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Blog – Page 719

I have been thinking for a while about the mathematics used to formulate our physical theories, especially the similarities and differences among different mathematical formulations. This was a focus of my 2021 book, Physics, Structure, and Reality, where I discussed these things in the context of classical and spacetime physics.

Recently this has led me toward thinking about mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics, where an interesting question arises concerning the use of complex numbers. (I recently secured a grant from the National Science Foundation for a project investigating this.)

It is frequently said by physicists that complex numbers are essential to formulating quantum mechanics, and that this is different from the situation in classical physics, where complex numbers appear as a useful but ultimately dispensable calculational tool. It is not often said why, or in what way, complex numbers are supposed to be essential to quantum mechanics as opposed to classical physics.

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An international team of physicists has devised a method to test alternatives to standard quantum theory, proposing a possible explanation for why quantum effects don’t appear in larger objects like cats.

Their findings explore why objects only display quantum properties at microscopic levels, involving sophisticated experiments with spontaneous radiation that could validate these new models.

Exploring Quantum Paradoxes

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — A new exhibit at the Texas Science and Natural History Museum is bringing the McDonald Observatory to the University of Texas campus.

The “Big Eye on Dark Skies” exhibit opened this week on the third floor of the museum, bringing with it a scale model of one of the world’s most powerful telescopes.

The Hobby-Eberly telescope is powered by a 10-meter wide mirror, capable of collecting light from 11 billion years ago. The mirror in the model, 7% the size of the real one, collects light from canned bulbs hanging from a darkened ceiling.

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marking a critical milestone in ULA’s path toward certifying the Vulcan Centaur for national security missions with the U.S. Space Force.

The Vulcan VC2S rocket is set to launch the Cert-2 mission from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, during a launch window on Friday, October 4, 2024, between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. EDT.

This mission includes an inert payload and key technology demonstrations for the Centaur V upper stage.

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As technology advances, Big Data will play an increasingly important role in protecting Earth from asteroids. By harnessing the power of data analytics, AI, and machine learning, scientists can monitor and predict asteroid movements with greater accuracy than ever before. This enables us to develop early warning systems and potentially deflect asteroids before they can cause harm. Aspiring data scientists interested in contributing to such significant fields can gain the necessary skills by enrolling in a data science course in Chennai, where they can learn to utilize these advanced tools and techniques.

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How will climate change alter winter weather in the future? This is what a recent study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the long-term effects of climate change on winter weather precipitation, or wetness. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, policymakers, and the public understand the long-term consequences of global climate change and the steps that can be taken to mitigate it.

For the study, the researchers used computer models to compare precipitation levels between 1985 and 2014 and compared these to model-predicted data spanning from 2070 to 2099 across seven subregions across the United States. In the end, the researchers estimate an increase between 2 to 5 percent of precipitation for every degree increase before the end of the century, noting this increase will hit the Northwest and Northeast regions of the United States the hardest.

“We found that, unlike summer and other seasons where projected changes in precipitation is highly uncertain, there will be a robust future intensification of winter precipitation,” said Dr. Akintomide Akinsanola, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago and lead author of the study. “It will accelerate well past what we have seen in historic data.”

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