Riddle of 'God particle' could be solved by 2012: CERN (Update) Physicists said on Tuesday they believed that by the end of 2012 they could determine whether a theorised particle called the Higgs boson, which has unleashed a gruelling decades-long hunt, exists or not. "I'm pretty confident that towards the end of 2012 we will have an answer to the Shakespeare question for the Higgs boson -- to be, or not to be?
" Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director general of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), told a press conference at Britain's Royal Society. CERN has ordered the world's biggest particle collider to step up the quest to explain mass, one of the greatest puzzles in physics. The key to this is believed to be the Higgs, a notional sub-atomic particle named after British physicist Peter Higgs who mooted its existence in 1964. If it is found, one of the last pieces would be set in place in the famous Standard Model, which seeks to bring all the particles and forces in the Universe under a single, unified theory. "It was wrong," she said. For the First Time, Humans See Quantum Entanglement With the Naked Eye.
Physicists at the University of Geneva in Switzerland have devised a new kind of quantum experiment using humans as photon detectors, and in doing so have made the quantum phenomenon of entanglement visible to the naked eye for the first time. For those that need a primer, entanglement is that strange quantum phenomenon that links two particles across distances such that any any measurements carried out on one particle immediately changes the properties of the other--even if they are separated by the entire universe.
Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance. " And indeed it is weird. Nicolas Gisin at U. of Geneva noted that Italian physicists had previously done an interesting thing with entangled photons. Gisin realized that while the naked eye can't see a single photon, it can certainly see thousands. Sort of. What the Swiss team does know is this: when they started, they had two entangled photons. [Nature]
The Resonance Project. Planck time. In physics, the Planck time (P) is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.[1] The unit is named after Max Planck, who was the first to propose it.
The Planck time is defined as:[2] where: = /2 is the reduced Planck constant (sometimes h is used instead of ħ in the definition[1]) G = gravitational constant c = speed of light in a vacuum s is the SI unit of time, the second. Physical significance[edit] The Planck time is the unique combination of the gravitational constant G, the special-relativistic constant c, and the quantum constant ħ, to produce a constant with units of time. See also[edit] Notes and references[edit] The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (9780671797188): Paul Davies. Knowing the mind of God: Seven theories of everything - physics-math - 04 March 2010. Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 This story has been edited to clarify that it discusses different approaches being taken to develop a theory of everything.
The "theory of everything" is one of the most cherished dreams of science. If it is ever discovered, it will describe the workings of the universe at the most fundamental level and thus encompass our entire understanding of nature. It would also answer such enduring puzzles as what dark matter is, the reason time flows in only one direction and how gravity works.
Small wonder that Stephen Hawking famously said that such a theory would be "the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God". But theologians needn't lose too much sleep just yet. Here's a brief guide to some of the front runners. String theory This is probably the best known theory of everything, and the most heavily studied. First, string theorists have so far struggled to make new predictions that can be tested. Loop quantum gravity. Special relativity. Special relativity implies a wide range of consequences, which have been experimentally verified,[2] including length contraction, time dilation, relativistic mass, mass–energy equivalence, a universal speed limit, and relativity of simultaneity. It has replaced the conventional notion of an absolute universal time with the notion of a time that is dependent on reference frame and spatial position.
Rather than an invariant time interval between two events, there is an invariant spacetime interval. Combined with other laws of physics, the two postulates of special relativity predict the equivalence of mass and energy, as expressed in the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, where c is the speed of light in vacuum.[3][4] A defining feature of special relativity is the replacement of the Galilean transformations of classical mechanics with the Lorentz transformations.
Time and space cannot be defined separately from one another. Postulates[edit] Lack of an absolute reference frame[edit]
Even a Glass of Water Is a Mystery to Physicists | David Albert. With rendition switcher Question: What are some of the great questions in physics today? David Albert: Sure. There's a glass of water on the table beside me. Someone asks, how do I know there's a glass of water on the table beside me? It was noticed about 80 years ago that if one supposes that the fundamental laws of the world are quantum mechanics, if one supposes that the fundamental physical laws of the world are the ones that we get in quantum mechanics textbooks, this story that I just told about how I know there's a glass of water on the table radically falls apart.
Now, this is, at the end of the day, a scientific project. So philosophers can be, or people with philosophical training or philosophical sensitivity can be, helpful here in trying to frame very precisely what the problem is, what would count as an adequate solution to the problem, so on and so forth.
The perfect crime tool: Researchers work on ‘event cloak’ | Raw Story. By Agence France-PresseMonday, November 15, 2010 22:54 EDT PARIS — Jewelry robbers, magicians, exam cheats and practical jokers everywhere will have an interest in an offbeat idea launched by physicists on Tuesday: to make the passage of time invisible. The scientists have conceived of a “spacetime cloak” which manipulates light and, in essence, conceals whole events from a viewer. The theory is based on censoring the flow of events, which we perceive as a stream of light particles, also called photons, that strike the retina. By exploiting a characteristic of fiber optics, the flow of photons can be slowed, events edited out and stitched back together, say the team from Imperial College London and Salford University, northwestern England.
The theory is expounded in a daunting series of equations and diagrams in the Journal of Optics, published by the Institute of Physics. The refractory index is a determinant of the speed with which the light is transported in the cable. Agence France-Presse. Fermilab Experiment Hints At Existence of Brand-New Elementary Particle. Physicists working with a Fermilab neutrino experiment may have found a new elementary particle whose behavior breaks the known laws of physics. If correct, their results poke holes in the accepted Standard Model of particles and forces, and raise some interesting questions for the Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron experiments. The new particle could even explain the existence of dark matter. Working with Fermilab's MiniBooNE experiment — the first part of the larger planned Booster Neutrino Experiment — physicists found evidence for a fourth flavor of neutrino, according to a new paper published in Physical Review Letters.
This means there could be another particle we didn't know about, and that it behaves in a way physicists didn't expect. Neutrinos have been mystifying physicists since they were first theorized decades ago. Examining three years' worth of MiniBooNE data, researchers detected more oscillations than would be possible if there were only three flavors. £2.2bn superlab where scientists are creating a star on Earth. By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 20:10 GMT, 17 November 2010 It may look like any average building but behind closed doors could lie the answer to safe renewable energy of the future. Here at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore California, scientists are aiming to build the world's first sustainable fusion reactor by 'creating a miniature star on Earth'.
Following a series of key experiments over the last few weeks, the £2.2 billion project has inched a little closer to its goal of igniting a workable fusion reaction by 2012. Experiment: Scientists hope that their £2.2billion 'miniature star on earth' will become the world's first sustainable fusion reactor by 2012 According to the National Ignition Facility (NIF) team in Livermore, on November 2 they fired up the 192 lasers beams at the centre of the reactor and aimed them at a glass target containing tritium and deuterium gas. For a direct comparison, the temperature at the centre of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. TOP TEN UNSOLVED PROBLEMS IN PHYSICS. Large Hadron Collider creates 'mini Big Bang' with lead ions.