Physics
It makes me very happy when I see new precise results on the mass of the top quark being produced by the CDF collaboration (to which I still proudly belong). CDF, one of the two hadron collider experiments operating at the 2-TeV Tevatron proton-antiproton synchrotron in Batavia, IL, has been measuring the top quark mass since 1994, one year prior to its discovery. The figure with the top candidates (histogram) from which the mass measurement of 174+-12 GeV was obtained in 1994 is shown on the right below; backgrounds and top expectation are shown by hatched lines.
If it feels strange to you…
The American Chemical Society's Spring 2010 National Meeting and Exposition includes numerous research findings in the field of cold fusion, also known as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR). Here is the video of the live press conference that gives a broad introduction to the people involved and their views on this controversial part of science.
"A potential new energy source so controversial that people once regarded it as junk science is moving closer to acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. The presentations describe invention of an inexpensive new measuring device that could…
csumsefm |
Blocking Temperature
1. Superparamagnetism
For ferromagnetic or ferromagnetic materials, with small enough nanoparticles their magnetization becomes thermally fluctuated. When the time between two magnetization fluctuations (Néel relaxation time) is shorter than the time used to measure the magnetization of the nanoparticles, without external magnetic field the magnetization appears to be average zero for the nanoparticles. This is another form of magnetism, superparamagnetism [1].
Superparmagnetic materials have a high saturation magnetiszation and zero coercivity and remanence, making it…
The very term 'cold fusion' will send shudders through those who know even part of this sad story. In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature. This went against the prevailing theory that nuclear fusion was impossible to achieve without very high temperatures - and very expensive equipment. The experiment appeared to produce excess heat, the final products appeared to come from fusion and yet without some of the tell-tale signs of high-energy fusion. The experiment also fell within a crack between the subjects of chemistry…
csumsefm |
Quasicrysstals
What is quasicrystal? I have it in mind that quasicrystal is the crystal with 5-fold symmetry, from the course of crystallography. It is well know that according to translational symmetry, only 2, 3, 4 and 6 –fold symmetry can be exist. For 5-fold symmetry, it is impossible to cover a floor simply using the pentagon with the same length of sides! So what is the structure of quasicrystals and how do they form?
STRUCTURE OF QUASICRYSTALS
I would like first to show how the 5-fold symmetry ‘full fill the floor’ in Fig. 1[1]. It is clearly that the crystal has regular arrangement…
A brand new result in Higgs boson physics has been presented by my old-time CDF colleague Wei-Ming Yao at the Moriond QCD conference two days ago. It is the combination of CDF and DZERO limits on the Higgs boson, and it constitutes a significant advancement in our knowledge of the standard model.
The result is simple to state in a single sentence, although it will take me several pages to explain it acceptably. The Higgs boson is excluded at 95% confidence level in the 130-210 GeV mass range, if there are four generations of matter fields.
I can hear you thinking "Ah, here's the rub...…
In 1950 Immanuel Velikovsky published his bestselling Worlds in Collision, where he proposed that Venus was once a satellite of Jupiter that went AWOL and caused catastrophes on Earth as it flew past. Nobody believes this now, and few believed it then either, but you can see how it would work using a solar system simulation designed by PheT.
It's a neat little program that simulates gravitational forces between bodies. You can change most of the parameters, such as the relative masses, starting positions and initial velocities. Put your ingredients together and let the universe spin! It's…
Predictable Barriers Precluding Any Consideration of Transversable Black Holes Through Outer Space
Item #1 in the 3 Part Series: Black Holes Through Outer Space
By
Marshall Barnes, R&D Eng
United States of Americia
In this paper I will answer, in detail, issues first raised by the question that was asked of the Endeavor Space Shuttle crew in 2009 by a young British lad via Youtube - "What would happen if you were to fly into a black hole?". This idea has been the feature of a number of sci fi stories as well as scientific speculation. In doing so I will also…
How to explain resonance to a non-scientist? A few years back I heard a guest speaker on BBC Radio 4 trying to explain the resonance effects of pulsed microwave radiation on the brain in contrast to the thermal effects of the carrier frequency: sadly he failed miserably. What is it about resonance that makes it so hard to explain?
I have taught it to A-level students and to undergraduate engineers. Electrical engineers, in particular, need to be thoroughly familiar with the phenomenon and yet, I could see that its significance eluded them. There are few, if any, good visible examples in real…
I was delighted to receive news this afternoon of three new interesting results produced by the DZERO collaboration in the analysis of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) processes.
QCD, the theory of strong interactions between quarks and gluons, is the "boring" part of the physics of high-energy hadron-hadron collisions. It used to be more more exciting twenty years ago, when the theoretical calculations were not as refined as they are now, and there was still a lot to understand in the physics of strong interactions between quarks and gluons. But nowadays, things are much more clear.
We think we…