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Archive for the ‘physics’ category: Page 186

May 1, 2019

Astronomers Discover ‘Extraordinary’ Black Hole That Is Warping Space-Time

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Nearly 8,000 light-years away from Earth, astronomers have discovered a black hole that keeps rapidly swinging out jets of plasma clouds into space, according to a new study.

The black hole, known as V404 Cygni, doesn’t behave like others. The jets shoot out possibly within minutes of each other and in all different directions. And while the researchers admit that black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the universe, this one is different.

“This is one of the most extraordinary black hole systems I’ve ever come across,” study author James Miller-Jones said in a statement. Miller-Jones is also an associate professor at Curtin University’s International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.

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Apr 30, 2019

Cold Fusion 25 Years Later

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, physics

Scientists discover source of clean, unlimited energy! In March 1989, the news rocked the world. Two respected chemists from the University of Utah: Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, told a receptive media they had solved the biggest physics problem of the atomic age. Their compelling claims of room-temperature nuclear fusion in a jar were cast as the solution to the world’s colliding environmental and energy crises.

The meltdown hit just weeks later when the claim was nuked by mainstream scientists who couldn’t reproduce their results and were unsatisfied with the team’s explanations. The cold fusion field has been on ice ever since. Whether considered a scandal, a screw-up, or a scientific character assassination by hot fusion advocates, the cold fusion episode is a case study for those who caution against the “science of wishful thinking.”

On the 25th anniversary of the rise and fall of cold fusion, its close cousin, low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) science, is still on the fringe but simmering anew. Here’s a look back and a look ahead at a field that always gets a reaction.

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Apr 30, 2019

How Twisted Graphene Became the Big Thing in Physics

Posted by in categories: materials, physics

The stunning emergence of a new type of superconductivity with the mere twist of a carbon sheet has left physicists giddy, and its discoverer nearly overwhelmed.

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Apr 29, 2019

Astronomers Spot Distant Black Hole Spinning So Fast That It Warps Space-Time

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Last observed in 2015, the black hole is spewing out ‘wobbly’ plasma jets that move so fast they change orientation within minutes.

Some 8,000 light-years from Earth in the Cygnus constellation (“The Swan”), a small black hole weighing just nine times the mass of Earth’s sun is gobbling up a sun-like star. The black hole and its stellar victim are locked together in what astronomers call a binary system and orbit each other once every 6.5 days – with spectacular effects, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is reporting.

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Apr 28, 2019

North Korea’s 2017 bomb test set off later earthquakes, new analysis finds

Posted by in categories: existential risks, military, physics

Using newly refined analysis methods, scientists have discovered that a North Korean nuclear bomb test last fall set off aftershocks over a period of eight months. The shocks, which occurred on a previously unmapped nearby fault, are a window into both the physics of nuclear explosions, and how natural earthquakes can be triggered. The findings are described in two papers just published online in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

The September 3, 2017 underground test was North Korea’s sixth, and by far largest yet, yielding some 250 kilotons, or about 17 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Many experts believe the device was a hydrogen bomb—if true, a significant advance from cruder atomic devices the regime previously exploded. The explosion itself produced a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. This was followed 8.5 minutes later by a magnitude 4 quake, apparently created when an area above the test site on the country’s Mt. Mantap collapsed into an underground cavity occupied by the bomb.

The test and collapse were picked up by seismometers around the world and widely reported at the time. But later, without fanfare, seismic stations run by China, South Korea and the United States picked up 10 smaller shocks, all apparently scattered within 5 or 10 kilometers around the test site. The first two came on Sept. 23, 2017; the most recent was April 22, 2018. Scientists assumed the bomb had shaken up the earth, and it was taking a while to settle back down. “It’s not likely that there would be so many events in that small area over a small period of time,” said the lead author of one of the studies, Won-Young Kim, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “These are probably triggered due to the explosion.”

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Apr 27, 2019

Say Hello To Neutron Stars, Your Worst Nightmare

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Yes, black holes get all of the attention. They’re mysterious, they lurk in the shows of interstellar space, they break the laws of known physics, they can trap you forever, they have a cool-sounding and easy-to-understand name. They’ve got great branding.

But some things are even weirder and scarier than black holes. And what makes them weirder and scarier is that they’re weird and scary within the known laws of physics. Which means we understand them. Which means we can explain, in great and gruesome detail, just how awful they are.

Take, for example, the neutron star.

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Apr 27, 2019

Physicists create Star Trek-style holograms

Posted by in categories: holograms, physics, virtual reality

Star Trek’s famous holodeck is a virtual reality stage that simulates any object in 3D as if they were real. However, 3D holographic projection has never been realized. A team of scientists from Bilkent University, Turkey, has now demonstrated the first realistic 3D holograms that can be viewed from any angle.

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Apr 25, 2019

New Hubble Measurements Confirm Universe Is Expanding at a Faster Rate

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

New measurements from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirm that the universe is expanding roughly 9 percent faster than expected based on its trajectory observed shortly after the Big Bang, according to a new study.

The Hubble Space Telescope measurements, which were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Thursday, minimize the chances that the disparity is an accident from 1 in 3,000 to only 1 in 100,000 and suggest new physics might be needed to better comprehend the cosmos, said a Johns Hopkins University press release.

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Apr 23, 2019

Falsifiability and physics

Posted by in category: physics

Can a theory that isn’t completely testable still be useful to physics?

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Apr 23, 2019

The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology — A New Book That Makes You Question The Nature of Reality but Provides You with Surprising Answers | Press Release

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, neuroscience, physics

Ecstadelic Media Group releases a new non-fiction book The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology by Alex M. Vikoulov as a Kindle ebook (Press Release, San Francisco, CA, USA, April 22, 2019 01.00 PM PST)

The Science and Philosophy of Information book series is adapted for general audience and based on the previously published grand volume titled The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution” by digital philosopher Alex Vikoulov on the ultimate nature of reality, consciousness, the physics of time, and philosophy of mind. In this book one of the series, the author addresses some of the most flaming questions in science and philosophy: Where do we come from? What are the origins of us? What is our role in the grand scheme of things?

# 1 Hot New Release” in Amazon charts in Cosmology and Evolution, the book starts with a story that happened almost exactly 400 years ago that has had a tremendous “butterfly” effect on us modern humans.

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