopes to have enough data for a first result, which could push the discrepancy above 5 σ.

Good luck, everyone!

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Flat-Earth Believers Are IDIOTS!

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad, and scary because these people presumably vote!

I read about this Flat Earth International Conference (honest!), and I can't believe the idiotic stuff that was written in the article. I'm going to ignore the paranoid claims about conspiracy and stuff. I'm not here to deal with their psychotic problems. However, I can deal with the science, and in particular, when idiots try to use physics to justify their stupidity.

Many flat-Earthers believe in testing the theory.

Darryle Marble said he conducted his own in-flight experiment using a leveler to test if the plane was flying parallel to a flat Earth.

"If it were a sphere then the surface of the Earth still would have been curving underneath the airplane while it's flying level," he reasoned. "It’s so simple it'll go right over your head," he said adding that people who have flown planes allegedly told him they "haven’t seen any curvature."

First of all, they don't believe astronauts who have gone into space when they said that the earth is a sphere, but yet, they want to use human observation from airplane rides! This is an example of pick-and-choose. 

Secondly, a leveler? Seriously?

Assuming that the plane is moving at a constant speed and at a constant altitude, this means that the plane is moving parallel to the earth's surface all the time. That's the definition of constant altitude. If the plane were to fly "straight with respect to the spatial coordinates", then it would be increasing in altitude! If that were to happen, the leveler will indicate several things (i) the acceleration due to the plan having to increase its altitude and (ii) gravity will act not straight down anymore. Any of these will affect the leveler.

But really, does the fact that if one head east continuously and end up at the same position later while in the plane, means nothing to these people?

There are many evidence that the earth is a sphere, and many of these are  plain obvious. The fact that different parts of the earth having opposite seasons at a given time of the year is one clear example. A flat earth will not result in different parts of the earth having different daylight hours and different seasons.

But there is another clear test here that have been too obvious: using a Faucault pendulum. How would these idiots explain not only the change in the plane of oscillation of the Faucault pendulum over a period of 24 hrs, but also the fact that (i) the change in the plane of oscillation is in the OPPOSITE direction for those having the opposite season (i.e. northern hemisphere versus southern hemisphere) and (ii) there is no change in the plane of oscillation at the equator.

Of course, to understand the significance of this observation, one actually must know the physics involved in a Faucault pendulum, and the conservation of angular momentum. But hey, maybe physics and all these conservation laws are also more conspiracies.

Again, to paraphrase Kathy Griffin: "These people are proud of their aggressive ignorance."

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What Is Relativity All About?

OK, so it may be odd that I want to highlight a beginner's topic on a popular subject on a blog that has been around for years. But hey, I get new people following this thing all the time, and I often get the same questions on basic physics.

So here's a simple, basic intro video on Special Relativity. In fact, Don Lincoln will be producing a series of such videos on this topic for those of you who want to know about Special Relativity, but was too afraid to ask.



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Enrico Fermi - The Pope of Physics

A fascinating presentation on Enrico Fermi.



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Putting Science Back Into Popular Culture

Clifford Johnson of USC has an interesting article on ways to introduce science (or physics in particular), back into things that the public usually gravitate to. In particular, he asks the question on how we can put legitimate science into popular culture so that the public will get to see it more regularly.

Science, though, gets portrayed as opposite to art, intuition and mystery, as though knowing in detail how that flower works somehow undermines its beauty. As a practicing physicist, I disagree. Science can enhance our appreciation of the world around us. It should be part of our general culture, accessible to all. Those “special talents” required in order to engage with and even contribute to science are present in all of us.

So how do we bring about a change? I think using the tools of the general culture to integrate science with everything else in our lives can be a big part of the solution.

Read the rest of the article on how to inject science into popular entertainment, etc.

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Table-Top Elementary Particle Experiment

I love reading articles like this one, where it shows that one can do quite useful research in elementary particles using experimental setup that is significantly smaller (and cheaper) than large particle colliders.

Now, he’s suddenly moving from the fringes of physics to the limelight. Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, is about to open a first-of-its-kind research institute dedicated to just his sort of small-scale particle physics, and Gabrielse will be its founding director.

The move signals a shift in the search for new physics. Researchers have dreamed of finding subatomic particles that could help them to solve some of the thorniest remaining problems in physics. But six years’ worth of LHC data have failed to produce a definitive detection of anything unexpected.

More physicists are moving in Gabrielse’s direction, with modest set-ups that can fit in standard university laboratories. Instead of brute-force methods such as smashing particles, these low-energy experimentalists use precision techniques to look for extraordinarily subtle deviations in some of nature’s most fundamental parameters. The slightest discrepancy could point the way to the field’s future. 

Again, I salute very much this type of endeavor, but I dislike the tone of the title of the article, and I'll tell you why.

In science, and especially physics, there is seldom something that has been verified, found, or discovered using just ONE experimental technique or detection method. For example, in the discovery of the Top quark, both CDF and D0 detectors at Fermilab had to agree. In the discovery of the Higgs, both ATLAS and CMS had to agree. In trying to show that something is a superconductor, you not only measure the resistivity, but also magnetic susceptibility.

In other words, you require many different types of verification, and the more the better or the more convincing it becomes.

While these table-top experiments are very ingenious, they will NOT replace the big colliders. No one in their right mind will tell CERN to "step aside", other than the author of this article. There are discoveries or parameters of elementary particles that these table-top experiments can study more efficiently than the LHC, but there are also plenty of the parameter phase space that the LHC can probe that can't be easily reached by these table-top experiments. They all are complimenting each other!

People who don't know any better, or don't know the intricacies of how experiments are done or how knowledge is gathered, will get the impression that because of these table-top experiments, facilities like the LHC will no longer be needed. I hate to think that this is the "take-home" message that many people will get.

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How Do We Know Blackholes Exist?

If you don't care to read in detail on the physics, and have the attention span of a 2-year old, this is Minute Physics's attempt at convincing you that blackholes exist.



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Why Did Matter Matter?

Ethan Siegel has yet another nice article. This time, he tackles on why we have an abundant of matter in our universe, but hardly any antimatter, when all our physics seems to indicate that there should be equal amount of both, or simply a universe filled with no matter.

I have highlighted a number of CP-violation experiments on here, which is something mentioned in the article. But it is nice to have a layman-type summary of the baryo-lepton-genesis ideas that are floating out there.

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Determining The Hubble Constant

Ethan Siegel has a nice article on the pitfalls in determining one of the most important constants in our universe, the Hubble constant. The article describes why this constant is so important, and all the ramifications that come from it.

As you read this, notice all the "background knowledge" that one must have to be able to know how well certain things are known, and what are the assumptions and uncertainties in each of the methods and values that we use. All of these need to be known, and people using them must be aware of them.

Compare that to the decision we make everyday on things we accept in social policies and politics.

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Gravitational and Inertial Mass

In this video, Don Lincoln tackles the concept of gravitational and inertial mass, and talks about the wider, more general implication of them being the same within Einstein's General Relativity.



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Biggest Highlight of the Year

This is the last day of 2017, and man, what a year it has been.

To me, the most monumental discovery and event of the year is the serendipitous observation of the merging of two neutron stars. This celestial event was observed by both conventional astronomical observatories via the detection of EM radiation (light), and by VIRGO/LIGO, which detected the gravitational waves. To many people, this marks the distinct beginning of gravitational astronomy.

There are already papers pouring out of this event, and many more to come. There are already strict constraints on alternative gravitational theories just from this one event. I expect many more to fall as we continue to shake the tree.

Who knows if such an event will occur again some time soon (or within my lifetime), but this is exciting stuff where a new channel and method to observe such event has opened up. I definitely consider this as one of the top monumental discoveries in my lifetime.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Zz.

"Quantum Materials"

This news report highlights the discover of a semimetal known as they Weyl-Kondo semimetals. I've mentioned something similar in a previous post.

However, it should be noted that there are already a lot of material whose properties "... cannot be explained by classical physics...", and many of them are now considered to be common materials, mostly used in our modern electronics.

In fact, early on in the development of quantum mechanics, superconductivity was discovered. We now know that, as stated by Carver Mead, superconductivity is the clearest manifestation of quantum mechanics. People at that time just didn't realize it back then because they don't have the QM tools yet at their disposal.

Zz.

Atomic Age Began 75 Years Ago Today

December 2, 1942, to be exact.

This is an article on the history of the first controlled nuclear fission that was conducted at the University of Chicago 75 years ago that marked the beginning of the atomic/nuclear age.

They called this 20x6x25-foot setup Chicago Pile Number One, or CP-1 for short – and it was here they obtained world’s the first controlled nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942. A single random neutron was enough to start the chain reaction process once the physicists assembled CP-1. The first neutron would induce fission on a uranium nucleus, emitting a set of new neutrons. These secondary neutrons hit carbon nuclei in the graphite and slowed down. Then they’d run into other uranium nuclei and induce a second round of fission reactions, emit even more neutrons, and on and on. The cadmium control rods made sure the process wouldn’t continue indefinitely, because Fermi and his team could choose exactly how and where to insert them to control the chain reaction.

Sadly, other than a commemorative statue/plaque, there's not much left of this historic site. One of the outcome of this work is the creation of Argonne National Lab just outside of Chicago, where, I believe, the research on nuclear chain reaction continued at that time. Argonne now no longer carries any nuclear research work.

Zz.

How Valuable Are Scientists In Politics?

Some time I read a piece that reflects my sentiments almost to a "T". This is one such example.

In the back page section of this months (Nov. 2017) APS News called.... wait for it... "The Back Page", Andrew Zwicker Princeton Plasma Physics Lab also a legislator in the state of New Jersey, US, reflects on the lack of scientists, and scientific methodology in politics and government. I completely agree on this part that I'm quoting here:

As scientists we are, by nature and training, perpetually skeptical yet constantly open to new ideas. We are guided by data, by facts, by evidence to make decisions and eventually come to a conclusion that we immediately question. We strive to understand the "big picture", and we understand the limitations of our conclusions and predictions. Imagine how different the political process would be if everyone in office took a data-driven, scientific approach to creating legislation instead of one based on who can make the best argument for a particular version of the "facts".

Anyone who has followed this blog for a length of time would have noticed my comments many times on this subject, especially in regards to scientists or physicists in the US Congress (right now there's only one left, Bill Foster). I have always poinpointed the major problem with people that we elect, that the public tends to vote for people who agree with their views, rather than individuals who are able to think, who have a clear-cut way of figuring out who to ask or where to look to seek answer. In other words, if a monkey agrees with their view on a number of issues, even that monkey can get elected, regardless of whether that monkey can think rationally.

It is why we have politicians bunkered-in with their views rather than thinking of what is the right or appropriate thing to do based on the facts. This is also why it is so important to teach science, and about science, especially on arriving at an idea or conclusion rationally and analytically, to students who are NOT going to go into science. Law schools should make it compulsory that their students understand science, not for the sake of the material, but rather as a method to think things through.

Unfortunately, I'm skeptical for any of that to happen, which is why the crap that we are seeing in politics right now will never change.

Zz.

Employee Used A "Faraday Cage" To Hide His Whereabout

This is one way to be "invisible".

An employee in Perth, Australia, used the metallic package from a snack to shield his device that has a GPS and locate his whereabouts. He then went golfing... many times, during his work hours.

The tribunal found that the packet was deliberately used to operate  as an elaborate “Faraday cage” - an enclosure which can block electromagnetic fields - and prevented his employer knowing his location. The cage set-up was named after English scientist Michael Faraday, who in 1836 observed that a continuous covering of conductive material could be used to block electromagnetic fields.

Now, if it works for his device, it should work to shield our credit cards as an RFID shield, don't you think? There's no reason to buy those expensive wallet or credit-card envelopes. Next time you have a Cheetos or potato chips, save those bags and wrap your wallet with them! :)

Zz.

Reviews of "The Quantum Labyrinth"

Paul Halpern's story of "when Feynman met Wheeler" in his book "The Quantum Labyrinth" has two interesting reviews that you can read (here and here). In the history of physics and human civilization, the meeting of the minds of these two giants in the world of physics must be rank up there with other partnerships, such as Lennon and McCartney, Hewlett and Packard, peanut butter and jelly, etc....

I have not read the book yet, and probably won't get to it till some time next year. But if you have read it, I'd like to hear what you think of it.

Zz.

Can A Simple Physics Error Cast Doubt On A da Vinci Painting?

It seems that the recent auction of a Leonardo da Vinci painting (for $450 million no less) has what everyone seems to call a physics flaw. It involves the crystal orb that is being held in the painting.

A major flaw in the painting — which is the only one of da Vinci's that remains in private hands — makes some historians think it's a fake. The crystal orb in the image doesn't distort light in the way that natural physics does, which would be an unusual error for da Vinci.

My reaction when I first read this is that, it is not as if da Vinci was painting this live with the actual Jesus Christ holding the orb. So either he made a mistake, or he knew what he was doing and didn't think it would matter. I don't think this observation is enough to call the painting a fake.

Still, it may make a good class example in Intro Physics optics.

Zz.

Lorentz Gamma Factor

Don Lincoln has another video related to Relativity. This time, he's diving into more details on the Lorentz Gamma factor. At the beginning of the video, he's referring to another video he made on the misleading concept of relativistic mass, which I've linked to.



Zz.

SLAC's LCLS Upgrade and What It Might Mean To You

Just in case you don't know what's going on at SLAC's LCLS, and the upcoming upgrade to bring it to LCLS-II, here's a CNET article meant for the general public to tell what what they have been up to, and what they hope to accomplish with the upgrade.

Keep in mind that LCLS is a "light source", albeit it is a very unique, highly-intense x-ray light source. SLAC is also part of the DOE's US National Laboratories, which include Brookhaven, Fermilab, Berkeley, Argonne, Los Alamos, .... etc.

Zz.

Muons, The Little Particles That Could

These muons are becoming the fashionable particles of the moment.

I mentioned at the beginning of this year (2017) of the use of muon tomography to image the damaged core at Fukushima. Now, muons are making headlines in two separate applications.

The first is the use of cosmic muons imaging that discovered hidden chambers inside Khufu's Pyramid at Giza. The second is more use of muons to probe the status of nuclear waste safely.

The comment I wrote in the first link still stands. We needed to know the fundamental properties of muons FIRST before we could actually use then to all these applications. And that fundamental knowledge came from high-energy/elementary particle physics.

So chalk this up to another application of such an esoteric field of study.

Zz.

Are University Admission Biased?

This is a rather interesting Minute Physics video. It is tackling what is known as the Simpson Paradox. What is interesting is that it is applying it to an example where on first glance, there appears to be no form of statistical bias, but when viewed another way, it seems that there is.



What is interesting here is that several years ago, I mentioned of an AIP study examining universities in the US that have very small number of physics faculty and how many of those that do not have a single female faculty member. The result found that, statistically, this is what is expected based on the number of female physics PhDs, meaning that we can't simply accuse these schools (and hiring of female physicist in general) of bias against female physicists. This Minute Physics video appears to provide an illustration of what is expected statistically without imposing even any bias to the sample.

Again, I'm not saying that female physicists and faculty members do not face unfair or more challenges in their career when compared to male physicists. But illustrations such as these should also be considered so that we tackle problems that are real and meaningful and not chase something is not the source of the problem.

Zz.

Google Science Journal App

I've asked and discussed about various apps that I've come across that I thought might be either interesting or useful, or both, for someone in science, and in physics in particular. I still haven't found a data analysis and graphing app for my iPad that rivals, say, the Origin or any other full-blown computer program of that type. But I'll continue to search and keep an eye out for one.

I read about this "Google Science Journal" app before, but it appears that they've made significant improvements to it. It is available on both iOS and Android (of course). This app looks like it might be useful to high school science students, and maybe even in intro physics classes as part of a demo.

I'll probably install it on my phone and play with it for a bit to see what it actually can do. But if you have had some experience with this app, or better yet, have used it as part of a lesson, I definitely want to hear about it.

Zz.

How Does Proton Radiation Therapy Work?

Here's a video from Don Lincoln on a physicist's view of proton radiation therapy in attacking a tumor.



If you want a more detailed and technical information on proton therapy, you may access a more in-depth paper here. This, btw, is another example of the application of accelerator physics and elementary particle physics, in case you didn't know.

Zz.

Want To Read Stephen Hawking's Thesis?

I saw a news report that Cambridge is finally making Stephen Hawking's thesis available online. So I clicked the link to look at it, and nothing happened. Went back a few minutes later, clicked on it again, and nothing happened.

Turned out that all the news announcements on this has crashed the Cambridge's website due to the overwhelming request to want to see this! :)

In honor of Open Access Week, the University of Cambridge on Monday put the 1966 PhD thesis, "Properties of Expanding Universes," on its open access repository. Shortly after it went live, requests to view the research crashed the website.

As of Monday afternoon, the main research page was reachable after several minutes, but nothing on the page was.

So if you are planning on checking it out, good luck!

Zz.

Lazy Reporting And Taking Way Too Much Credit

It is not surprising that whenever a major discovery is made or a major award is given, as many people and institutions want to ride the coattail and be a part of it. I understand that.

But sometime, it is stretching it a bit waaaay too much, especially when the report itself sounds very lazy and weak.

The recent announcement of the Nobel Prize in physics being awarded to 3 figures who are instrumental in the discovery of gravitational waves seem to be one such case. I stumble across this news article out of what I believe is a local newspaper called the "Gonzales Weekly Citizen". The headline said:

LSU scientists win Nobel Prize in Physics

Of course, that perked my interest since I didn't know any of the 3 men who were awarded the prize are known to be associated with LSU (Louisiana State University, for those who are not familiar with this).

Now, it seems that the reporter is playing fast and loose. Rainer Weiss is listed as an "adjunct professor" in the LSU physics dept. Now, we all know that an adjunct professor is nothing more than a "contractor". That person is not considered as a staff member, but rather hired on a per-term basis or based on a contract. In most cases, the person is probably associated by another institution rather than the one where he/she is an adjunct professor of.

In fact, in this case, Rainer Weiss is more well-known as being associated with MIT than anywhere else. It is what is listed in all the news report for this award. In fact, if you look at the Nobel Prize page that announced this award, the profile on Weiss says:

Affiliation at the time of the award: LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

No mention of LSU. In fact, the LIGO project itself is a consortium of many universities and it is jointly administered by MIT and Caltech. One of the facilities may be in Louisiana, and LSU is involved in the project, but that's about it. They should be proud of their contribution to the project, but to over play it to this level is not quite right.

So this news report is misleading at best!

But that's not all! There's a certain level of laziness in the reporting.

LSU adjunct professor and MIT professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss and California professor Emeritus Kip Thorne are co-founders of the collaboration. Weiss won half of the prize, and the other half went to the California Institute of Technology professors involved.

I'm sorry, but they could not even bother to mention Barry Barish name? He's being relegated to being part of the "... California Institute of Technology professors involved." REALLY!


As I said, rather lazy reporting.

Zz.

Electron Is Still A Point Particle

There have been experiments to measure the electric dipole moment of an electron, if any, which would indicate that (i) an electron has an internal structure and (ii) consequently it isn't a point particle that we have been assuming within QED. So far, all the experiments have not found any, and each measurement continues to increase the precision of the previous measurement.

Chalk this one up to follow the same trend[1]. This time, they are using a different technique to measure the electron dipole moment by using trapped molecular ions. The result of the experiment is an even more precise measurement, and lowered the upper bound of the dipole moment by several orders of magnitude when compared to the previous result.

Electron is still a spherical cow!

Zz.

[1] W.B. Cairncross et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. v.119, p.153001 (2017).

Why You Can't Go Faster Than Light

Don Lincoln tackles our speed limit.



Zz.

2017 Physics Nobel Prize Goes To Gravitational Wave Discovery

To say that this is a no-brainer and no surprise are an understatement.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to 3 central figures that made LIGO possible and the eventual discovery of gravitational wave in 2015.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 was divided, one half awarded to Rainer Weiss, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".

Congratulations to all of them!

Zz.

Common Mistakes By Students In Intro Physics

Rhett Allain has listed 3 common mistakes and misunderstanding done by student in intro kinematics physics courses.

I kinda agree with all of them, and I've seen them myself. In fact, when I teach "F=ma" and try to impress upon them its validity, I will ask them that if it is true, why do you need to keep your foot on the gas pedal to keep the vehicle moving at constant speed while driving? This appears to indicate that "F" produces a constant "speed", and thus, "a=0".

Tackling this is important, because the students already have a set of understanding of how the world around the works, whether correctly or not. It needs to be tackled head-on. I tackled this also in dealing with current where we calculate the drift velocity of conduction electrons. The students discover that the drift velocity is excruciatingly slow. So then I ask them that if the conduction electrons move like molasses, why does it appear that when I turn the switch on, the light comes on almost instantaneously?

Still, if we are nitpicking here, I have a small issue with the first item on Allain's list:

What happens when you have a constant force on an object? A very common student answer is that a constant force on an object will make it move at a constant speed—which is wrong, but it sort of makes sense.

Because he's using "speed" and not "velocity", it opens up a possibility of a special case of a central force, or even a centripetal force, in a circular motion where the object has a net force acting on it, but its speed remains the same. Because the central force is always perpendicular to the motion of the particle, it imparts no increase in speed, just a change in direction. So yes, the velocity changes, but the magnitude of the velocity (the speed) does not. So the misconception here isn't always wrong.

Zz.

Gravity As A Result Of Random Quantum Fluctuation?

There are too many "buzzwords" in this entire thing, but it might still be an interesting reading for some people.

There is a new report on the possibility that gravity might not be an interaction within QFT framework, but rather as a result of quantum fluctuation.

The average of these fluctuations is a gravitational field that is consistent with Newton’s theory of gravity. In this model, gravity is born out of quantum mechanics, but is not in itself a quantum-mechanical force. It is what scientists call “semiclassical.” Until this theory is tested further, it will remain a semi-solution; while the idea does predict certain known phenomena, it doesn’t yet account for Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

This latest report is due to a preprint uploaded to ArXiv.

Now, I can understand New Scientist reporting on something like this, because they have the tendency to report on sensational and unverified science news, but for PBS/NOVA webpage to jump onto this still-unpublished work? That's surprising.

Of course, I'm complicit on this as well since I'm reporting it here. I'm going to make sure I won't highlight something like this again in the future until it has at least appear in a peer-reviewed publication, not just in New Scientist and the likes.

Zz.

Amazon's CAPTCHA Patent Proposal Tests Your Physics Understanding

... well, more like your physics INTUITION on what should happen next.

It seems that Amazon has file a patent application that uses a physics engine to generate scenarios to see if you are a real person or a bot.

The company has filed a patent application for a new CAPTCHA method which would show you a 3D simulation of something about to happen to a person or object. That something would involve Newtonian physics — perhaps an item is about to fall on someone, or a ball is about to roll down a slope. The test would then show you several "after" scenarios and, if you pick the correct option, you've passed the test.
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The idea is that, because you are a human, you have an "intuitive" understanding of what would happen next in these scenarios. But computers need much more information about the scene and "might be unable to solve the test", according to the application.

Definitely interesting, although in Fig. 3B shown in the article, both Fig (A) and Fig (B) might be possible depending on the ambiguity of the drawing.

But this brings me an important point that I've been telling my students in intro physics classes when they dealt with mechanics. We all ALREADY KNOW many of the things that will happen in cases like this. We do not need to learn physics or to be enrolled in a physics class to know the qualitative description of the dynamics of these systems. So we are not teaching you about something you are not familiar with.

What a formal physics lesson will do is to describe these things more accurately, i.e. in a QUANTITATIVE manner. We won't simply say "Oh, the ball will roll down that inclined plane." Rather, we will describe the motion of the ball mathematically, and we will be able to say how long the ball will take to each the bottom, at what speed, etc...etc. In other words, we don't just say "What goes up must come down", but we will also say "When and where it will come down". This is what separates physics (and science) from hand-waving, everyday conversation.

All of us already have an intuitive understanding of the physical systems around us. That's why Amazon can make such a CAPTCHA test for everyone. A physics lessons simply formalize that understanding in a more accurate and non-ambiguous fashion.

Zz.

Bell's Theorem - The Venn Diagram Paradox

Minute Physics is tackling Bell's theorem, with limited success.



It would have been nice if they included Malus' Law description in here, because that is what we knew before QM came around, and that is what we teach students in intro physics.

In any case, I still find it difficult to follow, especially if you didn't pay that much attention to the part when they are doing the counting. They went over this a bit too quickly to let it sink in.

Maybe your brain works faster than mine and can keep up.

Zz.

Is Relativistic Mass Real?

I've mentioned about this issue several times on here. In this post, I've linked to a reference, and also a link to Lev Okun's paper in another post, that both debunked the concept of relativistic mass, and why it should not be used.

Unfortunately, as a physics instructor, I still see texts teaching this concept, and I have to work around it, telling the students the caveat on why what they should be cautious in what they are reading. It isn't easy, but I'd rather say something about it than let the students walk out of my class not knowing that this idea of "relativistic mass" is not what it has been popularly made out.

So I'm delighted that Don Lincoln has a video addressing this issue as well.



He explains it quite clearly, and also why we still sometime teach this concept to students in intro classes (unfortunately). Yes, I can understand why, but I still don't like it if it can be avoided without sacrificing the pedagogical reason for it.

It's a good video if you are still wondering what the fuss is all about.

Zz.

Rebuilding Quantum Theory

Theorists and philosophers are trying to "rebuild" quantum theory's foundation and axioms. Good luck to them!

Still, this is a rather good article on some of the issues surrounding concepts that still do not sit well with many physicists. Those of us who are in the "Shut up and calculate" camp will leave it up to them to sort things out. We are busy with doing other things.

:)

Zz.

RIP Vern Ehlers

The first physicist ever elected to the US Congress has passed away. Vern Ehlers, a moderate Republican from Michigan, passed away at the age of 83.

Vern Ehlers, 83, a research physicist and moderate Republican who represented a western Michigan congressional district for 17 years, died late Tuesday at a Grand Rapids nursing facility, Melissa Morrison, funeral director at Zaagman Memorial Chapel, said Wednesday.

I reported on here when he decided to retire back in 2010. And of course, when he was serving Congress along with 2 other elected officials who were physicist, I cited a NY Times article that clearly demonstrated how desperate we are to have someone with science background serving as politicians.

Unfortunately, right now, the US Congress has only ONE representative who is a trained physicist (Bill Foster). It somehow reflects on the lack of rationality that is going on in Washington DC right now.

Zz.

Solar Eclipse, Anyone?

It's a day before we here in Chicago will get to see a partial solar eclipse. I know of people who are already in downstate Illinois at Carbondale to view the total eclipse (they will get another total eclipse in 2024, I think).

So, any of you will be look up, hopefully with proper eye wear, to view the eclipse tomorrow? I actually will be teaching a class during the main part of the eclipse, but I may just let the students out for a few minutes just to join the crowd on campus who will be doing stuff for the eclipse. Too bad I won't be teaching optics, or this will be an excellent tie-in with the subject matter.

Zz.

Hyperfine Splitting of Anti-Hydrogen Is Just Like Ordinary Hydrogen

More evidence that the antimatter world is practically identical to our regular matter world. The ALPHA collaboration at CERN has reported the first ever measurement of the anti-hydrogen hyperfine spectrum, and it is consistent to that measured for hydrogen.

Now, they have used microwaves to flip the spin of the positron. This resulted not only in the first precise determination of the antihydrogen hyperfine splitting, but also the first antimatter transition line shape, a plot of the spin flip probability versus the microwave frequency.

“The data reveal clear and distinct signatures of two allowed transitions, from which we obtain a direct, magnetic-field-independent measurement of the hyperfine splitting,” the researchers said.

“From a set of trials involving 194 detected atoms, we determine a splitting of 1,420.4 ± 0.5 MHz, consistent with expectations for atomic hydrogen at the level of four parts in 10,000.”

I am expecting a lot more studies on these anti-hydrogen, especially now that they have a very reliable way of sustaining these things.

The paper is an open access on Nature, so you should be able to read the entire thing for free.

Zz.

First Observation of Neutrinos Bouncing Off Atomic Nucleus

An amazing feat out of Oak Ridge.

And it’s really difficult to detect these gentle interactions. Collar’s group bombarded their detector with trillions of neutrinos per second, but over 15 months, they only caught a neutrino bumping against an atomic nucleus 134 times. To block stray particles, they put 20 feet of steel and a hundred feet of concrete and gravel between the detector and the neutrino source. The odds that the signal was random noise is less than 1 in 3.5 million—surpassing particle physicists’ usual gold standard for announcing a discovery. For the first time, they saw a neutrino nudge an entire atomic nucleus.

Currently, the entire paper is available from the Science website.

Zz.

RHIC Sees Another First

The quark-gluon plasma created at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) continues to produce a rich body of information. They have now announced that the quark-gluon plasma has produced the most rapidly-spinning fluid ever produced.

Collisions with heavy ions—typically gold or lead—put lots of protons and neutrons in a small volume with lots of energy. Under these conditions, the neat boundaries of those particles break down. For a brief instant, quarks and gluons mingle freely, creating a quark-gluon plasma. This state of matter has not been seen since an instant after the Big Bang, and it has plenty of unusual properties. "It has all sorts of superlatives," Ohio State physicist Mike Lisa told Ars. "It is the most easily flowing fluid in nature. It's highly explosive, much more than a supernova. It's hotter than any fluid that's known in nature."
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We can now add another superlative to the quark-gluon plasma's list of "mosts:" it can be the most rapidly spinning fluid we know of. Much of the study of the material has focused on the results of two heavy ions smacking each other head-on, since that puts the most energy into the resulting debris, and these collisions spit the most particles out. But in many collisions, the two ions don't hit each other head-on—they strike a more glancing blow.

It is a fascinating article, and you may read the significance of this study, especially in relation to how it informs us on certain aspect of QCD symmetry.

But if you know me, I never fail to try to point something out that is more general in nature, and something that the general public should take note of. I like this statement in the article very much, and I'd like to highlight it here:

But a logical "should" doesn't always equal a "does," so it's important to confirm that the resulting material is actually spinning. And that's a rather large technical challenge when you're talking about a glob of material roughly the same size as an atomic nucleus.

This is what truly distinguish science with other aspects of our lives. There are many instances, especially in politics, social policies, etc., where certain assertions are made and appear to be "obvious" or "logical", and yet, these are simply statements made without any valid evidence to support it. I can think of many ("Illegal immigrants taking away jobs", or "gay marriages undermines traditional marriages", etc...etc). Yet, no matter how "logical" these may appear to be, they are simply statements that are devoid of evidence to support them. Still, whenever they are uttered, many in the public accept them as FACTS or valid, without seeking or requiring evidence to support them. One may believe that "A should cause B", but DOES IT REALLY?

Luckily, this is NOT how it is done in science. No matter how obvious it is, or how verified something is, there are always new boundaries to push and a retesting of the ideas, even ones that are known to be true under certain conditions. And a set of experimental evidence is the ONLY standard that will settle and verify any assertion and statements.

This is why everyone should learn science, not just for the material, but to understand the methodology and technique. It is too bad they don't require politicians to have such skills.

Zz.

Is QM About To Revolutionize Biochemistry?

It is an intriguing thought, and if these authors are correct, a bunch of chemical reactions, even at higher temperatures, may be explained via quantum indistinguishibility.

The worlds of chemistry and indistinguishable physics have long been thought of as entirely separate. Indistinguishability generally occurs at low temperatures while chemistry requires relatively high temperatures where objects tend to lose their quantum properties. As a result, chemists have long felt confident in ignoring the effects of quantum indistinguishability.

Today, Matthew Fisher and Leo Radzihovsky at the University of California, Santa Barbara, say that this confidence is misplaced. They show for the first time that quantum indistinguishability must play a significant role in some chemical processes even at ordinary temperatures. And they say this influence leads to an entirely new chemical phenomenon, such as isotope separation and could also explain a previously mysterious phenomenon such as the enhanced chemical activity of reactive oxygen species. 

They have uploaded their paper on arXiv.

Of course, this is still preliminary, but it provides the motivation to really explore this aspect that had not been seriously considered before. And with this latest addition, it is just another example on where physics, especially QM, are being further explored in biology and chemistry.

Zz.

Is Radiation Dangerous?

Believe it or not, there are still people out there who get scared witless and going out of their minds with their phobia about "radiation". I get questions related to this often enough that whenever I find info like this one, I want to post it here.

Don Lincoln decides to tackle this issue regarding "radiation". If you have little knowledge and idea about this, this is the video to watch.



Zz.

Quantum Tunneling Time

Chad Orzel has highlighted a couple of papers (one still a preprint) on the issue of quantum tunneling time or speed. I missed these, just like him, but unlike him, I didn't have as glamorous of an excuse - I was busy finishing up teaching a summer physics class.

I'll let you read have the pleasure of reading his article, because he also gave a quick background on the quantum tunneling phenomenon, if you're not familiar with it. But as background information, I did quantum tunneling spectroscopy measurement for my PhD research and dissertation. So I'm familiar with this, but not in the sense of the detailed question on tunneling time. We simply used the phenomenon to measure the properties of the material of interest, even though in the end, I ended up looking into the detailed description of the tunneling matrix elements, which are often simplified or ignored.

Still, the issue of tunneling time has always been something in the back of my mind, and the question on whether this thing happens "very fast" or "instantaneously" (just like quantum entanglement) has always popped up now and then. It is good to see new studies on this, even though the combined conclusion out of these two results is still uncertain.

Zz.

1. N. Camus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 023201 (2017).
2. https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05445

The Higgs - Five Years In

In case you've been asleep the past 5 years or so and what to catch up on our lovable Higgs, here is a quick, condensed version of the saga so far.

Where were you on 4 July 2012, the day the Higgs boson discovery was announced? Many people will be able to answer without referring to their diary. Perhaps you were among the few who had managed to secure a seat in CERN’s main auditorium, or who joined colleagues in universities and laboratories around the world to watch the webcast.

This story promises to have lots of sequels, just like the movies released so far this year.

Zz.

The Universe's First Atoms Verify Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang theory makes many predictions and consequences, all of them are being thoroughly tested (unlike Intelligent Design or Creationism). These predictions and consequences are quantitative in nature, i.e. the theory predicts actual numbers.

Many of these "numbers" have been verified by experiments and observations, and they are continually being measured to higher precision. This latest one comes about from the prediction of the amount of certain gases during the early evolution of our universe.

But more data has just come in! Two new measurements, in a paper just coming out now by Signe Riemer-Sørensen and Espen Sem Jenssen, of different gas clouds lines up with a different quasar have given us our best determination of deuterium's abundance right after the Big Bang: 0.00255%. This is to be compared with the theoretical prediction from the Big Bang: 0.00246%, with an uncertainty of ±0.00006%. To within the errors, the agreement is spectacular. In fact, if you sum up all the data from deuterium measurements taken in this fashion, the agreement is indisputable.

The more they test it, the more convincing it becomes.

Zz.

The Physics of Texting And Driving

First of all, let me be clear on this. I hate, HATE, HATE drivers who play with their mobile devices while they drive. I don't care if it is texting (stupid!) or just talking on their phones. These drivers are often driving erratically, unpredictably, and often do not use turn signals, etc. They are distracted drivers, and their stupid acts put my life and my safety in jeopardy. My nasty thought on this is that I wish Darwin would eliminate them out of the gene pool.

There! I feel better now. Coming back to the more sedate and sensible topic related to physics, Rhett Allain has a nice, short article on why physics will rationally explain to you why texting and driving is not safe, and why texting and driving ANNOYS OTHER PEOPLE!

OK, so my calmness didn't last very long.

The physics is quite elementary that even any high-school physics students can understand. And now, I am going back to my happy place.

Zz.

What Non-Scientists Can Learn From Physics

Chad Orzel has a follow-up to his earlier article on what every physics undergrad should know. This time, he tackles on what he thinks non-scientists can learn from physics.

You may read the linked article to get everything, but I have a different track in mind. Sticking to students rather than just a generic non-scientist, I'd rather focus on the value of a physics education for both scientists and non-scientists alike. After all, many non-physicists and non-scientists are "forced" to take physics classes at various levels in their undergraduate education. How can we motivate these students of the importance of these classes, and what can they learn and acquire from these classes that will be useful to them not only in their education, but also in their careers and life?

I of course tell them the relevance of physics in whatever area that they major in. But even non-scientists, such as an arts major, can acquire important skills from a physics class. With that in mind, I'd like to refer to the NACE website. They often have a poll of potential employers and what they look for in new graduates that they are considering to hire. In particular, they were asked on what type of skills they tend to look for in a candidate.

The result can be found here.

I have extracted the info in this picture:

I often show this to my students because I highlight all the skills that we will employ and honed in a physics class. I tell them that these are what they can acquire out of the class, and to be conscious of them when we either tackled a physics concept and problem, or when they are working on an experiment. In fact, often times, I often try to get them to think on how they would approach a problem in trying to solve it, with the intention of emphasizing analytical skills.

I think as physics teachers and instructors, we often neglect to show the students the non-physics benefits of a physics class. A student, whether he/she is a physics, engineering, other science, or STEM major, can ALWAYS again an advantage if he/she has those skills that I highlighted above. This is why I've often emphasize that the skills that can be acquired from a physics class often transcends the narrow boundary of a physics topic, and can often be valuable in many other areas. These skills are not subject-specific.

I often notice the irrational and puzzling argument on TV, especially from the world of politics, and I often wonder how many people could benefit from a clear, analytical ability to be able to analyze and decipher an issue or an argument. So heck yes, non-scientists can learn A LOT from physics, and from a physics class.

Zz.

Host Interrupts Female Physicst Too Much, Audience Member Intervened

Hey, good for her!

The moderator of this panel interrupted physicist Veronika Hubeny of UC-Davis so much that audience member Marilee Talkington (appropriate name) got so frustrated that she intervened.

While watching a panel titled “Pondering the Imponderable: The Biggest Questions of Cosmology,” Marilee Talkington noticed that the moderator wasn’t giving physicist Veronika Hubeny, a professor at UC Davis and the only female on the panel, her fair share of speaking time.

So when the moderator, New Yorker contributor Jim Holt, finally asked Hubeny a question about her research in string theory and quantum gravity, then immediately began speaking over her to explain it himself, Talkington was furious.

Fed up with the continuous mansplaining, Talkington interrupted Holt by yelling loudly, “Let her speak, please!” The crowd applauded the request. 

You can read the rest of the story here.

Certainly, while it is awfully annoying, based on what Dr. Hubeny described, she didn't think it was a blatant sexism. Rather, she thought that the host was just overly enthusiastic. But you may judge that for yourself if the host didn't give the only female member of the panel a chance to speak.

But yeah, good for Ms. Talkington for intervening.

Zz.

50 Years Of Fermilab

Don Lincoln takes you on a historical tour of Fermilab as it celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year.



Zz.

Planning For A Future Circular Collider

The future of the next circular collider to follow up the LHC is currently on the table. The Future Circular Collider (FCC) is envisioned to be 80-100 km in circumference (as compared to 27 km for the LHC) and reaching energy as high as 100 TeV (as compared to 13 TeV for the LHC).

Now you may think that this is way too early to think about such a thing, especially when the LHC is still in its prime and probably will be operating for a very long time. But planning and building one of these things take decades. As stated at the end of the article, the LHC itself took about 30 years from its planning stage all the way to its first operation. So you can't simply decide to get one of these built and hope to have it ready in a couple of years. It is the ultimate in long-term planning. No instant gratification here.

In the meantime, the next big project in high-energy physics collider is a linear collider, some form of the International Linear Collider that has been tossed around for many years. China and Japan look to still be the most likely place where this will be built. I do not foresee the US being a leading candidate during the next 4 years for any of these big, international facilities requiring multinational effort.

Zz.

"Intersectional Quantum Physics" To Fight The Oppression of Newton?!

I've seen many crap being passed as scholarly works, but this one might take the cake.

Whitney Stark argues in support of “combining intersectionality and quantum physics” to better understand “marginalized people” and to create “safer spaces” for them, in the latest issue of The Minnesota Review.

Because traditional quantum physics theory has influenced humanity’s understanding of the world, it has also helped lend credence to the ongoing regime of racism, sexism and classism that hurts minorities, Stark writes in “Assembled Bodies: Reconfiguring Quantum Identities.”

And here's the best part:

Stark did not respond to multiple email and Facebook requests for comment from The College Fix. While she does not have any academic training in physics or quantum physics, she did complete a master’s degree in “Cyborg and Post Colonial Theory” at the University of Utrecht.

And that somehow makes her an expert in not only physics, but quantum physics and classical mechanics.

This is no different than the snake oil being peddled by the likes of Deepak Chopra. And the sad thing is, this is not new. Alan Sokal has battled this sort of thing in his attack on postmodernism philosophy. It included attacks in which the Theory of Relativity was considered to be male-biased!

But what is troubling here is that people who have only a superficial knowledge of something seem to think that they have the authority and expertise to criticize something, and all out of ignorance. And this seems to be a common practice nowadays, especially in the world of politics.

Zz.