Fine Structure

I win! I win!

2009-07-04T20:07:56Z

Hooray for winning! I recently won 1/4th of a contest over at Uncertain Principles regarding the as-yet-unreleased How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. This may result in getting my hands on an early proof of the book and a subsequent early review on this site.

Winning is great!

FACET and the Amazing Shrinking Accelerator

2009-07-03T17:59:00Z

SLAC, Stanford's own linear accelerator, is undergoing serious modifications to start up their new LCLS equipment soon but apparently they have another much more revolutionary idea up their sleeves.

FACET is a proposed linear accelerator which uses plasma wakefield acceleration to achieve the same speeds that traditional magnet accelerators reach, but in a tenth of the length. It's great to see this kind of technology, which we've talked about before, finally start getting out of the lab and into the planning process.

[ http://today.slac.stanford.edu/feature/2009/arra2-facet.asp ]

Sixty Science Symbols

2009-07-03T16:34:56Z

Sixty Symbols is a University of Nottingham site that aims to explain sixty different scientific icons to the world through videos with Nottingham scientists. The interpretation of "scientific icons" is fairly liberal and spans α (the fine structure constant, naturally) and h (planck's constant) through other staples like Schrodinger's cat and the drinky bird. They're 13 symbols short of completing the full 60, and you can keep up by watching their twitter account.

[ http://www.sixtysymbols.com/ ]

Disagreements for the Omega-sub-b

2009-06-30T17:52:34Z

The two major experimental detectors at Fermilab's tevatron, DZero and CDF, have analyzed recent data and determined that the Ω_b particle is appearing as predicted by the standard model.

Okay. A particle shows up as predicted. Not so exciting, right? Not quite.

DZero and CDF show that the particle exists by determining a certain mass that the new Ω_b particle can have. Except DZero and CDF disagree on this mass, and the predicted mass of each experiment is outside the error range for the other experiment. Someone is wrong, and it could be one or both experiments.

[ http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/06/29/fermilabs-cdf-observes-omega-sub-b-baryon/ ]

Breaking Car Windows With Soft Drinks

2009-06-29T17:41:28Z

I enjoy this kind of stuff way too much. The interactions between science and the mass populace continue to be fueled by interesting questions such as "Can you break a car window with a styrofoam cup filled with soda?". Of course you can if you propel the cup (or car) fast enough, so there are some constraints added, maths figured, conclusions drawn and other effects discussed. This is just like a lab report, but on TV.

Along the lines of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, I think we need a list of physicists willing to do a really solid rundown of the physics of news stories. Diandra should clearly be on the list.

[ http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2009/06/dialascientist.html ]

Earth Work Starts on the NOvA Experiement

2009-06-26T17:29:23Z

The NOvA detector, a neutrino detector placed 50 feet underground near the US-Canada border in Ash River, MN, is slowly ramping up. Crews have started clearing away the location where the facilities and detector will be located, and soon they'll start blasting their way down to the depth that will eventually allow the detector to operate without all the electromagnetic noise that is so prevalent on the surface of the Earth. More about NOvA and it's partner neutrino generator, NuMI, can be found here.

[ http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/06/26/crews-dig-in-at-nova-site/ ]

Moonwalk Physics

2009-06-26T16:40:37Z

Given the recent death of Michael Jackson, it was clear that the blogs were going to revisit all manner of MJ-related esoterica (and that one of those was mostly likely going to be Rhett). Thusly, Dot Physics provides us all with the physics of the moonwalk. It may be the one and only time you see free body diagrams attached to MJ, so get it while it's hot.

[ http://blog.dotphys.net/2009/06/the-physics-of-michael-jacksons-moonwalk/ ]

Nap, Don't Cram, Before Tests

2009-06-25T19:29:21Z

We've heard before that REM sleep is important to solidifying memories and experiences in your brain between days but what if you need to learn something in the morning and then use it the same evening? Jonah Lehrer filters some new research which suggests that mid-day naps which include REM sleep are very effective at bumping your testing results (in word association tests, at least). How much more effective than a pre-nap performance? Try 40%.

I suppose this means that your best bet before a test is not cramming, as usually attempted, but napping. Yet another win for naps.

[ http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/06/naps_learning_and_rem.php ]

Photos of the Experiemental Process

2009-06-25T18:29:02Z

Two Swans on Tea links in one day! Tom takes a look at some old lab photos from his graduate work. I really like the candid look into the process of creating experiments in the lab, mostly the errors and mistakes that are fixed in novel ways. These photos and experiment descriptions have this stuff in spades.

[ http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/2924/ ]

An Illusion of Two Colors

2009-06-25T17:00:37Z

In my mind, Bad Astronomy is the megamart of blogs - a firehose of content, highly impersonal to readers and with slightly more politics than I care to read about. That's not to say that there's no good content, in fact, the content is what makes BA so popular. I am glad that the really neat stuff filters down to me through other blogs though.

Swans on Tea links one of the more fascinating optical illusions I've seen recently, conveniently on Bad Astronomy. Don't trust your eyes!

[ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/ ]

The Most Popular Physicists (by Google)

2009-06-24T19:29:00Z

Ever wondered how Einstein stacks up against Max Planck on the popularity scale? OK, perhaps that's not the best comparison to make. Einstein is clearly the most popular physicist on name recognition alone, but a list of the 9 next most popular physicists might surprise you.

Researchers sifted through Google searches for Nobel Laureates and ranked them according to their results. You can check the original PDF paper for results extending beyond number 10, and be sure to note their "achievement number", quantified with the unit Einsteins. Unfortunately, some scientists were unable to be ranked because of their too-common names. Poor Charles Wilson!

[ http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23754/ ]

Using Your Readers to Search 450 000 Documents

2009-06-24T17:34:38Z

An interesting account of how the Guardian (the London newspaper) was able to sift through ~450 000 (mostly boring) government documents in a couple days using their online readership.

I've always been fascinated by mundane tasks that can be spiced up by adding some game elements to them, and this is right along those lines. Given enough pictures of the night sky, shouldn't we be able to search for wayward asteroids through these means as well?

[ http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the-guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/ ]

Tolkien's Elvish Optics Lesson

2009-06-23T22:13:05Z

I'm a fan of the sort of physics that Rhett deconstructs at Dot Physics. It usually consists of some extraordinary feat claimed by a nutjob or shown on TV and ends with Rhett showing that this feat is / is not possible within the limits of mathematical physics. This brings us to Chad at Uncertain Principles (neither a nutjob nor on TV, sadly) who doesn't do these types of posts very often but when he does they're very interesting and quirky.

Today he's discussing a limiting factor in optics, based on a passage from Tolkien's The Two Towers where Legolas spots some riders on horseback at 5 leagues (approximately 25 000 meters). There's a point that Legolas' eye (based on a normal pupil size) simply cannot resolve any more detail at a distance, regardless of how sensitive his retina might be. I'll let you head over to discover the results yourself.

[ http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2009/06/the_limits_of_elven_vision.php ]

The Steorn 300 Return Empty Handed

2009-06-23T16:49:42Z

Remember six months ago when free energy company Steorn touted their new magnetic torque device that would provide clean, baby-kissing energy to power the Earth? Yeah, I had tucked it back in the recesses of my brain as well.

At the time, they wanted to gather a panel of 300 independent scientists to evaluate their claims and report back on the feasibility. It looks like they got all of 22 scientists to evaluate their device, and they have (thankfully) returned the verdict that the device is not producing energy. Naturally, Steorn is ignoring this not-so-subtle clue and still plans to release their device some time in 2009.

[ http://stjury.ning.com/forum/topics/jury-announcement ]

New Blog + Road Trip + HEP

2009-06-22T17:56:42Z

Here's a road trip I'd love to take: a writer and photographer are making a summer out of visiting sites of past and future high-energy physics research across the US all while keeping track of their visits via their new blog. Their first stop is a restored cyclotron.

[ http://summerofscience.wordpress.com/ ]