Applied Physics

In America, there is a debate over 'high risk, high reward' independent research versus Big Science - largescale science projects usually being done by taxpayer funded grants to large universities and basic research primarily being done in the private sector.   Germany tries to have government funding for both and prof. Manfred Bayer from TU Dortmund recently got a $2 million grant to do work in ultrafast acoustics. Ultrafast acoustics first began to get serious research over 20 years ago at General Motors(1).   The basic concept is that sub-picosecond optical pulses generate…

Researchers at TU Delft have succeeded in measuring the influence of a single electron on a vibrating carbon nanotube.   That can be a real milestone on the road to ultra-small measuring instruments. Researchers in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at TU Delft basically suspended a carbon nanotube, comparable in size to an ultra-small violin string, and then applied an alternating electric field to the nanotube using an antenna. As a result of the alternating electric field, the suspended nanotube begins to vibrate at a certain frequency.  The nanotechnologists were then able to…

Health requires safety. There is a laser hazard that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is concerned about: the increased availability in stores and on the Internet of certain types of laser products.  A laser can be unsafe when misused as a toy or directed at people, vehicles, or aircraft.  The laser acronym stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.  FDA regulates radiation-emitting electronic products, including all types of lasers. Manufacturers of some types of laser products that are powered above 5 mW must obtain…

"It's not supposed to do that" - Sandia principal investigator Jack Houston. Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Pittsburgh have found they can make salt, a solid, physically stretch.   "Unlike, say, gold, which is ductile and deforms under pressure, salt is brittle. Hit it with a hammer, it shatters like glass, " says Houston. What does it mean?  After all, this isn't a wagon train in 1840 where 'stretching' the salt supply was necessary, namely by using it sparingly.   In water desalination, it could make technology much different because…

Is it a magic trick?   A man takes a paper clip and bends it so that it is just a crooked piece of wire, then he throws it into a bowl of hot water and instantly the metal wire returns to the shape of the paper clip. This phenomenon is called the shape memory effect and it can be observed in certain metallic alloys, known as shape memory alloys. These kinds of materials are ideal for many applications. In aerospace technologies, solar sails can unfold in outer space.  In cardiology, stents are small tube-shaped, metal grid frameworks folded together and inserted into blood vessels…

Any road with a loose surface like or gravel or snow can develop ripples that make driving a very shaky experience. A team of physicists from Canada, France and the United Kingdom have recreated this "washboard" phenomenon in the lab with surprising results: ripples appear even when the springy suspension of the car and the rolling shape of the wheel are eliminated. The discovery may smooth the way to designing improved suspension systems that eliminate the bumpy ride. "The hopping of the wheel over the ripples turns out to be mathematically similar to skipping a stone over water," says…

Have a really smart kid who loves big trucks but you can't stand loud, growling voices with too much reverb in stadiums?   You're in luck.    MANTRA (The Manufacturing Technology Transporter) is a specially modified monster truck that is packed with the latest machinery and simulators rather than baseball caps and flannel shirts. The 14 meter long MANTRA truck will take to the road with a dedicated team to demonstrate the manufacturing and assembly line technology of the future and help to inspire young people to take up careers in engineering. MANTRA was established by the…

Dolphins, whales and porpoises are perfectly adapted for maximum aquatic agility.  We know why that is - biologists expect that as a result of evolution - but to-date no one in physics had ever successfully analyzed how the animals' flippers interact with water; the hydrodynamic lift that they generate, the drag that they experience and their hydrodynamic efficiency. Laurens Howle and Paul Weber from Duke University teamed up with Mark Murray from the United States Naval Academy and Frank Fish from West Chester University to find out more about the hydrodynamics of whale and dolphin…

At the quantum level, the atoms that make up matter and the photons that make up light behave in seemingly bizarre ways. Particles can exist in "superposition," in more than one state at the same time (don't look!), a situation that permitted Schrödinger's famed cat to be simultaneously alive and dead.  Matter can also be entangled', what Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" in such a way that one thing influences another, regardless of how far apart the two are. Scientists have successfully measured entanglement and superposition in photons and in small collections of…

21st century computer modelling software has enabled a long-lost, trumpet-like instrument called the  Lituus to be recreated – even though no one alive today has heard, played or even seen a picture of this forgotten instrument - allowing a work by Bach to be performed as the composer may have intended for the first time in nearly 300 years. Generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach was born in the German town of Eisenach in 1685 and produced over 1000 sacred and secular musical compositions. He died in Leipzig in 1750, at the age of 65…