Physics Week in Review: February 4, 2017
This week's physics highlights: we aren't living in a hologram, the physics of dinosaurs, and a new explosive method for making buckets of graphene.
I wrote another article for New Scientist this week: World's first time crystals cooked up using new recipe. "It's no longer just a wild theory. Two independent teams of physicists have followed a recipe to build the world's first versions of an enigmatic form of matter - time crystals."
Ultrasound Waves Turn Wine into Something Better - manmade brandy.
Universe neither confirms nor denies its holographic nature. Related: You Aren't Living in a Hologram, Even if You Wish You Were.
Are Wormholes a Dead End for Faster-Than-Light Travel? Probably.
What Was Our Universe Like Before the Big Bang? Feature inspired (in part) by Sean Carroll's talk at the AAS meeting last month. "These are speculative ideas that are just beginning to be taken seriously, but there is hope! I think we can actually figure it out if we keep it up."
Physicists, Lasers, and an Airplane: Taking Aim at Quantum Cryptography
The Physics of Dinosaurs: How fast could Tyrannosaurus run? How hard could Stegosaurus hit?
Galactic X-rays could point to dark matter proof. A small but distinctive signal in X-rays from the Milky Way could be key to proving the existence of dark matter.
A Lucky Lab Accident Results in Bucketloads of Graphene. Kansas State University scientists stumble upon a surprisingly simple method for making industrial graphene: blowing stuff up.
When a water droplet hits a frozen surface, what happens depends significantly on the temperature of the substrate. [Image: V. Thievenaz et al.]
Heisenberg's Astrophysics Prediction Finally Confirmed After 80 Years. Related: Cosmic test backs 'quantum spookiness': Physicists harness starlight to support the case for entanglement.
IceCube Closes in on Mysterious Nature of Neutrinos. The Antarctica-based observatory has found hints of strange patterns in the ghostly particles' masses.
Tabletop Physics May Be About to Find Answers Supercolliders Can't.
Japanese paper arts (kirigami) are inspiring materials scientists with new ways to turn flat sheets into devices.
What Quantum Gravity Needs Is More Experiments. Math won't solve quantum gravity. Experimentation will.
If information really underlies space and time in the real world, every tangible aspect of reality is an "illusion" (in the emergent sense).
Inside the Far-out Glass Lab: A key ingredient in flexible and lightweight devices of the future is taking shape.
Scientists produce electricity by evaporating water from a chunk of soot.
Physicists Call for a Soccer-Field-Sized Quantum Computer.
Just how hard was it to detect gravitational waves from colliding black holes?
Dimpling Makes Golf Balls More Aerodynamic, And It Could Do The Same Thing For Cars.
Scientists have invented paper that you can print with light, erase with heat, and reuse 80 times.
Exploring Cosmic Rays Through the Shadows.
So You Wanna Get Into Physics. Here Are Three Tips and Tricks.
How Geometry Can Help Visualize Spacetime and How Causality, Distance, and Time Are Related.
Watch "Geometry of Circles," the Abstract Sesame Street Animation Scored by Philip Glass (1979).
Ceres' ice volcanoes might have oozed into oblivion. Give time, solid objects can actually flow.
Intergalactic Void Is Pushing The Milky Way Through The Universe.
Cassini Reveals Breathtaking New Views of Saturn's Beautifully Complex Rings.
Taking Stock in the Search for Aliens: "when you put it all together, it's probably time for us to get past what Wright calls 'the giggle factor' when thinking about life - including intelligent life - on other worlds."
The Trouble with the Speed of Light. It's hard to observe the universe when it's constantly moving away from you.
How long until Earth's rotation slows to a 25 hour day?
The Multiverse is an Ancient Idea: we've been debating the notion of infinite worlds for millennia.
Why Theories of Everything Are Ill-Conceived: a Q&A with Carlo Rovelli.
Quantum phase transition observed for the first time.
MIT Develops Transparent Hydrogel Robots Fast and Strong Enough to Capture Live Fish.
Spill-Proof Cups Aren't Magic. They're Physics.
How to Make Eyeglasses From Found Materials: "You'll need limestone, sand, hardwood ash, wood, and a lot of time."
Closest Earth-Size Planet May Get Robot Visitors-Here's How.
Here's Why You Should Build Your Supervillain Lair Inside A Volcano.
Set Theory in the Wild. How a routine trip to the art museum became a meditation on the empty set.
Here is why next-gen nuclear power is proving to be problematic. The West is struggling to build out safer reactors, but China shows no such delays. See also my December 2015 article for Gizmodo: The Outlook for Nuclear Power in the U.S. Really Sucks.
Accelerometers Could Finally Fix the NFL's Concussion Crisis.
"Solid glass or crystal doorknobs ... can literally set your house on fire if hit by direct sunlight."
Supercomputers turn data into art. "Simulations help astrophysicists understand and model the turbulent mixing of star gases. This image, created at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), depicts a 3-D mixing layer between two fluids of different densities in a gravitational field." [Image: Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center]
What's inside a typical one-liter bottle sample of universe? Discover's Corey Powell decided to investigate.
Looks like fun! "Escape Room" Game Challenges Physics-Phobes to Face Their Fear. A quantum leap in problem-solving is the only way out of a university's new LabEscape scenario game.
Getting the Science Right Makes The Expanse a Better Show. Related: The Expanse is the badass epic space opera you need right now, says Ars technica's Annalee Newitz. Also: How Prop Makers Engineer the Weapons and Gear of The Expanse.
Do Dark Matter And Dark Energy Affect Ordinary Atoms?
Edgar Allan Poe--Cosmologist? The treatise Eureka (1849) anticipates a surprising amount of modern science.
Before the 760mph Hyperloop dream, there was the atmospheric railway with motor-less trains.
Nobel-Winning Physicist Steven Weinberg on Simplicity and Complexity, and the Mother of All Questions.
The Mandelbrot Set: "It's a ubiquitous badge of mathematical pride. But what *is* it?"
Physicist Scott Aaronson explains: What is Mathematical Truth?
To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics: The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
The History of Zero: How Ancient Mesopotamia Invented the Mathematical Concept of Nought and Ancient India Gave It Symbolic Form. "If you look at zero you see nothing; but look through it and you will see the world." I also highly recommend Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife.
Tufts University is running a 5-day school to train mathematicians to serve as expert witnesses on gerrymandering cases.
The March for Science isn't partisan or anti-Trump-it's pro-facts.
How Trump's travel ban could hurt science. In fact, Trump's Immigration Ban Is Already Harming American Science. Meet the Scientists affected: "I have been a second-class citizen in my own country, and now here you are treating me like garbage." -- physicist Amir Haji-Akbari. Related: 151 Scientists offer lab space to colleagues stranded by Trump's immigration ban. Also: Scientific Groups and Universities Just Sharply Denounced Trump's Travel Ban. Bonus: These Nobel Prizewinners Show Why Immigration Is So Important For American Science.
Math Lesson From Hitler's Germany: Prejudice and anti-science ideology destroyed the world's leading math department. David Hilbert: "There is no mathematics in Gittingen anymore."
Science Is Not Constantly Being Proved Right. "We may never know when we're right but at least we know when we're completely wrong."
The Free Flow of Scientific Information Is Critical for Democracy. It's vital both as a matter of public accountability and also so that citizens can make informed decisions.
Watch what happens when you touch magnetized ferrofluid.
Want to Be a Space Archaeologist? Here's Your Chance.
Human Zoetrope, A 24 Frame Animated Tattoo Brought to Life Using a Rotoscoping Technique.
The amazing chronometers from Captain Cook's voyage on HMS Resolution: