Controlled Quantum Levitation on a Wipe'Out Track

Brian Cox and Simon Pegg explain why atoms have so much empty space Thanks for posting that... that was pretty awesome! I kind of disagree about his "woo" statements. He opens up with we can't remain static in our knowledge of science or we will essentially become obsolete. Quantum A photon is a single quantum of light, and is referred to as a "light quantum". The energy of an electron bound to an atom is quantized, which results in the stability of atoms, and hence of matter in general. As incorporated into the theory of quantum mechanics, this is regarded by physicists as part of the fundamental framework for understanding and describing nature at the smallest length-scales. Etymology and discovery[edit]

Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have developed an imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second–fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom. As Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor in M.I.T.’s Media Lab, explains in the video below, a high-speed camera can capture the image of a bullet mid-flight. The M.I.T. camera can capture the movement of photons, which travel about one million times faster than bullets. The researchers use a titanium-sapphire laser as a pulsed light source and direct the beam using mirrors to a plastic bottle that helps illuminate the light. Their camera consists of an array of 500 sensors, each triggered at a trillionth-of-a-second delay, Media Lab postdoctoral associate Andreas Velten says in the video.

Quantum computer Study of a model of computation Quantum computing is the use of quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation. Computers that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers.[1]:I-5 Quantum computers are believed to be able to solve certain computational problems, such as integer factorization (which underlies RSA encryption), substantially faster than classical computers. The study of quantum computing is a subfield of quantum information science. There are several models of quantum computing, including the quantum circuit model, quantum Turing machine, adiabatic quantum computer, one-way quantum computer, and various quantum cellular automata. The most widely used model is the quantum circuit. Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak Researchers in the US have, for the first time, cloaked a three-dimensional object standing in free space, bringing the much-talked-about invisibility cloak one step closer to reality. Whilst previous studies have either been theoretical in nature or limited to the cloaking of two-dimensional objects, this study shows how ordinary objects can be cloaked in their natural environment in all directions and from all of an observer's positions. Published Jan. 26 in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, the researchers used a method known as "plasmonic cloaking" to hide an 18-centimetre cylindrical tube from microwaves. Some of the most recent breakthroughs in the field of invisibility cloaking have focussed on using transformation-based metamaterials -- inhomogeneous, human-made materials that have the ability to bend light around objects -- however, this new approach uses a different type of artificial material -- plasmonic metamaterials.

Elementary particle In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle whose substructure is unknown, thus it is unknown whether it is composed of other particles.[1] Known elementary particles include the fundamental fermions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons), which generally are "matter particles" and "antimatter particles", as well as the fundamental bosons (gauge bosons and Higgs boson), which generally are "force particles" that mediate interactions among fermions.[1] A particle containing two or more elementary particles is a composite particle. Everyday matter is composed of atoms, once presumed to be matter's elementary particles—atom meaning "indivisible" in Greek—although the atom's existence remained controversial until about 1910, as some leading physicists regarded molecules as mathematical illusions, and matter as ultimately composed of energy.[1][2] Soon, subatomic constituents of the atom were identified. Overview[edit] Main article: Standard Model

How the universe appeared from nothing MacGregor Campbell, consultant There's no such thing as a free lunch, or so the saying goes, but that may not be true on the grandest, cosmic scale. Many physicists now believe that the universe arose out of nothingness during the Big Bang which means that nothing must have somehow turned into something. How could that be possible?

Why there is no such thing as empty space MacGregor Campbell, contributor Could the universe have appeared out of nothing? In a previous video, we argued that typical notions of 'something' and 'nothing' don't really make sense according to modern physics. Why Does Our Universe Have Three Dimensions? Why does our universe look the way it does? In particular, why do we only experience three spatial dimensions in our universe, when superstring theory, for instance, claims that there are ten dimensions — nine spatial dimensions and a tenth dimension of time? Japanese scientists think they may have an explanation for how a three-dimensional universe emerged from the original nine dimensions of space. They describe their new supercomputer calculations simulating the birth of our universe in a forthcoming paper in Physical Review Letters. Before we delve into the mind-bending specifics, it’s helpful to have a bit of background.

One-Minute Physics: How wings really create lift Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV How does air flow across a wing to generate lift? Since a wing's top surface is curved, it covers a greater distance compared to the flatter bottom edge. A common explanation is that air moves faster over the top so that it reaches the end of the wing at the same time as the bottom flow, lowering the pressure on the top surface. But this pressure explanation is just a myth, explains Holger Babinsky, professor of aerodynamics at the University of Cambridge. In an attempt to debunk the misconception, he filmed pulses of smoke flowing around an aerofoil.

Wacky Physics: Why Do Particles Have Flavors? In this regular series, LiveScience explores some of the wildest, weirdest parts of our universe, from quantum oddities to hidden dimensions. The building blocks of matter — fundamental particles — come in many more flavors than the basic few that make up the atoms we're familiar with. Flavor is the name scientists give to different versions of the same type of particle. For instance, quarks (which make up the protons and neutrons inside atoms) come in six flavors: up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm. Particles called leptons, a category that includes electrons, also come in six flavors, each with a different mass. But physicists are baffled as to why flavors exist at all, and why each flavor has different characteristics.

The Physics of Angry Birds You know the game, I know you know. Angry Birds. I have an attraction to games like this. You can play for just a little bit at a time (like that) and each time you shoot, you could get a slightly different result. The Mysterious Physics of 7 Everyday Things Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer | October 05, 2011 04:27pm ET Credit: DOE Physicists have figured out some extremely fine details of the universe, from the radius of black holes to the behavior of subatomic particles neither of which we can even see. It may surprise you to learn, then, that they lack explanations (or have only recently stumbled upon them) for many common phenomena we observe in daily life. As you'll learn in the following slides, some of the most mysterious things of all may be those that, on the face of it, seem mundane.