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Archive for the ‘physics’ category: Page 182

Jun 19, 2019

Special nanotubes could improve solar power and imaging technology

Posted by in categories: computing, nanotechnology, physics, solar power, space, sustainability

Physicists have discovered a novel kind of nanotube that generates current in the presence of light. Devices such as optical sensors and infrared imaging chips are likely applications, which could be useful in fields such as automated transport and astronomy. In future, if the effect can be magnified and the technology scaled up, it could lead to high-efficiency solar power devices.

Jun 18, 2019

Engineers boost output of solar desalination system

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, physics, sustainability

Rice University’s solar-powered approach for purifying salt water with sunlight and nanoparticles is even more efficient than its creators first believed.

Researchers in Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) this week showed they could boost the efficiency of their solar-powered desalination system by more than 50% simply by adding inexpensive plastic lenses to concentrate sunlight into “hot spots.” The results are available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Jun 18, 2019

Breaks in the Perfect Symmetry of the Universe Could Be a Window Into Completely New Physics

Posted by in categories: physics, space

If this fundamental symmetry of the universe doesn’t hold, it could break open.

Jun 18, 2019

Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

Posted by in categories: computing, physics

The trilogy’s success has been credited with establishing sci-fi, once marginalized in China, as a mainstream taste. Liu believes that this trend signals a deeper shift in the Chinese mind-set—that technological advances have spurred a new excitement about the possibilities of cosmic exploration. The trilogy commands a huge following among aerospace engineers and cosmologists; one scientist wrote an explanatory guide, “The Physics of Three Body.” Some years ago, China’s aerospace agency asked Liu, whose first career was as a computer engineer in the hydropower industry, to address technicians and engineers about ways that “sci-fi thinking” could be harnessed to produce more imaginative approaches to scientific problems.


A leading sci-fi writer takes stock of China’s global rise.

Jun 14, 2019

Next Month’s Total Solar Eclipse Will Pass Right Over a Space Observatory

Posted by in categories: physics, space

Next month, a total solar eclipse will pass over a slice of the South Pacific, Chile, and Argentina—and directly over an observatory in the Andes run by the National Science Foundation.

Astronomers and physicists are now preparing the experiments they plan to run during the eclipse. As with past eclipses, these experiments will focus on observing the Sun, as well as the effects of eclipses on Earth.

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Jun 13, 2019

The illusion of time

Posted by in category: physics

Andrew Jaffe probes Carlo Rovelli’s study arguing that physics deconstructs our sense of time.

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Jun 11, 2019

The Present Phase of Stagnation in the Foundations of Physics Is Not Normal

Posted by in category: physics

The problem is loads of wrong predictions from theoretical physicists. Photograph by Inga Nielsen / ShutterstockNothing is moving in…

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Jun 10, 2019

How To Build A Real Lightsaber

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, weapons

As even casual Star Wars fans will know, lightsabers are probably the coolest weapon ever to make an appearance on the big screen. Lightsaber fights are so elegant that they are almost hypnotic and, even though not all of us might have a strong enough flow of Force running through our veins, a lightsaber in the right hand is by far the deadliest weapon to be found in the universe.

The idea behind a lightsaber is simple genius: a light-weight and immensely powerful tool that uses a blade of energy to not only slice up disciples of the Dark Side in a single blow but also act as an effective shield against laser blasts. So why don’t we have working lightsabers in real life? Surely physicists must be smart enough (and big enough Star Wars fans) to be able to produce one of these incredible objects.

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Jun 8, 2019

Priority to US09/443,527

Posted by in categories: computing, physics

A gravitational wave generating device comprising an energizing means such as magnetrons, which act upon energizable elements such as film bulk acoustic resonators or FBARs. A computer that controls the magnetrons’ phase. A gravitational wave generation device that exhibits directivity and forms a gravitational-wave beam. The utilization of a medium in which the gravitational wave speed is reduced in order to effect refraction of the gravitational wave and be a gravitational wave lens. A gravitational wave generator device that can be directed in order to propel an object by its momentum or by changing the gravitational field nearby the object to urge it in a preferred direction and be a propulsion means.

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Jun 7, 2019

The Elusive Theory of Everything

Posted by in category: physics

Physicists have long sought to find one final theory that would unify all of physics. Instead they may have to settle for several.

  • By Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow on October 1, 2010

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