Category: particle physics – Page 661
A Material That’s Better Than Graphene? Scientists Say They’ve Found it
What could be better than a material that’s super flexible, only one atom thick, and is 200 times stronger than steel? A material that’s equally strong and flexible, also only one atom thick, and inexpensive.
Scientists are asserting that this new discovery could potentially upstage the world’s greatest wonder material, graphene.
NASA’s IBEX Observations Pin Down Interstellar Magnetic Field
The new paper is based on one particular theory of the origin of the IBEX ribbon, in which the particles streaming in from the ribbon are actually solar material reflected back at us after a long journey to the edges of the sun’s magnetic boundaries. (NASA Image)
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – The new paper is based on one particular theory of the origin of the IBEX ribbon, in which the particles streaming in from the ribbon are actually solar material reflected back at us after a long journey to the edges of the sun’s magnetic boundaries.
A giant bubble, known as the heliosphere, exists around the sun and is filled with what’s called solar wind, the sun’s constant outflow of ionized gas, known as plasma.
Scientists happily surprised to find truffles free of Chernobyl radiation
This will make friends Vladimir and Marina happy.
Mushrooms and game meat in European regions where Chernobyl fallout was most intense still have excess radiation, but Burgundy truffles get the green light; foodies rejoice.
It’s been 30 years since the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine in which a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant unleashed a slew of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Swept along by winds and settled by heavy rains, radioactive particles, especially caesium-137 (137Cs), polluted large stretches of the European continent. And we all know the problem with radioactive things, they’ve got lasting power.
“Much of the continent’s topsoil layers are still radioactively contaminated,” says Ulf Büntgen, Head of the Dendroecology Group at the Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL) and lead author of a new study measuring something dear to a foodie’s heart: the contamination level of Burgundy truffles (Tuber aestivum), like those pictured below.
Upper limit found for quantum world
The quantum world and our world of perception obey different natural laws. Leiden physicists search for the border between both worlds. Now they suggest an upper limit in a study reported in Physical Review Letters.
The laws of the quantum domain do not apply to our everyday lives. We are used to assigning an exact location and time to objects. But fundamental particles can only be described by probability distributions—imagine receiving a traffic ticket for speeding 30 to 250 km/h somewhere between Paris and Berlin, with a probability peak for 140 km/h in Frankfurt.
Boundary
Because the laws are completely different in both worlds, a clear boundary might exist between them. Size and mass could then be used to determine whether an object obeys quantum or macroscopic laws, but the edge of this boundary is elusive. Leiden physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp and his research group have now established established an upper limit for quantum phenomena, closing in on the answer.
Prove the Multiverse or Die Trying
Quantum mechanics is littered with different interpretations, but at the core of the entire school of thought is the question of whether there are multiple universes of not. At the core of this idea is the thought, explicated by quantum mechanics, that everything we observe is simply the collapse of all probable scenarios into one specific outcome. Reality, viewed from that perspective, has a very cluttered cutting room floor. But are the things removed from the reel scraps or alternative narratives? There’s the big question.
To answer that question, we need to dive a bit into the mechanisms of the thing. Quantum mechanics says that all particles in the universe can be represented by what are called “wave functions.” A single wave function basically illustrates all the information about a specific system (i.e. a particle), detailing everything from position to velocity. The wave function itself also outlines all the probable outcomes of that system as well.
In other words, the wave function says what a particle is, and — more importantly — what it might being doing any any given time. It represents all possible futures of that particle.
