Physicists say the third run will collect more data than the previous two combined.
Category: physics – Page 161
For decades, we’ve dreamed of visiting other star systems. There’s just one problem – they’re so far away, with conventional spaceflight it would take tens of thousands of years to reach even the closest one.
Physicists are not the kind of people who give up easily, though. Give them an impossible dream, and they’ll give you an incredible, hypothetical way of making it a reality. Maybe.
In a 2021 study by physicist Erik Lentz from Göttingen University in Germany, we may have a viable solution to the dilemma, and it’s one that could turn out to be more feasible than other would-be warp drives.
Stochastic thermodynamics is an emerging area of physics aimed at better understanding and interpreting thermodynamic concepts away from equilibrium. Over the past few years, findings in these fields have revolutionized the general understanding of different thermodynamic processes operating in finite time.
Adam Frim and Mike DeWeese, two researchers at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), have recently carried out a theoretical study exploring the full space of thermodynamic cycles with a continuously changing bath temperature. Their results, presented in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, were obtained using geometric methods. Thermodynamic geometry is an approach to understanding the response of thermodynamic systems by means of studying the geometric space of control.
“For instance, for a gas in a piston, one coordinate in this space of control could correspond to the experimentally controlled volume of the gas and another to the temperature,” DeWeese told Phys.org. “If an experimentalist were to turn those knobs, that plots out some trajectory in this thermodynamic space. What thermodynamic geometry does is assign to each curve a ‘thermodynamic length’ corresponding to the minimum possible dissipated energy of a given path.”
How to Make the Universe Think for Us
Posted in physics, robotics/AI, space
Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.
Time loops may not be forbidden
Posted in physics
Physicists find that causal loops, where two events separated in time influence each other in paradoxical ways, are allowed in many theoretical universes, some of which share features with our own.
Large language models are widely adopted in a range of natural language tasks, such as question-answering, common sense reasoning, and summarization. These models, however, have had difficulty with tasks requiring quantitative reasoning, such as resolving issues in mathematics, physics, and engineering.
Researchers find quantitative reasoning an intriguing application for language models as they put language models to the test in various ways. The ability to accurately parse a query with normal language and mathematical notation, remember pertinent formulas and constants and produce step-by-step answers requiring numerical computations and symbolic manipulation are necessary for solving mathematical and scientific problems. Therefore, scientists have believed that machine learning models will require significant improvements in model architecture and training methods to solve such reasoning problems.
A new Google research introduces Minerva, a language model that uses sequential reasoning to answer mathematical and scientific problems. Minerva resolves such problems by providing solutions incorporating numerical computations and symbolic manipulation.
On Tuesday, July 5, space physics and human studies dominated the science agenda aboard the International Space Station. The Expedition 67 crew also reconfigured a US airlock and put a new 3D printer through its paces.
The lack of gravity in space impacts a wide range of physics revealing new phenomena that researchers are studying to improve life for humans on and off the Earth. One such project uses artificial intelligence to adapt complicated glass manufacturing processes in microgravity with the goal of benefitting numerous Earth-and space-based industries. On Tuesday afternoon, NASA
Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” Its core values are “safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.”
The Large Hadron Collider detectors started recording high-energy collisions at the unprecedented energy of 13.6 TeV.
The Large Hadron Collider is once again delivering proton collisions to experiments, this time at an unprecedented energy of 13.6 TeV, marking the start of the accelerator’s third run of data taking for physics.
A burst of applause erupted in the CERN.
A lot of heat gets lost during the conversion of energy. Estimates even put it at more than 70%. However, in thermoelectric materials, such as those being studied at the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Wien, heat can be converted directly into electrical energy. This effect (the Seebeck effect) can be used in numerous applications in industry but also in everyday life.
Recently, Ernst Bauer’s research team made an exciting discovery in a thermoelectric material consisting of iron, vanadium and aluminum (Fe2VAl). The researchers recently published their results in Nature Communications.