Controlling for the “look-elsewhere effect”
Updated: 2011-08-31 22:18:35
When searching for new physics at the Large Hadron Collider, researchers have to keep track of how many places they look. Published Mon Aug 29, 2011- When searching for new physics at the Large Hadron Collider, researchers have to keep track of how many places they look. Published Mon Aug 29, 2011
The dialogue between quantum light and matter
Updated: 2011-08-31 22:18:35Although the quantum Rabi model is the simplest model describing the coupling of quantum light and matter, only now has an analytical solution been found. Published Mon Aug 29, 2011Computer simulates Milky Way galaxy formation
Updated: 2011-08-31 18:19:57Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Innovation prize rewards African inventors News Picks home Computer simulates Milky Way galaxy formation By Physics Today on August 31, 2011 2:19 PM No Comments No TrackBacks MSNBC With the use of a powerful supercomputer , a team of researchers has produced the first realistic simulation of the formation of the Milky Way galaxy . Researchers at the University of California , Santa Cruz and the University of Zürich took advantage of 1.4 million processor-hours on NASA's Pleiades supercomputer , as well as additional supporting simulations at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center . The simulation , which took 9 months , involvedInnovation prize rewards African inventors
Updated: 2011-08-31 18:14:10Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar International Space Station may soon be unoccupied News Picks home Computer simulates Milky Way galaxy formation Innovation prize rewards African inventors By Physics Today on August 31, 2011 2:14 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Scidev.Net A new award , worth 100 000, will be given to African innovators and inventors who design products that could further the continent's economic transformation , writes Aregu Balleh for SciDev.Net . The Innovation Prize for Africa a joint initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Innovation Foundation will be awarded for the first time in February 2012 to the bestInternational Space Station may soon be unoccupied
Updated: 2011-08-31 02:46:05Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Greenest ever office building breaks ground in Seattle News Picks home Innovation prize rewards African inventors International Space Station may soon be unoccupied By Physics Today on August 30, 2011 10:46 PM No Comments No TrackBacks New York Times For the first time in more than a decade , the International Space Station may become vacant , due to lack of astronaut transport . NASA ended its space shuttle program last month , and the Russian space program is experiencing problems with its Soyuz rocket , which last week launched an unmanned cargo ship that ended up crashing in Siberia . The six astronauts currently in residence onGreenest ever office building breaks ground in Seattle
Updated: 2011-08-30 23:51:39Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar GPS can locate hidden nuclear explosions News Picks home International Space Station may soon be unoccupied Greenest ever office building breaks ground in Seattle By Physics Today on August 30, 2011 7:51 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Los Angeles Times Billed as the first commercial building designed to carry its own environmental weight , Seattle’s Bullitt Center , which began construction yesterday , will generate its own power , process its own waste , and use only its own rainwater—for the next 250 years . The goal of the conservation-minded Bullitt Foundation is to construct the largest net-zero-energy and net-zero-water buildingGPS can locate hidden nuclear explosions
Updated: 2011-08-30 02:28:43Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Exotic galaxy attracts astronomers News Picks home GPS can locate hidden nuclear explosions By Physics Today on August 29, 2011 10:28 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Bulletin of Atomic Scientists When North Korea conducted its second known nuclear bomb test on 25 May 2009, the country's leaders took extreme care to conceal the details of the event . They detonated the device a kilometer or so beneath the earth , so no radiation could escape and provide clues to the type and size of the bomb tested . What the rest of the world knows about the bomb was learned from seismic waves . Tremors registering at 4.52 on the Richter scale suggestedPreSUSY 2011 & Nature’s Little Secrets
Updated: 2011-08-29 18:54:32
Expect bold claims at this week’s SUSY 2011 (#SUSY11 on Twitter, maybe) Conference at Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois. No, I do not have any secret information about some analysis that undoubtedly proves Supersymmetry‘s existence; though, it would be pretty cool if such an analysis does exist. I say this because I came back from a [...]LHCb experiment sees Standard Model physics
Updated: 2011-08-29 17:47:07Over the weekend, the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider released new results bolstering the Standard Model of particle physics.Exotic galaxy attracts astronomers
Updated: 2011-08-29 17:40:00Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Companies work to harvest energy from the ocean News Picks home GPS can locate hidden nuclear explosions Exotic galaxy attracts astronomers By Physics Today on August 29, 2011 1:40 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Space.com A newly discovered galaxy 1.7 billion light-years away has captured astronomers’ attention because of its unique combination of characteristics . Speca is only the second spiral , as opposed to elliptical , galaxy known to generate large , powerful jets of subatomic particles that rush from its center at nearly the speed of light . It is also one of only two galaxies to have shown such activity in three separateCompanies work to harvest energy from the ocean
Updated: 2011-08-29 17:34:32Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar NSF clears Michael Mann of Climategate' News Picks home Exotic galaxy attracts astronomers Companies work to harvest energy from the ocean By Physics Today on August 29, 2011 1:34 PM No Comments No TrackBacks New Scientist The energy of ocean waves is beginning to be tapped as a source of sustainable energy . Wave power distinct from the daily flux of tidal power and the steady gyre of ocean currents is generated by wind passing over the sea surface . As more than 100 companies develop wave energy converters to harvest energy from the ocean , New Scientist takes a look at six of the most promising technologies currently being deployedMore on the \(B_s\) mixing phase…
Updated: 2011-08-29 14:18:55
I sort of embellished for dramatic effect in my last post when I concluded with the statement that: Only more data will tell us the answer to the million dollar question: Is it Standard Model or New Physics? In the case of the \(B_s\) mixing phase, \(\phi_s\) this isn’t strictly true. More data will improve [...]In Transit
Updated: 2011-08-28 23:44:50
I’m currently in the middle of two important transitions, one logistical, the other scientific. The logistical transition is my move to CERN. I got stuck in Cambridge for an extra two weeks because of a delay in getting my long-stay visa for France. With help from people on both sides of the Atlantic, I learned [...]Why B physics? Why not A Physics?
Updated: 2011-08-28 21:15:15
In my last post, I showed that LHCb is the best LHC detector for B physics, using the decay of the \(B_s\) meson into a \(J/\psi\) meson and \(\phi\) meson as an example. Today I’m going to try and explain why we want to study this particular decay and show you our latest result. The [...]LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’
Updated: 2011-08-28 18:43:16The HEP theory community is atwitter over a BBC News story LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’ that reports from the Lepton-Photon 2011 conference in Mumbai, where more null results relevant to supersymmetry were reported. According to the … Continue reading →Vital Signs: And Down She Goes | DISCOVER Magazine
Updated: 2011-08-28 16:20:00:
Three mathematicians - one famous - make a fool of themselves
Updated: 2011-08-27 07:48:00
: Physics Without Ideology Bite by Bite The search for a theory of everything : satire about bad candidates and gentle fun about good candidates , such as the strand-spaghetti . model 27 August 2011 Three mathematicians one famous make a fool of themselves Three men , the famous Michael Atiyah , together with Nicholas S . Manton and Bernd J . Schroers , propose Geometric Models of Matter This is modern academic comedy writing . You will note that they do not speak about quarks , nor about W and Z bosons . They also have problems incorporating spin 1 2. Nor do they describe . interactions In short , they neglect most of modern physics , but still claim to have done something sensible . What is the truth They just played a little with their favorite mathematical concepts . But they did notNSF clears Michael Mann of 'Climategate'
Updated: 2011-08-26 20:25:18Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar University of Virginia hands over climate scientist's documents News Picks home NSF clears Michael Mann of Climategate' By Physics Today on August 26, 2011 4:25 PM No Comments No TrackBacks NSF The National Science Foundation has cleared Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann of any misconduct in the 2009 Climategate controversy . Climategate refers to the thousands of emails that were stolen and made public by a hacker who broke into servers owned by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit . The emails , in which climate scientists discussed their work , have been used by global-warming skeptics toParticle accelerators help develop new cancer fighting drug
Updated: 2011-08-26 19:45:07
Light sources are the ultimate app for particle physics. Researchers around the world use the powerful X-ray beams that light sources create for materials science, protein structure analysis, historical research, pharmaceutical research and drug development and the list keeps going. Argonne National Laboratory published the following story on August 25, 2011 about contributions that the Advanced Photon Source made to developing a new drug to treat skin cancer. For more examples about the applications of particle physics, visit Accelerators for America's Future. University of Virginia hands over climate scientist's documents
Updated: 2011-08-26 15:48:51Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar A planet made of diamond News Picks home NSF clears Michael Mann of Climategate' University of Virginia hands over climate scientist's documents By Physics Today on August 26, 2011 11:48 AM No Comments No TrackBacks Science Six months after the initial request by a politician and a conservative environmental policy research group , the University of Virginia has turned over documents related to scientist Michael Mann’s climate change research . The documents had been requested in January , under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act , by Robert Marshall , a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates , and the AmericanA planet made of diamond?
Updated: 2011-08-26 15:45:50Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar China works to increase number of women scientists News Picks home University of Virginia hands over climate scientist's documents A planet made of diamond By Physics Today on August 26, 2011 11:45 AM No Comments No TrackBacks New Scientist Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne , Australia , have detected a pulsar with an orbiting object that may be composed of diamond . Using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales , Matthew Bailes and coworkers detected the pulsar in December 2009. From follow-up observations taken with the Lovell radio telescope in the UK , they surmise that the orbiting objectTevatron proves being sensitive is cool
Updated: 2011-08-26 15:02:59
On Tuesday, Aug. 23, the Tevatron accelerator knew something none of the people operating it knew. It felt what employees didn’t, and it reported the news faster than the media could upload it to the Internet. A 5.9-magnitude earthquake had struck the East Coast, and the super-sensitive Tevatron felt it as it happened about 600 [...]Surprise difference in neutrino and antineutrino mass lessening with new measurements from a Fermilab experiment
Updated: 2011-08-26 14:32:21
Fermilab distributed this press release Aug. 25. The physics community got a jolt last year when results showed for the first time that neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos, might be the odd man out in the particle world and have different masses. This idea was something that went against most commonly accepted theories of how [...]Out of many atoms, one photon
Updated: 2011-08-26 13:56:12
A gas of excited-state atoms could perform as a single-photon detector. Published Thu Aug 25, 2011This Week’s Hype, Part III
Updated: 2011-08-25 22:15:45Today’s Wisconsin State Journal covers the String Phenomenology 2011 conference going on in Madison this week, where, according to the organizers, about 100 scientists are discussing how to “test string theory”: The Madison conference is something of a milestone in … Continue reading →Being sensitive is a good thing, at least when you’re a particle accelerator
Updated: 2011-08-25 21:44:04
On Tuesday, Aug. 23, the Tevatron accelerator knew something none of the people operating it knew. A 5.9-magnitude earthquake had struck the East Coast, and the super-sensitive Tevatron felt it as it happened about 600 miles away. It had also registered a similar quake in Colorado the night before.China works to increase number of women scientists
Updated: 2011-08-25 19:07:02Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Astronomers detect black hole swallowing a star News Picks home China works to increase number of women scientists By Physics Today on August 25, 2011 3:07 PM No Comments No TrackBacks SciDev The Chinese government has begun instituting a 10-year plan to develop the potential of the country’s women . The Outline for the Development of Chinese Women 2011-2020 aims to increase to 35 the proportion of women in science and technology . The plan will focus primarily on China’s national laboratories , which will run research projects to train women in professional skills . According to Li Zhenzhen , a researcher at the Institute of PolicyAstronomers detect black hole swallowing a star
Updated: 2011-08-25 18:23:42Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar CERN clears the sky on CLOUD formation News Picks home China works to increase number of women scientists Astronomers detect black hole swallowing a star By Physics Today on August 25, 2011 2:23 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Los Angeles Times For the first time , astronomers say they've borne witness to a supermassive black hole consuming a star , writes Amina Khan for the Los Angeles Times On 28 March a detector on the Earth-orbiting Swift observatory picked up a sudden burst of radiation from a point in the constellation Draco , 4.5 billion light-years away . Typically the gamma-ray bursts that Swift was designed to detect areCERN clears the sky on CLOUD formation
Updated: 2011-08-25 17:00:29Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Rare-earth mineral shortage drives companies to China News Picks home Astronomers detect black hole swallowing a star CERN clears the sky on CLOUD formation By Physics Today on August 25, 2011 1:00 PM No Comments No TrackBacks CERN How do clouds form The answer has implications for our understanding of climate change , because clouds can reflect the Sun’s radiation back toward space , thus reducing the amount of heat that reaches Earth . Providing unprecedented insight into cloud formation is the Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets CLOUD experiment at the CERN research center in Switzerland . Researchers there have been studying theSurprise difference in neutrino and antineutrino mass lessening with new measurements from a Fermilab experiment
Updated: 2011-08-25 16:50:30
The physics community got a jolt last year when results showed for the first time that neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos, might be the odd man out in the particle world and have different masses. This idea was something that went against most commonly accepted theories of how the subatomic world works.Rare-earth mineral shortage drives companies to China
Updated: 2011-08-25 14:41:17Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Study finds increased likelihood that impacts spread life from Earth News Picks home CERN clears the sky on CLOUD formation Rare-earth mineral shortage drives companies to China By Physics Today on August 25, 2011 10:41 AM No Comments No TrackBacks New York Times China's near total monopoly on the rare-earth market , is forcing foreign manufacturers of high-tech materials to move their production to China . Those that don't must contend with uncertain supplies and higher prices . The restrictions are an attempt by the Chinese government to increase the number of high-tech companies in the country and to encourage technology transfer toLHCB à la recherche des moindres failles du Modèle Standard
Updated: 2011-08-25 14:16:14LHCb, une des expériences du Grand Collisionneur de Hadrons (LHC) a été conçue spécialement pour étudier la violation de charge-parité (CP), ou en d’autres mots, expliquer pourquoi on trouve plus de matière que d’antimatière dans notre univers. Ceci est vraiment difficile à comprendre parce qu’en laboratoire, matière et antimatière sont toujours produites en quantités égales. [...]LHCb is trying to crack the Standard Model
Updated: 2011-08-25 14:14:42LHCb, one of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments, was designed specifically to study charge-parity (or CP) violation. In simple words, its goal is to explain why more matter than anti-matter was produced when the Universe slowly cooled down after the Big Bang, leading to a world predominantly composed of matter. This is quite puzzling [...]Cloud-formation study at CERN to influence climate models
Updated: 2011-08-25 01:13:39
Scientists on an experiment at CERN announced today that there is more to cloud formation than previously thought. Their study, published in the journal Nature, looked at the effects on cloud formation of vapors and cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The results could help improve the accuracy of climate models.Study finds increased likelihood that impacts spread life from Earth
Updated: 2011-08-24 19:57:13Physics Today News Picks A blog of hand-picked science news from the staff of Physics Today Home Print edition Advertising Buyers Guide Jobs Events calendar Power walking could recharge batteries News Picks home Study finds increased likelihood that impacts spread life from Earth By Physics Today on August 24, 2011 3:57 PM No Comments No TrackBacks BBC According to vast computer simulations of debris thrown up from asteroid impacts on Earth , more life-bearing particles could have been scattered to Mars , Jupiter , or even beyond our solar system than previously thought . Mauricio Reyes-Ruiz of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have carried out the largest-ever simulations of the process , which considered impacts of varying intensity . Because of new andThe spin of gauge bosons: vector particles
Updated: 2011-08-23 23:47:45
Particles have an inherent spin. We explored the case of fermions (“spin-1/2″) in a recent post on helicity and chirality. Now we’ll extend this to the case of vector (“spin-1″) particles which describe gauge bosons—force particles. By now regular US LHC readers are probably familiar with the idea that there are two kinds of particles [...]A further theoretician prefers prejudice to facts
Updated: 2011-08-23 20:32:00: Physics Without Ideology Bite by Bite The search for a theory of everything : satire about bad candidates and gentle fun about good candidates , such as the strand-spaghetti . model 23 August 2011 A further theoretician prefers prejudice to facts Just read and enjoy this blog entry by L . Motl It is incredible how deep a really smart man can . fall A real smart man , Motl is led into a well-set trap by the author of the preprint he is discussing . The argument against gravity being entropic is deeply flawed , but Motl doesn't want to acknowledge this . Poor man , and now a woman is telling him all this Posted by Clara , alias Nemo at 20:32 Email This BlogThis Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments : Post a Comment Older Post Home Subscribe to : Post CommentsPhysicist tapes together particle data
Updated: 2011-08-23 14:00:54
As homage to tape and physics, MIT postdoctoral associate Teppei Katori, who works at Fermilab, created the art piece Selex. Named for a fixed-target charmed baryon experiment that ran in Fermilab’s Tevatron from 1996-97, Selex is part of the exhibit Tape: A Celebration currently showing at the Chicago Art Department in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood.New results, same uncertainty
Updated: 2011-08-23 10:17:48
At the time of the European Physics Conference in July, an intriguing small excess of events was reported in the search for the elusive Higgs boson. Yesterday, as the Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbai, India, opened, these signs appear to be less compelling. What happened? All phenomena we study follow statistical laws and are therefore subject [...]Higgs particle heavier than ever?
Updated: 2011-08-22 17:17:31
Today in Mumbai (India), at the Lepton-Photon 2011 Conference, talks announcing new results from LHC were held. Data taking claimed almost doubling of data since July Conference in Grenoble. The results were striking and somewhat unexpected. In order to have an idea you should read this CERN press release and the general mood of people [...]LHC experiments eliminate more Higgs hiding spots
Updated: 2011-08-22 15:06:09BATAVIA, IL and UPTON, NY - Two experimental collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider, located at CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, announced today that they have significantly narrowed the mass region in which the Higgs boson could be hiding.This Week’s Hype, Part II
Updated: 2011-08-21 19:39:18String theory hype is still coming fast and furious, so much so that the latest edition of This Week’s Hype needs to be a double issue. Today we learn that Black holes and pulsars could reveal extra dimensions, solving that … Continue reading →New Fermilab experiment to take muons out for a spin
Updated: 2011-08-19 15:37:32
A new experiment planned at Fermilab will allow researchers to peer into the sub-atomic world of virtual particles and resolve a decade old mystery. The Fermilab muon g-2 experiment will use an intense beam of muons, short-lived particles that are similar to electrons but 200 times heavier.Sunday Night Higgs?
Updated: 2011-08-19 00:54:27Lepton-Photon 2011 begins Monday morning, the schedule is here. It should start off with a bang, with the latest Higgs search results from ATLAS and CMS presented starting at 11:20am local time, the middle of Sunday night here. There will … Continue reading →Rotating the spin of an exciton
Updated: 2011-08-18 22:32:48
Researchers use a laser pulse to manipulate excitons confined in quantum dots. Published Thu Aug 18, 2011Magnetic joystick
Updated: 2011-08-18 22:32:48
A two-dimensional trap takes advantage of the magnetic domain walls in a narrow wire to guide the thermal motion of magnetic particles. Published Thu Aug 18, 2011Better transistors through quantum mechanics
Updated: 2011-08-18 22:32:47
More compact transistors may be possible by harnessing the quantum properties of semiconductor heterostructures. Published Thu Aug 18, 2011String Theorists Suggest Space Wormholes Possible
Updated: 2011-08-18 21:56:24I was just out for a bike ride, during which an idle thought came to me about a rule of thumb that might deserve publicity. This rule of thumb is that the mention of wormholes in a popular science book, … Continue reading →The failure of quantum gravity
Updated: 2011-08-17 05:17:00Have a look at the overview article arXiv:1108.3269 "An introduction to quantum gravity" by Giampiero Esposito.It lists 16 approaches to quantum gravity that were followed in the last 80 years - string theory is one of them. Then it lists their achievements. All are theoretical! Not a single of the achievements is a testable prediction.Yep, quantum gravity is a dead alley. We all can stop reading gr-qc.Does String Theory Predict Low Energy Supersymmetry?
Updated: 2011-08-16 23:21:57It used to be that string theorists would respond to arguments that string theory predicted nothing with the claim that it predicted supersymmetry. For example, in an interview with Witten done for the PBS Elegant Universe series, one sees: NOVA: … Continue reading →It was twenty years ago today . . .
Updated: 2011-08-16 18:28:29With these beautiful words starts a recollection paper by the founder of arXiv, Paul Ginsparg. This is worth the reading as this history spans a number of years exactly overlapping the computer revolution that definitely changed our lives. What Paul also changed through these new information tools was the way researchers should approach scientific communication. [...]Soverato beach
Updated: 2011-08-16 17:07:52
It is some days that I am not posting here but there is a very good reason: I am on vacation at Satriano, very near Soverato. These are wonderful places in Italy, in the southern region of Calabria. For your pleasure I post here a couple of photos of the moon on the sea at [...]Designer lattices
Updated: 2011-08-15 21:05:23
A theoretical approach shows how particles need to be designed such that they self-assemble into a particular structure. Published Mon Aug 15, 2011Another theoretician left reality
Updated: 2011-08-15 16:25:00This theoretician is too little-known to be named. He dislikes the strand model. But for a simple reason: He thinks that time has two dimensions.This seems too crazy too be true. But some people get paid for saying and writing such nonsense. Modern research is full of nonsense.Newtonian verses Planck’s or Quantum time
Updated: 2011-08-15 10:47:42
TweetWe have shown throughout the Imagineer’s Chronicles and its companion book "The Reality of the Fourth *Spatial* Dimension" there would be numerous theoretical advantages to defining the universe in terms of four *spatial* dimensions instead of four-dimensional space-time. One is that it would allow for the resolution of the conflict between the Newtonian assumption that [...]Talks at the KITP
Updated: 2011-08-12 20:39:22Back now from vacation, and found that there have been quite a few interesting talks at the KITP in Santa Barbara this week which are now available on-line: Since the EPS-HEP conference last month, the “First Year of the LHC” … Continue reading →20 Things You Didn't Know About... Magnetism | DISCOVER Magazine
Updated: 2011-08-12 17:45:00.
The next theoretician goes bonkers
Updated: 2011-08-09 05:56:00: Physics Without Ideology Bite by Bite The search for a theory of everything : satire about bad candidates and gentle fun about good candidates , such as the strand-spaghetti . model 9 August 2011 The next theoretician goes bonkers This theoretician is too well-known to be named . When asked what he thought about the strand model , he answered that the strand model of a black hole could not be correct , because it does not work in 5 and 6 . dimensions This answer is worth meditating . A physicists says , in writing , that a description of nature is wrong because it does not describe certain cases that have no relation to reality . He could equally say that F=ma is wrong because the equation does not describe Santa Claus or . resurrection With this way of thinking the theoretician hasQuantum liquids move to a higher dimension
Updated: 2011-08-09 05:24:27
A spin model on a honeycomb lattice points to a much sought after type of quantum spin liquid: the Bose metal. Published Mon Aug 08, 2011Another theoretician goes bonkers
Updated: 2011-08-07 05:58:00Vongehr is one of those people that wrote papers that nature has two times. He means two-dimensional time. No joke.Experimental backing? Zero. That a guy writing this has studied physics at university is almost unbelievable. Some people have a degree and still cannot count.Supersymmetry is turning into Supercemetery
Updated: 2011-08-07 05:20:00Garret Lisi makes the point in a comment in Dorigo's blog. A simple truth.Multiverse and polytheism
Updated: 2011-08-06 20:19:00One can dispute whether the equivalence between the universe and god is accurate. Pantheists assume that universe and god are two words for the same concept. Einstein was a pantheist in this sense.Assuming pantheists are right, the people that talk about the multiverse are reintroducing polytheism. It becomes clear again what a nonsense the concept of multiverse is.<div class="blogger-post-footer"A light-matter laser squeezed into a nanowire
Updated: 2011-08-04 20:26:39
In nanowire form, semiconductor lasers that rely on the coherent scattering of polaritons produce light with less energy. Published Thu Aug 04, 2011String theory and chess
Updated: 2011-08-04 05:25:00Searching for the theory of everything with string theory is as promising as searching for it by playing chess. Both string theorists and chess players are extremely smart people. Chess players are impressive. So are string theorists. They have intelligence to spare. All of them talk about their intelligence like pistoleros talk about their guns. They are die-hard machos.The only issue: their occupation does not help finding the theory of everything. Not at all. Being smart does not count in the search.