A Day In The Life Of Brian Cox

If you are ever curious to know the typical day of a well-known physicist working at CERN, you can't get any better than reading this about Brian Cox. Long periods of time away from home can some time be the less rewarding part of the job.

Still, this is a fascinating and amusing account of a day in his life.

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Leap Year Has a Long and Complicated History

This year, February will again have 29 days, making 2008 a leap year. This article describes the reason and history behind the leap year.

“Everyone knows that the calendar year shows it is 365 days, but it really isn’t. Really, it is 365 and almost-one-fourth days.”

According to Infoplease.com, the actual time for Earth to travel around the sun is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise, marking a full year for us.

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Panel Picked to Review UK Physics

The health of physics in the United Kingdom will be the subject of this review by a panel appointed after the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) budget shortfall.

I thought there has been a number of previous studies already on this issue. I suppose this study is to evaluate the future impact of the budget cuts that has been done to UK physics. Still....

But some physicists are sceptical that the review will do anything to reverse the current situation in any case. “It is likely the review will just say that this shouldn’t happen again,” says Mark Lancaster, a particle physicist at University College London.

Having a review and pledging support for basic physics are one thing. Not providing enough funding to pursue it is another. This can be said to the US physics budget situation as well.

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A Deeper Look at Student Learning of Quantum Mechanics: the Case of Tunneling

This preprint, co-authored by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, looks at the difficulties that students had in understanding quantum tunneling.

Abstract: We report on a qualitative study of student learning of quantum tunneling in traditional and reformed modern physics courses. In the reformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research, students still struggle with many of the same issues found in other courses, but the reasons for these difficulties are more subtle, and many new issues are brought to the surface. By explicitly discussing how to build models of potential energy and relate these models to real physical systems, we have opened up a floodgate of deep and difficult questions as students struggle to make sense of these models. We conclude that the difficulties found in previous research are the tip of the iceberg, and the real issue at the heart of student difficulties in learning quantum tunneling is the struggle to build the complex models that are implicit in experts' understanding but often not discussed explicitly with students.

It's a lengthy paper, and I'm still reading it. But it is interesting that you get to learn quite a bit more about quantum tunneling in here, especially on aspects that are quite subtle.

Let me know what you think...

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Preparing for Your Post-Ph.D. Career

The Science Career webpage has another great article on preparing for life after getting a Ph.D. As I had mentioned in my "So You Want To Be A Physicist" essay, at some point, one has to prepare oneself with the reality that the traditional path of a physics career may either not be suitable, or not available to be pursued. And with the dwindling job opportunities in universities and research labs (especially after the recent budget cuts in the UK and US), other alternatives should seriously be considered.

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Lord Kelvin's Follies

Now I don't know if what has been quoted here as being from Lord Kelvin is accurate or even true. So let's get that out of the way first of all. Still, this webpage lists several erroneous statements that is attributed to Kelvin that obviously aren't true, or even accurate, anymore. Certainly the part about physics being a dead subject isn't true (if only he is alive today to see how that is so not true).

Still, how is that any different than the grandiose claim that some physicists have made regarding "The Theory of Everything", even when, admittedly, such a theory can't come up with a description of everything, such as many emergent phenomena.

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The Big Bang Implosion of Physics

This is a terrific essay that expresses what I've been saying all along on why research on basic physics is important enough not to be abandoned.

In truth, fundamental research is a necessity, not a luxury. Most of the technological developments made in the past 100 years have been fuelled by fundamental research into science. Albert Einstein famously dismissed Enrico Fermi’s idea that massive amounts of energy could be released by splitting the atom. The unintended consequences of the theory of relativity gave us nuclear power. Similarly, from the esoteric beauty of the theory of quantum mechanics has emerged electronics, computing and laser optics, to name but a few developments.

We cannot foretell where research into the fundamental constituents of matter will take us, but to not travel down that path is to shut the door on the future. Our ability to understand and control nature is what gives us the capacity to carve out a different future not constrained by the fetters of the immediate problems of finite resources. It is our lack of vision and our preoccupation with the limitations of our society that holds us back from venturing further.

As physicists, we need to carefully list out ALL of the "applications" that came out of what was originally thought to be nothing more than "pure knowledge". This, to me, is the most effective means of countering the notion that pursuing basic knowledge for knowledge itself has no direct, beneficial outcome to human civilization. We should no longer talk about "spin offs" of science projects. We have to go right down to the nitty-gritty and use concrete example. That's the only way the general public and the politician can understand.

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UK Still Hopeful of Participating in Gemini Project

There is a glimmer of hope that the UK would not have to withdraw completely from the Gemini Project due to the recent budget constraints.

But last week it emerged that the council was now in discussions with the observatory about future collaboration.

Prof Michael Rowan-Robinson, president of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), welcomed the news that "the stand-off between the STFC and the board of the Gemini Observatory has been replaced by constructive discussion".

If this is true, it offers one very rare piece of good news, considering that a week ago, the STFC reaffirmed UK's withdrawal from the ILC collaboration, putting the whole effort into jeopardy of being abandoned.

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The Most Intense Laser in the Universe - So Far

This is where if anyone doesn't understand physics, or the language being used in laser optics, one could easily get misled by the title.

The people on HERCULES laser at the University of Michigan has claimed to have created the most intense laser pulse in the universe {link may be available for free only for a limited time}.

The intensity of a laser beam is the amount of energy it delivers per unit time per unit area. This record-breaking beam actually has very low energy — at just 20 joules, it is less than the 8,000 joules stored in a tic tac — but the energy is squeezed into a tiny spot (1.3 micrometres in diameter, about a hundred time thinner than a human hair) for a very short time, just 30 femtoseconds (10-15 seconds). So the beam has an intensity of 2 x 1022 watts per square centimetre: two orders of magnitude more intense than achieved before.

It will be nice if there's an immediate application for it.

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The Science of the Perfect Souffle

I'm always happy when I can combine things that I love into one, such as Disney and Physics, or food and Physics. This is the latter. It discusses on the chemistry and physics of making the perfect souffle.

Science in the kitchen is largely the chemistry kind — the properties of two liquids mixing, the transformation of bread into toast, the breakdown of starches into sugars. But do you ever think about velocity or gravity in your cooking? It turns out, beating eggs is all about science — and it's physics and chemistry that make a souffle rise or fall.

I don't think this will make physics a requirement subject for anyone wishing to graduate from a culinary school, but it is still entertaining in the Elton Brown sort-of way.

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Presidential Campaigns Call for Big Boosts to Research Funding

At the AAAS annual meeting this past week, representatives from the Clinton and Obama campaign presented their candidates' views on science policy.

Representatives of the two remaining major Democratic candidates for U.S. president both endorsed big budget increases for federally funded basic scientific research at a debate before hundreds of scientists today, with Senator Hillary Clinton's (D–NY) team offering decidedly more specifics on their plans.

Still, what was glaring here is that not a single Republican candidate sent a representative.

The presumptive Republican candidate, Senator John McCain (R–AZ), was invited but sent regrets, said Albert Teich of AAAS. "They apparently would have liked to come." Representative Ron Paul (R–TX) and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee did not respond to AAAS's invitation.

Take that however you wish.

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Snowmobiles Faster Than A Speeding Bullet, Maybe, But Not Light

I'm glad this writer spotted something fishy about the accident report.

Mr. ... and his brother ....were traveling across (the) lake around 10:30 p.m. at an apparent high rate of speed when (they) came upon the shore and hit a maple tree ... 'He was overdriving his headlights. The shore came up too fast and he hit a maple tree

The writer certainly questioned, and rightly so, the phrase "overdriving his headlights", because it implied that the snowmobile was moving faster than the headlights! Awful! :)

Still, this accident report is practicing what I wrote earlier about the propensity of news editors and other "official-type" reports of using the phrase "rate of speed", when all they meant was just "speed". If all they meant was that the vehicle was moving fast, then "rate of speed" is the wrong expression, because this is acceleration. An object could have an instantaneous speed of 0 and yet, still have the highest "rate of speed" it will have in its motion (example: oscillating mass on a spring).

More media writers need to have better physics education. Unfortunately, based on this news report, so do people in a Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

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Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe

This resource letter has appeared online in the March issue of the American Journal of Physics[1]. It is written by one of the leading experts in this field, Eric Linder. If you don't have access to AJP, you can get the arXiv preprint of this paper here. Reading the abstract alone should be sufficient motivation on why anyone would want to keep a copy of this paper.

Abstract: This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on dark energy and the accelerating universe. It is intended to be of use to researchers, teachers, and students at several levels. Journal articles, books, and websites are cited for the following topics: Einstein's cosmological constant, quintessence or dynamical scalar fields, modified cosmic gravity, relations to high energy physics, cosmological probes and observations, terrestrial probes, calculational tools and parameter estimation, teaching strategies and educational resources, and the fate of the universe.

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[1] E. Linder, Am. J. Phys. v.76, p.197 (2008).

Shortchanging Science

This is an editorial in a Toledo newspaper that essentially echoes what have been said of the budget disaster that has befallen science funding.

LAMENTS in the scientific community about hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding cuts for research highlight yet another example of government saying one thing and doing another.
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But for now, scientists rightfully feel betrayed over the ditching of the government pledge to boost funding for research, and they worry what will befall their most talented colleagues as government investment in their projects wanes. In Congress, Rep. Judy Biggert of Illinois predicts a sure brain drain among scientists if government continues to deliver only nominal support.

I think the jokes that are often being made about politicians speaking from both sides of their mouth aren't that funny anymore when it reflects reality.

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American Institute of Physics Announces Awards for Best Science Writing

This is a press release from the AIP announcing the winners of the awards for best science writing. There are some really good science essays here. I would bring your attention to Tim Folger and his award in the Journalist category. The article, published in Discover, is actually quite interesting and provocative. It was based on an interview with Roger Penrose, and of course dealt with one of the most fundamental issues surrounding quantum mechanics. It also contains a description of one of his proposed experiment at detecting the quantum superposition using mirrors, which is currently being tested by Dirk Bouwmeester at UCSD.

The proposal for this experiment was published a while back in PRL, and you can find the arXiv version here.

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Violation of the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics in Systems with Negative Specific Heat

I must admit that I am not that familiar with this topic. I've paid attention to the research surrounding materials with negative index of refraction, or right-handed materials, that have been made recently using metamaterials. However, I have not paid any attention to materials having a negative specific heat.

It appears that such material can be shown to violate the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics, as shown in this preprint that is to be published in PRL. Obviously, systems that exhibit such specific heat are not something one encounters everyday (are these systems even under what we generally consider to be a thermodynamic equilibrium?). Still, it is nice to see how we continue to understand the limits of the principles that we have in physics. At the very least, this paper has a wealth of references to these exotic systems exhibiting such negative specific heat. That alone is enough for me to keep a copy of this paper. :)

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Dark Physics Beats Light Limit

If you haven't read this Physical Review Focus story, you might want to do that. This is an ingenious technique of trying to beat the diffraction limit in optical lithography on electronic chips by using so-called the "dark states". It doesn't use a multiphoton effect, and thus, does not require a high-powered laser.

The photoresist molecules would be activated by coherent population trapping (CPT), a process used in slow light and other atomic experiments. In the simplest case, two lasers drive two transitions from different lower energy states to a common excited state, but due to a quantum interference effect, the molecules are never excited. Instead they evolve into a so-called dark state--a stable combination of the lower states that is unaffected by light. With additional upper and lower states, there may exist more complex dark states that combine several low-energy states and that could be populated using additional lasers tuned to the different transitions. CPT does not require multiphoton absorption, so it can work at relatively low intensities.

This is such a clever scheme. Of course, there's still a long way to go before such a technique can be used in an industrial setting.

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Report Backing Clemens Chooses Its Facts Carefully

So, you didn't think that Roger Clemens and the alleged steroid use from the Mitchell Report would be on a physics blog, did you? Bear with me. This has everything to do with data analysis and statistics, something many of us physicists, especially experimentalists, have to do.

For those who don't know about this (especially those from outside North America or don't follow US baseball), there is a major scancal in the sports of US baseball. The recently released Mitchell report, commissioned by the Major League Baseball association has implicated many high-profile players of using steroids during their professional careers. One of them is Roger Clemens, a well-known baseball pitcher who was well on his way to the baseball Hall of Fame in a few years.

Clemens has vehemently denied such practice. He has gone on the "offensive" of trying to produce "evidence" for his innocence. One of the things he (more likely, his defense team) has done is to produce a set of statistics showing that his performance late in his career (during the period that he was accused of using human growth hormone) is not unusual. So his camp actually tried to produce some quantitative analysis to proclaim his innocence.

This is fine and dandy. Unfortunately, his "data analysis" is being disputed by no less than three Ivy League academicians. Three professors from the University of Pennsylvania has challenged the validity of the analysis and wrote an article in the New York Times to rebutt the conclusion from Clemens statistics. The most damaging conclusion they gather out of a more thorough analysis of the statistics was this statement:

Other measures suggest Clemens performed similarly to his contemporaries. But these comparisons do not provide evidence of his innocence; they simply fail to provide evidence of his guilt.

Our reading is that the available data on Clemens’s career strongly hint that some unusual factors may have been at play in producing his excellent late-career statistics.

In other words, if the Clemens camp was hoping that the statistics show his innocence, they are wrong. It certainly doesn't show that he has used any performance enhancing drugs, but it certainly also can't be used as evidence for his innocence like they had hoped.

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Profile of Harry Lipkin

This is an interesting profile of theorist Harry Lipkin. While many of his colleagues certainly know him due to his body of work, many others certainly know of him due to his highly provocative essay in Physics Today several years ago titled "Who Ordered Theorists?" In it, he argued that many of the discoveries and amazing advances in elementary particle physics (and possibly physics in general) have not be due to theorists, and in fact, might have been hindered by them.

Of course, being an experimentalist, I'm not going to argue with that. Still, it brought out a lot of "heated" discussion and rebuttals after the letter was published. Still, I can say with definite certainty that many of the emergent phenomena in condensed matter, for example, such as superconductivity and fractional quantum hall effect, were never predicted by theory. The experimental discovery of the phenomena inevitably always came first.

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More Bad Physics - Part 2

Again, this is possibly nitpicking. But really, something this elementary should not be done incorrectly. You have read previously how someone mistaken energy as mass*velocity. We have another one of the same degree.

I think this is nothing more than an advertisement, which makes it worse since it shows that whoever is peddling this doesn't know much about what he/she is talking about. There are two very strange physics in here and they both occur in the same paragraph.

Being Able to slam dunk is almost as much in the mind than it is in the legs but in the end it comes down to one thing – power. In physics power is strength x speed. Strength is the amount of energy that your legs can push up with and speed is how long it takes to push out the strength.

Close, but no cigar.

In physics, Power = Energy/time, or Force*speed. And "speed" isn't "how long it takes to push something", which is really a quantity of time, not speed. It is really the time rate to move something.

Again, this is basic, intro physics that first year college kids, or even high school kids, would have come across. The terms "power", "energy", and "speed" are very well-defined at this level. One simply can't just mix things up as one pleases. So for this person to invoke "in physics...." and then proceeded to mess things up is really astounding.

I don't know about you, but I certainly won't buy whatever it is that is being peddled here. :)

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