Physics Week in Review: December 8, 2018
Man, this year is coming to an end fast, and we're feeling a bit frazzled trying to get a bunch of stuff done before then. But we still pulled together some cool physics goodness for you this week. Among the highlights: LIGO and Virgo announce four new black hole mergers; the biophysics of how geckos can run on water; and 3D printing a wormhole for sound waves.
Me at Ars Technica:
Turning It Up to 11: Physicists detected gravitational waves from four new black-hole mergers. This brings the total number of events detected by LIGO and Virgo to 11.
Walking on Water: Geckos' new superpower is running on water; now we know how they do it. The mouse-sized lizards use a combination of surface tension and slapping motion.
One Giant Leap for AI: Move over AlphaGo: AlphaZero taught itself to play three different games. DeepMind's new AI is worthy successor to the first program to beat a human at Go.
Citations Needed: Complex networks study ranks the most influential films of all time. Wizard of Oz topped the list. Star Wars: A New Hope and Psycho were the second and third most influential.
A Double-Edged Sword: Tom Cruise finally takes a stand... on your parents' terrible TV settings. The "soap opera effect" is the result of a common default setting on most high-definition TVs.
Don't Call It a Comeback: At last! Marvel finally drops first trailer for Avengers: End Game. Our surviving heroes are brooding and regrouping, with hints of a budding plan.
Simply Marvelous: Neither bird nor plane: Captain Marvel blasts into space in second trailer. Jude Law might play arch-villain Yon-Rogg rather than the original Mar-Vell.
Other Cool Links:
Five Surprising Truths About Black Holes From LIGO. For example: "The largest merging black holes are the easiest to see, and they don't appear to get larger than about 50 solar masses."
A New Theory Unifies Dark Matter and Dark Energy as a Dark Fluid' With Negative Mass.
How to Move a Single Electron: "a group of scientists from Canada have figured out a way to do it using an atomic force microscope. This newfound approach to manipulating individual electrons may one day find applications in future nanoscale electronics."
Inflation theories must dig deeper to avoid collision with data. BICEP and Keck combine data, but primordial gravitational waves remain hidden.
How Kyrie Irving Could've Leaned Over So Far Without Falling. PHYSICS! In a video, the Boston Celtics player stands on a basketball court and leans... and leans. Here's how to parse the mystery of why he doesn't fall.
LHC ends second season of data-taking. During the last four years, LHC scientists have filled in gaps in our knowledge and tested the boundaries of the Standard Model. Related: Why the Large Hadron Collider Is Shutting Down for Two Years. "Several parts of the LHC will receive upgrades during this two-year period, also called 'Long Shutdown 2.'"
Fractal structure produces fractal electrons with fractal energies. Carefully placed carbon monoxide creates fractal electrons on a copper surface.
Researchers 3D print a wormhole... for sound waves. "Transformation optics makes use of the mathematical similarity between optics and general relativity. It turns an optical problem into trajectories through space."
Scientists Can't Agree On The Expanding Universe: It's either a cosmic mystery or a terribly mundane mistake.
The Search for Alien Life Begins in Earth's Oldest Desert:In the Martian landscape that is the Atacama desert, astrobiologists are learning how to recognize extraterrestrial organisms. "The Vatican's current chief astronomer, Guy Consolmagno-an MIT graduate, a Jesuit, and a practicing planetary scientist-assured me that Scripture accommodates aliens."
Abstract Aerial Photographs Reveal the Beauty of Meandering Waterways. "The project Water.Shapes.Earth uses aerial photography and storytelling to bring an understanding to the complex and diverse ways water inhabits our planet, from a radioactive water pond in Huelva, Spain to mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan." [Image: Water.Shapes.Earth]
Unraveling the Mathematics of Smell: Scientists have created a map" of odor molecules, which could ultimately be used to predict new scent combinations.
"As perfect as ice can appear, it always starts with a defect. Without a speck of dust or soot to act as a seed, supercooled water simply will not freeze."
Single-beam laser becomes multi-beam laser by kicking electrons.
We're Nowhere Near the Limit on Telescope Resolution, According to New Physics.
Dear Curiosity: How NASA's rover makes Mars feel like home. As it rolls across the red planet's rusty surface, Curiosity transforms Mars from an alien world into a familiar landscape.
Three Ways Quantum Physics Affects Your Daily Life. Any time you toast bread, turn on a fluorescent light, or use a computer, you're making use of quantum physics. Related: Three Everyday Things That Couldn't Exist Without Quantum-Mechanical Spin.
Top quark couture: What do you give a physicist who helped discover a fundamental particle and jump-started your science career?
What We Can (and Can't) Learn From Replicating Scientific Experiments.
Final FYFD video: Learn about the hydrodynamics of snake strikes, how birds fly in gusty crosswinds, and the mathematical underpinnings of a microswimmer's journey.
Can you solve the time travel riddle? "Your professor has accidentally stepped through a time portal in his physics lab. You've got just a minute to jump through before it closes and leaves him stranded in history."