Physics Week in Review: June 17, 2017
This week's physics highlights: Spooky action in spaaaace, superfluid dark matter, and could the LIGO detections just be due to noise?
I had a great time Tuesday night doing a live KPCC podcast event. Chatted with Christina Wallace and Cate Scott Campbell, the hosts of a terrific podcast, The Limit Does Not Exist, which caters to "human Venn Diagrams." And yes that description matches me to a 'T'. You can watch the archived live stream here. Also be sure check out the second featured podcast that night: The Mash-Up Americans.
My latest for Quanta: Dark Matter Recipe Calls for One Part Superfluid: A different kind of dark matter could help to resolve an old celestial conundrum. See also this short accompanying blog post: How Superfluid Dark Matter Mimics an Old Idea About Gravity: Does the force of gravity change at large scales? Perhaps not, but a new theory of dark matter shows why that could appear to be the case.
Today (June 17) is World Tessellation Day, and Scientific American's Evelyn Lamb Urges Us To Remember to Look Down at the beautiful patterns under your feet.
Quantum entanglement, science's 'spookiest' phenomenon, achieved in space. New spooky-action experiment is "a stepping stone to a space-based quantum internet."
Was It All Just Noise? Independent Analysis Casts Doubt On LIGO's Detections.
Nanostructures explain why central American jewel scarab beetles look like pure gold.
Researchers Made an Electrical Circuit Etch-A-Sketch in Crystals.
Graphene powder swirls in alcohol in this prize-winning photo from this year's EPSRC contest. [Image: J. Macleod]
Scientists have successfully simulated the conditions around black holes using a specially designed water bath.
China''s Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, named Insight, will study black holes, pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts.
Quantum principle harnessed to create easier wireless charging to Move Electric Vehicles Closer to Reality. Such technology could also help charge mobile devices, medical implants, and factory robots.
Meet the 89-Year-Old using vacuum power to Reinvent the Train in His Backyard. Max Schlienger wants to use vacuum power to get people where they're going--and it has nothing to do with the hyper loop.
The idea of creating a new universe in the lab is no joke.
The Multiverse of 1686: Speculation on multiple universes goes back farther than you might think.
Physics Proves No One Can Safely Text and Drive. "With iOS 11, Apple will introduce a feature to disable notifications while driving. Here's why I think that's a good idea."
Softball Physics: How Far Can You Run While The Ball Is In The Air?
The Mind-Boggling Math That (Maybe) Mapped the Brain in 11 Dimensions. Henry Markram is back with a new publication on his controversial Blue Brain project. The math behind it may be more important than the results.
The Mathematics of Music Means Piano Strings Can Never Be in Perfect Harmony. Why it's impossible to tune a piano: "instead of using harmonics, piano-tuners generally keep octaves perfect, while leaving every other interval out of tune by just a tiny fraction."
How does sound propagate in St. Mary's Abbey Church, York? What can archaeoacoustics tell us about ancient spaces?
New A Capella Science video: The Molecular Shape of You:
Supernova Face-Off May Solve 40-Year-Old Antimatter Mystery. "The majority of antimatter that pervades the Milky Way may come from clashing remnants of dead stars, a new study finds."
How to Make a Supernova With Lasers, Lavender-Tinted Glass, and a Carbon Rod.
A Comeback for Electricity Tech Once Championed by Thomas Edison: DC current lines.
Science out an airplane window: The case of the floating, stationary, disconnected, warped propeller blades.
Black Holes, Cosmic Collisions and the Rippling of Spacetime. "As of last year, there is a new way to see black holes: through how they alter spacetime itself."
The Future Of Astronomy: Thousands Of Radio Telescopes That Can See Beyond The Stars.
That's no moon...no wait, it is. We just didn't know it was orbiting Jupiter.
Unique 'sideways tornadoes' shaped the landscape of Mars, new study shows.
When flatworms go to space, they grow two heads.
Could Tiny Fusion Rockets Revolutionize Spaceflight? A small NASA-funded company is slimming down nuclear fusion reactors for space science.
Lonely but Never Alone: How does the brain react to the isolation encountered in outer space?
The Maths of Life and Death: Our Secret Weapon in the Fight against Disease.
How to clean inside the LHC: The beam pipes of the LHC need to be so clean, even air molecules count as dirt.
For those who think basic particle physics research never gave rise to anything "practical": Mini Particle Accelerators Make Cancer Treatment Safer For Everyone.
4 Everyday Items Einstein Helped Create. In addition to his work on relativity, the physicist laid the scientific foundations for paper towels, lasers, and more common products. Related: Einstein letters to colleagues, which will be auctioned on June 20, reveal his thoughts on physics, God, and Israel.
Worse than a sharknado... a sharkpedo? Yes, Scientists once tried to use sharks as living bomb-delivery systems.
How the Moon Was Turned Into a Cold War Spy Weapon. Leave it to the US Navy to weaponize the moon.
Wanted: More Data, the Dirtier the Better. The computational immunologist Purvesh Khatri embraces messy data as a way to capture the messiness of disease. As a result, he's making elusive genomic discoveries.
For decades, the 'hot hand' in basketball was treated as a myth, but the math, when done in depth, didn't add up.
5 Math-Based Home Hacks That Will Make Your Life Easier. EG folding a fitted sheet "is just topology, after all."
What You Need To Know About Helium, The Element Affected By Qatar's Crisis.
How Close Are We to a Real Star Trek-Style Medical Tricorder? Vital signs information and images aren't enough for a fully automated device that can tell you what's actually wrong with a patient.
The new physics-based Math That Predicted the Arab Spring by explaining the correlation between food supply and the uprising.
What complex numbers really are and where they really came from.
The Stars: A Mythopoetic Masterpiece Serenading the Night Sky Through Myths and Stories from Around the World.
How to Build Leonardo da Vinci's Ingenious Self-Supporting Bridge: Renaissance Innovations You Can Still Enjoy Today.
How astrophysicist and Queen musician Brian May made his own guitar.
Les Cookson's prototype of a wooden box Camera Obscura is based on a principle that's been around since 500 BC. I don't NEED one. But I kinda want one.
Finally, here's the Physics Girl, Diana Cowern, with "Math Master and Physics Wizard" Daniel Walsh, explaining How unusual non-linear crystals can entangle particles of light, or photons.