Physics

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new ion trap that enables ions to go through an intersection while keeping their cool. Ten million times cooler than in prior similar trips, in fact. The demonstration described in Physical Review Letters is a step toward scaling up trap technology to build a large-scale quantum computer using ions (electrically charged atoms), a potentially powerful machine that could perform certain calculations—such as breaking today’s best data encryption codes—much faster than today’s computers. NIST’s new trap…

COLLEGE PARK, MD, April 7, 2009 -- Roughly 20 percent of the electricity consumed worldwide is used to light homes, businesses, and other private and public spaces. Though this consumption represents a large drain on resources, it also presents a tremendous opportunity for savings. Improving the efficiency of commercially available light bulbs -- even a little -- could translate into dramatically lower energy usage if implemented widely. In the latest issue of Journal of Applied Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), a group of scientists at the Chinese Academy of…

When is a Metal not a metal?  At high pressure, of course! When I was a lad, we used to measure pressure in bars.  The adoption of the metric system entailed two advantages almost as ‘freebies’, one being that reasonably near sea level the weight of a 1 m2 column of air would be about 100 kilonewtons.  So one could define the unit of atmospheric pressure as the bar, namely 1,000,000 dynes per square centimeter.  This we encounter daily in our weather charts, with their lines all close to 1000 mbar.  These are not SI units, but they are accepted for use with the…

Their miniature size is their strength – and also their weakness. Be it in cell phones, cars or computers, electronic components are getting smaller and smaller and increasingly powerful. The smaller they are, the faster they can switch and the less energy they need for each switching operation. However, as energy requirements shrink, so do signal-to-noise ratios. "Circuits are becoming more and more susceptible with each generation," explains Thomas Mager of the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS in Paderborn. "Only a few years ago, it still took several volts…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--For the first time, MIT researchers have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power a range of personal electronic devices, said Angela Belcher, the MIT materials scientist who led the research team. The new batteries, described in the April 2 online edition of Science, could be…

Part 1, which begins our examination of the question 'what is time?' can be viewed here.Part 2 Some travels through time can be viewed  here.Part 3 discussing language, sequence and order, can be viewed  here. A Theory of Time Part 4 : Steno, Foucault and Allais What, at the Most Fundamental Level, is a Clock?A clock, as Gerhard Adam so astutely observes is a means by which any two observers can  connect their observations to a common frame of reference. In his terms it is an  independent source to which all adherents can relate their event.  To paraphrase the wording…

Cornell scientists have applied genetic programming to experimental data in order to elicit fundamental physical laws governing the data.  These physical laws include Lagrangians and laws relating to momentum conservation.  The article is available here.  This is a triumph for genetic computing.  If one imagines the evolution of scientific discovery in human lifetime terms, the ability to speed this process via evolutionary simulation is quite interesting.  However, these types of algorithms can never replace human inspiration and creativity in developing theoretical…

That sinking feeling when your hard disk starts screeching and you haven't backed up your holiday photos is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past thanks to research into a new kind of computer memory. Physicists at the University of Leeds and scientists at IBM Research's Zurich lab have made new advances in researching a new kind of memory, called 'racetrack' memory, which could become the standard method of storing information on home computers. Your hard drive is a metal disc made up of millions of tiny spaces, called domains, in which all the atoms are magnetised in one…

Part 1, which begins our examination of the question 'what is time?' can be viewed here.Part 2 Some travels through time can be viewed  here.A proposed discussion of Foucault's pendulum has been postponed to a later part of this blog series. A Theory of TimeInterlude What follows is a sample from many notes I have written for my language studies about how human language encodes notions of time. It is not a theory of cosmology. It is not quantum theory. These  deductions are mostly based on observable phenomena. There is some philosophical speculation.Please note where I submit,…

Part 1, which begins our examination of the question 'what is time?' can be viewed here.Part 2 Some travels through time. This is a slightly whimsical interlude, presented as a break from the 'hard' stuff. The first part of what follows is a speculation about a journey back through time.  At some point in this fiction-science journey, fact begins to creep in. "the end of our exploring,Will be to arrive where we started,And know the place for the first time." TS Eliot, 'Little Gidding' A Brief Journey Through Time Through the ages, people find ways to know what part of the day it is.…