Physics Week in Review: December 15, 2018

It was kind of a light week in physics news in advance of the holidays. Among the highlights: a supersolid helium state confirmed; how people walking avoid collisions; and a mathematical function for how societies remember and forget.

Me at Ars Technica:

All Men Must Die: New study gives some handy tips on how to survive on Game of Thrones. Switching allegiances is a crucial strategy in the brutal world of Westeros.

Doctor in the House: Doctor Who wraps a solid season with its first female Time Lord. New showrunner Chris Chibnall made some bold choices to set his Doctor apart.

Through the Looking Glass: Spock smiles in the face of danger in new trailer for Star Trek: Discovery S2. We learn more about the mysterious "red angel" appearing to Spock in visions.

Other Cool Links:

Super-solid helium state confirmed in beautiful experiment.

Physicists Create Incredible 'Quark Soup' Droplets That Expand Like Little Big Bangs.

How Walkers Avoid Collisions: Observations of large numbers of pedestrians in two new studies offer insights into how humans avoid bumping into each other. [Image: Y. Ma et al., Phys. Rev. E (2018)]

A Math Function Describes How Whole Societies Remember--and Forget. A Neruda masterpiece-and a bi-exponential curve-define the dynamics of the fast then slow fade of our greatest collective sorrows and joys.

Using a concept borrowed from the realm of computer science - computational complexity - luminary physicist Leonard Susskind has formed a provocative new hypothesis about how black hole interiors grow.

If you think black holes are strange, white holes will blow your mind. White holes are black ones in reverse, spewing out matter- and they could give us our first glimpse of the quantum source of space-time, says physicist Carlo Rovelli.

A radical new neural network design could overcome big challenges in AI. Researchers borrowed equations from calculus to redesign the core machinery of deep learning so it can model continuous processes like changes in health.

Everything You Need to Know About the Quantum Realm Before Avengers: End Game. Related: Did Nick Fury Call Captain Marvel in the Past With a Quantum Pager'? (Do you guys just put the word quantum' in front of everything?" - Scott Lang)

Three Weird Quantum Phenomena You Didn't Realize You Were Using. Some of the signature "weird" results of quantum physics turn out to be essential for things we use all the time, including Internet sites talking about physics.

Vibrating crystal made of 10 billion atoms smashes quantum record. Testing increasingly large objects proves that quantum mechanics works at larger scales - a finding that could help build quantum computers.

MIT and Harvard Scientists Create Tiny Nanomaterials By Shrinking Them. "They call it Implosion Fabrication (ImpFab) and they do it by building the materials they want and then literally shrinking them down to the nanoscale."

This Giant Laser Could Send a Probe to Another Star System or Destroy a City.

Scientists Think an Exploding Star Helped Kill Off the Megalodon.

Astronomers Debunk "Mystic's" Warning of Impending Disaster. "Though seismologists have routinely debunked Hoogerbeets's predictions, his numerous fans express worry over the coming disaster."

NASA's Most Famous Spacecraft Is Now In Interstellar Space And Headed To 'Dog Star.'

History of the Conservation of Energy: Booms, Blood, and Beer (Part 1). "Hints of the conservation of energy stretch back to the time of Newton, and even earlier."

Counterexamples in Music Theory: Personal closure on an attempted theorem about 12-tone music.

Alan Moore interview: Magic and science feed Middle England Watchman. The creator of cult comics Watchmen and Halo Jones is an occultist, but his love of science shows in the way he plays with quantum characters and consciousness.

Researchers use jiggly Jell-O to make powerful new hydrogen fuel catalyst.

A Stunning Timelapse Capturing the Exact Moment When Soap Bubbles Begin to Completely Freeze Over.