Science News / Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? “If the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new movement that will snap the bonds of fate, the everlasting sequence of cause and effect—what is the source of the free will possessed by living things throughout the earth?”—Titus Lucretius Carus, Roman philosopher and poet, 99–55 BC. Human free will might seem like the squishiest of philosophical subjects, way beyond the realm of mathematical demonstration. But two highly regarded mathematicians, John Conway and Simon Kochen, claim to have proven that if humans have even the tiniest amount of free will, then atoms themselves must also behave unpredictably. The finding won’t give many physicists a moment’s worry, because traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics embrace unpredictability already. But physicists all the way back to Einstein have been unhappy with this idea. Their argument starts with a proof Kochen created with Ernst Specker 40 years ago. compares the situation to the game “Twenty Questions.”
The Man Who Would Stop Time Bill Andrews’s feet are so large, he tells me, that back when he was 20 he was able to break the Southern California barefoot-waterskiing distance record the first time he put skin to water. Then he got ambitious and went for the world speed record. When the towrope broke at 80 mph, he says, “they pulled me out of the water on a stretcher.” The soles of the size-15 New Balances that today shelter those impressive feet strike a steady clap-clap on the macadam as Andrews and I lope down a path along the Truckee River that takes us away from the clutter of cut-rate casino hotels, strip malls and highway exit ramps that is downtown Reno, Nevada. Andrews, 59, is a lean 6-foot-3 and wears a close-cropped salt-and-pepper Vandyke and, for today’s outing, a silver running jacket, nicely completing a package that suggests a Right Stuff–era astronaut. He is in fact one of the better ultramarathoners in America. That would indeed be ironic. The embrace of fitness has for Andrews a telomeric logic.
Hammer and Feather Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones. All rights reserved. MP3 Audio Clip ( 6 min 34 sec ) Video Clip 2 min 24 sec ( 0.6 Mb RealVideo or 21 Mb MPG ) 167:02:55 Scott: Whenever you're ready, I'll get the tools off of you (that is, off Jim's PLSS). 167:03:02 Irwin: Okay. 167:03:18 Scott: They want to get that? 167:03:19 Irwin: I guess so; I don't know. 167:03:23 Scott: Yeah. [Jim goes to the back of the Rover, having left the SCB on his seat.] 167:03:25 Allen: Dave, that's affirm. 167:03:33 Scott: Okay. 167:03:35 Irwin: Okay, I'm ready to get the tools off. 167:03:36 Allen: And we're plenty comfortable on the time. 167:03:40 Scott: Yeah, well, we ought to get the descent engine sample first. 167:03:45 Irwin: Okay, well I don't need my bags for that. 167:03:47 Scott: Nope. 167:03:51 Irwin: I'll get the SESC. 167:03:52 Scott: Yeah; and a scoop. 167:03:54 Irwin: Yeah. [Dave goes around the north side of the spacecraft to find a patch of undisturbed soil.
MyPhysicsLab – Physics Simulation with Java UD researchers focus on building telescope at South Pole 3:46 p.m., Dec. 9, 2008----It's 40 degrees F below zero (with the wind chill) at the South Pole today. Yet a research team from the University of Delaware is taking it all in stride. The physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Delaware's Bartol Research Institute are part of an international team working to build the world's largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent's snow-covered surface. Dubbed “IceCube,” the telescope will occupy a cubic kilometer of Antarctica when it is completed in 2011, opening super-sensitive new eyes into the heavens. “IceCube will provide new information about some of the most violent and far-away astrophysical events in the cosmos,” says Thomas Gaisser, the Martin A. The University of Delaware is among 33 institutions worldwide that are contributing to the National Science Foundation project, which is coordinated by the University of Wisconsin. A huge telescope in the ice Working in the deep freeze
Synchronizing Clocks previous home next PDF Michael Fowler, UVa Physics 2/29/08 Suppose we want to synchronize two clocks that are some distance apart. We could stand beside one of them and look at the other through a telescope, but we’d have to remember in that case that we are seeing the clock as it was when the light left it, and correct accordingly. Another way to be sure the clocks are synchronized, assuming they are both accurate, is to start them together. If, then, we place a flashbulb at the midpoint of the line joining the two clocks, and flash it, the light flash will take the same time to reach the two clocks, so they will start at the same time, and therefore be synchronized. Let us now put this whole arrangement - the two clocks and the midpoint flashbulb - on a train, and we suppose the train is moving at some speed v to the right, say half the speed of light or so. Let’s look carefully at the clock-synchronizing operation as seen from the ground. from which tB is given by previous home next PDF
Index to Physics Demonstration Equipment Index to Physics Notebooks Back to Physics Demonstrations' Home Page Acceleration A+0+0 "Coin and Feather" fall in an evacuated rotatable tube. A+0+5 Timed free fall: Ball drops 2 meters through electronic timing gate. A+0+10 Atwood machine: Unbalanced weights on a pulley accelerate slowly. A+0+15 A falling weight accelerates a car horizontally. A+0+20 Acceleration of a steel ball down an inclined plane with metronome. A+0+22 Inclined airtrack with gliders and timing gates. A+0+23 Inclined airtrack: Cart and ball accelerate in unison. A+0+25 Cork float accelerometer: Cork and water in sealed flask. A+0+30 A chain dropped onto a force plate. A+0+35 A ball swung on a string held by a sleeve. A+0+40 Conical pendulum: Similar to A+0+35 with standard weights. A+0+45 Loop the loop: Sphere, hoop, disk rolled down a looped track. A+0+47 Swing water in a bucket. A+0+50 Candles rotating about an axis. A+0+55 Mercury and colored water in a rotating glass vessel. A+0+57 Rotating loop of chain rolls across bench.