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Quantum Physics

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Glass Half Empty. What if a glass of water was, all of a sudden, literally half empty?

Glass Half Empty

—Vittorio Iacovella The pessimist is probably more right about how it turns out than the optimist. When people say “glass half empty”, they usually mean something like a glass containing equal parts water and air: The Casimir Effect. [Physics FAQ] - [Copyright] Calculation by Don Koks, 2002 Original by Philip Gibbs, 1997 The Casimir effect is a small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates.

The Casimir Effect

It is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. By Controlling Individual Atoms, Researchers Watch Chemical Reactions at the Quantum Level. What's the Latest Development?

By Controlling Individual Atoms, Researchers Watch Chemical Reactions at the Quantum Level

By isolating two individual atoms at extremely low temperatures, researchers have observed how chemical reactions function at the quantum level for the first time. Researchers at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory were able to measure the chemical interactions between individual, ultracold ytterbium ions and rubidium atoms. While two atoms will naturally repel each other, scientists observed that "when an atom and a positive ion approach slowly, the ion's charge draws part of the atom's electron cloud towards it, leading to an attractive force between them.

" The Manhattan Project's Fatal "Demon Core" Sixty six years ago today, Louis Slotin saw a flash of blue light in the depths of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Manhattan Project's Fatal "Demon Core"

Seconds before, all that separated the young scientist from a lethal dose of radiation was a thin screwdriver. The screwdriver supported a reflective covering that encased a sphere of plutonium, and if the reflector fell into place, a nuclear chain reaction would commence. When Slotin's hand slipped, a lethal burst of radiation hit him, and he died nine days later. Blog: Higgs Hysteria. You know that a scientific idea has penetrated popular culture when people start making jokes about it.

Blog: Higgs Hysteria

Like the one about the priest who changed his name to Higgs so he could be better at giving mass. Or some that say a gadget for negating the Higgs field would be a weapon of mass destruction. Most are variants on a Higgs boson walks into a bar … finally. Relativistic Baseball. What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?

Relativistic Baseball

- Ellen McManis Let’s set aside the question of how we got the baseball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal pitch, except in the instant the pitcher releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c. From that point onward, everything proceeds according to normal physics. Invisible dark matter skeleton of universe detected - Phenomenica. Higgs Discovery: CERN May Confirm 'God Particle' July 4. Heisenberg / Uncertainty Principle - Werner Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle. Space Time Travel & Relativity Visualized. The Feynman Lectures on Physics Website. Not enough hours in the day? Scientists predict time will stop completely. The theory of time running out was devised by researchers from two Spanish universities trying to explain why the universe appeared to be spreading continuously and accelerating.

Not enough hours in the day? Scientists predict time will stop completely

Observations of supernovae, or exploding stars, found the movement of light indicated they were moving faster than those nearer to the centre of the universe. But the scientists claimed the accepted theory of an opposite force to gravity, known as dark energy, was wrong, and said the reality was that the growth of the universe was slowing. Richard Feynman videos. Videos This page has been recently updated.

Richard Feynman videos

The Fantastic Mr Feynman - BBC documentary, May 2013 Feynman's 1984 lecture on Tiny Machines (79 minutes) Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey Of A Genius (full version, 54 minutes) The Challenger - BBC movie (full version, 89 minutes) Richard Feynman - Los Alamos From Below (audio, 69 minutes) Breakthrough in physics may lead to new view of magnetism. An artistic representation of a ‘polaron’ – a new quantum state, or a ‘quasiparticle’.

Breakthrough in physics may lead to new view of magnetism

The potassium atom in the middle (blue) repels the smaller lithium atoms (yellow). This creates a complex state, which physically can be best described as a quasiparticle (Illustration: Harald Ritsch) Ferromagnetism is a phenomenon we encounter everywhere in nature. It’s the form of magnetism which most people are familiar with, as exhibited in horseshoe magnets, refrigerator magnets and in a wide range of technologies such as hard drives and medical equipment. Society is heavily dependent on this form of magnetism, although its causes and effects are far from being understood. - StumbleUpon.

A Theory on the Deja Vu or Déjà vu Phenomenon During the time while this web-page has been on the Internet, more than three thousand people (up to Nov 2009) have e-mailed to say that they have Déjà Vu experiences.

- StumbleUpon

That is interesting, but their descriptions have virtually always described some different phenomenon. If a person has any pre-knowledge of something that is yet to happen, like in a dream, it cannot be Déjà Vu, and is likely to be some type of Precognition. Quantum physicists show a small amount of randomness can be amplified without limit. Once again quantum physics gives us philosophical implications: physicists showed how a small amount of randomness can be amplified without limit. Classical physics is deterministic: for example, we can determine the position and velocity of a particle at any time in the future. Quantum theory, on the other hand, states that there exist processes which are fundamentally random: for instance, the outcomes of measurements of quantum particles seem to be determined entirely by chance.

This is why Einstein argued in a publication in 1935 that the quantum theory is incomplete, and yet another kind of higher theory must exist, but up to the present time there has been no proof either that the world is purely deterministic and all randomness is due solely to a lack of knowledge about certain events, or that everything happens purely by chance. The Higgs Boson Explained. Quantum Levitation Is Real And Its Spectacular! Video. Touch Effects. 'Multiverse' theory suggested by microwave background. 3 August 2011Last updated at 09:38 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News The team has located possible "bubble universe" evidence in WMAP data The idea that other universes - as well as our own - lie within "bubbles" of space and time has received a boost. Studies of the low-temperature glow left from the Big Bang suggest that several of these "bubble universes" may have left marks on our own.

This "multiverse" idea is popular in modern physics, but experimental tests have been hard to come by. Bits Of Reality. Motion Mountain - The Free Physics Textbook for Download - StumbleUpon. Artists, Physicists, Mathematicians and Philosophers Contemplate Infinity. As I stepped into the Infinity Environment on Wednesday morning (Feb. 1), I heard faint gasps from those around me. With apprehension, we entered a stark white, brilliantly lit room with no edges. The curved walls and angled lighting minimized shadows, giving the illusion that we were staring into a continuum. With no visual reference points anywhere in the room, my eyes flickered about, desperate for something to focus on; it was impossible to tell how far space extended, if at all.

In seeming infinite, space ceased to exist beyond my eyelashes and nose. Math, Physics, and Engineering Applets. Oscillations and Waves Acoustics Signal Processing. Mind blowing physics engine demonstration. Physics Flash Animations. We have been increasingly using Flash animations for illustrating Physics content. This page provides access to those animations which may be of general interest. The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less - StumbleUpon. Quantum fluctuation. PhysicsCentral: Learn How Your World Works. Quantum Entanglement and Information (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) - StumbleUpon. First published Mon Aug 13, 2001; substantive revision Thu Aug 26, 2010. Teleportation - StumbleUpon.

Physics Help, General Physics, Fundamentals of Physics. Guths Grand Guess. Galactic Smashup Leaves Dark Matter Debris. World's Top Scientists Ponder: What If The Whole Universe Is, Like, One Huge Atom? The laws list. Loose Cable Blamed For Speedy Neutrinos. Higgs Running Out Of Hiding Places. Even as physicists in Europe close in on their most-wanted quarry — a particle known as the Higgs boson — scientists in Illinois are helping narrow the hunt.

String Theorists Squeeze Nine Dimensions Into Three. A simulation of the early universe using string theory may explain why space has three observable spatial dimensions instead of nine. The leading mathematical explanation of physics goes beyond modern particle theory by positing tiny bits of vibrating string as the fundamental basis of matter and forces. String theory also requires that the universe have six or more spatial dimensions in addition to the ones observed in everyday life.

Physics I: Classical Mechanics - Download free content from MIT. Basic Probability Theory. Physics. Imagining the Tenth Dimension - A Book by Rob Bryanton. Crystals May Be Possible In Time As Well As Space. A Universe from Nothing: Einstein, the Belgian Priest and the Puzzle of the Big Bang.

Personal and Historical Perspectives of Hans Bethe. Is Dark Energy Really "Repulsive Gravity"? In 1998 scientists discovered that the universe is not only expanding but that its expansion is accelerating. Researchers now able to stop, restart light. PhysOrg.com - Science News, Technology, Physics, Nanotechnology, Space Science, Earth Science, Medicine. Lectures.