The Sci Tech World

“Not hypothesis driven.” With those words and a fatal grade of “Very Good,” a fellow reviewer on a funding agency panel consigned the proposal we were discussing to the wastebasket. I listened in dismay. Certainly the proposal had hypotheses, though it didn’t have boldface sentences beginning “We hypothesize . . .” as signposts for inattentive readers. Then I remembered the famous words from Isaac Newton’s Principia: Hypotheses non fingo. “I do not frame hypotheses.” If that approach worked for Newton, why do we have such a mania for hypothesis-driven research today? The emphasis on hypothesis-driven research in proposals is strangely embedded in the scientific community, with no obvious origin in funding agencies. The word hypothesis appears nowhere in the NSF guide to writing and reviewing proposals, and only once in the National Institutes of Health proposal guide. Yet grant-writing experts universally stress that proposals should be built around hypotheses and warn that those not w...

Physicists at the world’s leading atom smasher are calling for help. In the next decade, they plan to produce up to 20 times more particle collisions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) than they do now, but current detector systems aren’t fit for the coming deluge. So this week, a group of LHC physicists has teamed up with computer scientists to launch a competition to spur the development of artificial-intelligence techniques that can quickly sort through the debris of these collisions. Researchers hope these will help the experiment’s ultimate goal of revealing fundamental insights into the laws of nature. At the LHC at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, two bunches of protons collide head-on inside each of the machine’s detectors 40 million times a second. Every proton collision can produce thousands of new particles, which radiate from a collision point at the centre of each cathedral-sized detector. Millions of silicon sensors are arranged in onion-like layers...

Black holes are the source of a major quandary when it comes to our understanding of physics; either they can destroy information, which contradicts what we know about quantum mechanics, or they seemingly disregard Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, it’s now thought by some that the many worlds interpretation might help explain the situation. It suggests that each one of the multiple possible outcomes of a quantum event splinters off into its own discrete world. Now, a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology led by Sean Carroll has suggested that this interpretation can explain away inconsistencies pertaining to black holes. They say that general relativity is upheld within each single possible world, while information is preserved across the entire global wave function, if not among individual branches. MANY WORLDS Aidan Chatwin-Davies, a member of Carroll’s team, told Futurism that other scientists have already suggested applying the many worlds theory, a...

Richard Feynman was a curious character. He advertised as much in the subtitle of his autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character. Everybody knew that, in many respects, Feynman was an oddball. But he was curious in every other sense of the word as well. His curiosity about nature, about how the world works, led to a Nobel Prize in physics and a legendary reputation, both among physicists and the public at large. Feynman was born 100 years ago May 11. It’s an anniversary inspiring much celebration in the physics world. Feynman was one of the last great physicist celebrities, universally acknowledged as a genius who stood out even from other geniuses. In 1997 I interviewed Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, a Cornell University physicist who worked with Feynman during World War II on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos (and later on the Cornell faculty). “Normal” geniuses, Bethe said, did things much better than other people but you could figure out ho...

Leonard Susskind also known as “the bad boy of physics”- due to his own struggle of childhood rebellion and his history of disagreements with Stephen Hawking and several others- has ability for writing books that anybody can easily understand without needing any kind of degree in physics. “Classical Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum”, his last book, was a bestseller in the United States. Leonard Susskind teaches everything required to gain a basic understanding of modern physics. It was at Erhard’s residence in San Francisco in 1981 that Leonard Susskind and Stephen Hawking started their now notorious Black Hole War, which also turn out to be the title of Susskind’s subsequent book. Stephen Hawking made the spectacular claim that material which gets pulled into a black hole vanishes forever. If right, it would mean that the basic laws of the universe would have to be entirely rewritten. But from the point of view of a quantum theorist, like Leonard Susskind, this was somewhat impossib...

Characteristics of mysterious time crystals have been found in the most unexpected place you'd ever think to look - a compound found in fertiliser and those crystal-growing kits you can buy for kids. That compound is monoammonium phosphate (MAP), and the physicists from Yale who made the discovery are now scratching their heads, because this raises questions about how time crystals even form in the first place. In normal crystals, the atoms are arranged in a fixed grid structure, like the atomic lattice of a diamond or quartz crystal. These repeating lattices can differ in configuration, but they don't move around very much - they only repeat spatially, but not in time. Time crystals are different, though. First theorised only in 2012, and identified in 2016, they have some pretty bizarre properties. To the naked eye, they look like ordinary crystals. But their atoms are actually oscillating - spinning first in one direction, and then the other, when exposed to an electromagnet...

For months, physicists have been silently freaking out over tantalising proof of a brand new atom lying outside the normal model of physics. First seen as a 'blip' in Large Hadron Collider data, the hunt is now on to corroborate its existence, which experts say would be "larger than the [discovery of the] Higgs boson". And physicists have presently made the case that another latest particle could be waiting to be discovered, by showing that the survival of a mysterious latest particle, which they're calling 'particle X', could explain a important conundrum in physics: where the heck all the absent lithium in the Universe went to. If you haven't heard about the container of the missing cosmic lithium, don't worry, we weren't across it either. But it turns out that scientists have intended all the lithium that should have shaped in the early Universe, and it's about three times more lithium than we watch today. For additional than a decade th...

Physicists have move toward up with a latest way to predict what lies past the happening horizon of a black hole, and it could give us an extra precise idea of their mysterious center structures. Thanks to the first - and at present second - direct observation of gravitational waves emanating from what scientists think are black hole mergers, we’re breach to get our 1st real data that black holes do actually exist in reality, not currently theory. But even if we can show they in truth do physically exist, there’s no in receipt of around the fact that, thanks to their top gravitational pull, black holes swallow up amazing that falls beyond their event horizon. Not immobile light can escape the pull of a black hole, and that profits no instrument on Earth, no matter how sophisticated, can visualise what precisely is exit on in there. Wormholes? Singularity? All the pens? (Please let it be wormholes.) Study black holes is on the whole like liability science backwards. Usually you’ll obser...

the astoundingly complex LHC “atom smasher” at the CERN center in Geneva, Switzerland, will be fired up to its maximum energy levels ever in an attempt to spot - or even generate - tiny black holes. If successful a totally new universe will be exposed – modifying completely not only the physics books but the philosophy books too. It is even probable that gravity from our own universe may “transfer” into this parallel universe, researchers at the LHC say. The experiment is assured to intensify alarmist critics of the LHC, many of whom at first warned the high energy particle collider would start the end of our universe with the making a black hole of its own. But so far Geneva stays intact and securely outside the event horizon. No doubt the LHC has been outstandingly successful. First researchers proved the existence of the mysterious Higgs boson “God particle” - a key building block of the cosmos - and it is seemingly well on the way to revealing ‘dark matter’ - a previously untraceab...

By all measures, graphene shouldn’t exist. The fact it does comes down to a neat loophole in physics that sees an impossible 2D sheet of atoms act like a solid 3D material. New research has delved into graphene’s rippling, discovering a physical phenomenon on an atomic scale that could be exploited as a way to produce a virtually limitless supply of clean energy. The team of physicists led by researchers from the University of Arkansas didn’t set out to discover a radical new way to power electronic devices. Their aim was far more humble – to simply watch how graphene shakes. We’re all familiar with the gritty black carbon-based material called graphite, which is commonly combined with a ceramic material to make the so-called ‘lead’ in pencils. What we see as smears left by the pencil are actually stacked sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a ‘chicken wire’ pattern. Since these sheets aren’t bonded together, they slide easily over one another. For years scientists wondered if it was pos...

Nearly 50 years after it was first theorized, physicists claim that they’ve finally proven the very existence of a new form of matter. This new form is known as ‘excitonium.’ Excitonium is made up of particles known as excitons, which are made from an escaped electron and the hole it left behind. In the new experiments, the researchers say they were successfully able to observe the material and the precursor phase, which is said to be the ‘smoking gun’ proof of its very existence. When an electron gets into the excited state and ‘jumps’, it leaves behind a hole. And, this hole can behave as though it were a single particle itself, with a positive charge. As it has a positive charge, the hole attracts the electron, pairing them to form a composite particle, or boson, known as an exciton. In the new experiments, the researchers studied non-doped crystals of the transition metal dichalcogenide titanium diselenide (1T-TiSe2). According to the team from the University Of Illinois College Of...

Stephen Hawking was the first to propose that not everything that comes in contact with a black hole succumbs to its immense gravity and inevitable nothingness. In fact, tiny particles of light, known as photons, are sometimes ejected back out of the black hole, robbing it of energy. This gradual loss of mass over time means that every black hole eventually evaporates out of existence. The energy of these tiny particles that escape from black holes, known as Hawking radiation, has answered a lot of questions about how these mysterious phenomena actually work. However, because this radiation is so delicate, it is impossible to detect it from thousands of light-years away. So far, no one has actually been able to prove it exists. Jeff Steinhauer, professor of physics at the Technion university in Haifa, believes he has got around this problem by creating a laboratory-sized “black hole” made out of sound, and watching particles steal energy from its fringes. In a paper posted on the physi...

Scientists from the University of Queensland have used photons (single particles of light) to simulate quantum particles traveling through time. The research is cutting edge and the results could be dramatic! Their research, entitled “Experimental simulation of closed time-like curves “, is published in the latest issue of NatureCommunications. The grandfather paradox states that if a time traveler were to go back in time, he could accidentally prevent his grandparents from meeting, and thus prevent his own birth. However, if he had never been born, he could never have traveled back in time, in the first place. The paradoxes are largely caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the solution to it, the Gödel metric. How relativity works Einstein’s theory of relativity is made up of two parts – general relativity and special relativity. Special relativity posits that space and time are aspects of the same thing, known as the space-time continuum, and that time can slow down or speed...

They're called "laws" for a reason. You aren't supposed to break the rules that make the universe work. So when researchers from the University of Glasglow found what appeared to be a basic contradiction in Einstein's (and Galileo's) physics, they got worried. And then they got to work fixing it. A pretty important one, as it turns out. Here's what was happening. The paper by Matthias Sonnleitner, Nils Trautmann, and Stephen M. Barnett described how they'd observed that when atoms in motion emitted small bursts of light, they sometimes generated a new, friction-esque force. When identical (but stationary) atoms were induced to spit out light beams, there was no corresponding force. It might not seem like a big deal, but physics relies on the basic assumption that the rules of the universe are consistent — they're not supposed to change just because you're moving. To get to the bottom of the mystery, the same team first set out to identify where...

While scientists are still in heated debates about what exactly consciousness is, the University of Arizona’s Stuart Hameroff and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose conclude that it is information stored at a quantum level. Penrose agrees --he and his team have found evidence that "protein-based microtubules—a structural component of human cells—carry quantum information— information stored at a sub-atomic level.” Penrose argues that if a person temporarily dies, this quantum information is released from the microtubules and into the universe. However, if they are resuscitated the quantum information is channeled back into the microtubules and that is what sparks a near death experience. “If they’re not revived, and the patient dies, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul. Researchers from the renowned Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich are in agreement with Penrose that the physical universe that we live in...

Have you always had a burning desire to travel through time? Good news! You are already doing it. You are moving through time at quite the speed, even if you’re sitting comfortably at home on your sofa. There’s only one issue, you can only move in one direction. The more pressing question is can we travel towards the past? As far as we know, no. There is no known mechanism that allows us to physically transmit matter or information from the present into the past. Time travel requires going faster than the speed of light and we haven’t found a hint that it’s possible. It is highly unlikely that traveling to any arbitrary point in space-time can actually happen. This could be an accurate if somewhat disappointing “case closed” on the question, but there are two reasons why it is important to chat about time travel. Number one, time travel would be great and I totally want to do it. Number two, it is good to challenge one of the biggest unknowns in physics: time. What is time? We don’t kn...

Here Is How Quantum Entanglement Proves Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics An aura of glamorous mystery attaches to the concept of quantum entanglement, and also to the (somehow) related claim that quantum theory requires “many worlds.” Yet in the end those are, or should be, scientific ideas, with down-to-earth meanings and concrete implications. Here I’d like to explain the concepts of entanglement and many worlds as simply and clearly as I know how. I.Entanglement is often regarded as a uniquely quantum-mechanical phenomenon, but it is not. In fact, it is enlightening, though somewhat unconventional, to consider a simple non-quantum (or “classical”) version of entanglement first. This enables us to pry the subtlety of entanglement itself apart from the general oddity of quantum theory. Entanglement arises in situations where we have partial knowledge of the state of two systems. For example, our systems can be two objects that we’ll call c-ons. The “c” is meant to sugge...

Renowned cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking passed away in the early hours of March 14, news that has saddened us all. His scientific output was truly incredible and his work in engaging the wider public in the complexities of the universe will continue to inspire. His most famous formula, describing the entropy of a black hole, might even adorn his tombstone. Image result for The black hole entropy formula He declared his wishes for this in 2002, during a workshop on the future of theoretical physics and cosmology held to mark his 60th birthday. The formula is the centerpiece of our understanding of black holes and a crowning achievement for Hawking, who worked on it with his colleague Jacob Bekenstein. It connects important thermodynamical quantities such as entropy, represented by the capital S, to physical properties of the black hole, namely its area, A. The remaining letters are constants of the universe; k is the Boltzmann constant, c is the speed of light, h-bar is the reduc...

All human blood types contain and are categorized by amounts of protein—except type RH negative, that is.Is it possible that human beings possessing the latter blood type are actually from Mars,Venus, or elsewhere in the universe? Well, since the known laws of physics breakdown past the horizons of black holes, truly anything ispossible. But is it likely that RHnegative blood has unearthly origins? Only 15% of human beingshave this strange type of blood, and what’s more, these individuals have been described as having strange personal characteristics as well. Oddly enough, RH negative blood can be utilized by any human being in need of a transfusion, but people with RH negative naturally coursing through their veins cannot make use of any other type ofblood at all. Furthermore, the vast majority of these latter individuals happen to reside in northern Europe.Even more fascinating are the facts that these people tend to have green or blue eyes, naturally orange coloured hair, cool body ...

Thanks to high school, we've all got a pretty good idea about what's on the periodic table. But whether you're looking at something common like calcium, iron, and carbon, or something more obscure like krypton and antimony, how well do you know their functions? Could you name just one practical application for vanadium or ruthenium? Lucky for us, Keith Enevoldsen from elements.wlonk.com has come up with this awesome periodic table that gives you at least one example for every single element (except for those weird superheavy elements that don't actually exist in nature). There's thulium for laser eye surgery, cerium for lighter flints, and krypton for flashlights. You've got strontium for fireworks, and xenon for high-intensity lamps inside lighthouses. Oh and that very patriotic element, americium? We use that in smoke detectors. First unveiled in 1945 during the Manhattan Project, americium is produced by bombarding plutonium with neutrons in a nuclear reactor...