Dark matter...dark energy...dark lightning...dark flow: I feel somewhat like a Sith Lord...
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| Credit: Nature |
National Geographic: New Proof Unknown "Structures" Tug at Our Universe
New Scientist: Blow for 'dark flow' in Planck's new view of the cosmos
Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3128)
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A dense sheet of electrons accelerated to close to the speed of light can act as a tuneable mirror that can generate bursts of laser-like radiation in the short wavelength range via reflection. A team of physicists from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, the Queens University Belfast (QUB) and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Oxford created such a mirror in a recent experiment. The scientists used an intense laser pulse to accelerate a dense sheet of electrons from a nanometre-thin foil to close to the speed of light and reflected a counter-propagating laser pulse from this relativistic mirror. With this experiment, the physicists managed to carry out a Gedankenexperiment (thought experiment) formulated in 1905 by Albert Einstein stating that the reflection from a mirror moving close to the speed of light could in principle result in bright light pulses in the short wavelength range. The researchers report on their results in Nature Communications, 23. April, 2013.
In everyday life, reflections of light are usually observed from surfaces that are at rest such as the reflection from a piece of glass or a smooth surface of water. But, what happens if one creates a mirror moving incredibly fast, close to the speed of light? This question was answered more than a century ago by Albert Einstein in 1905 in his theory of special relativity. Now, an international team of researchers investigated that question in an experiment.
Max Planck Institute: Light bursts out of a flying mirror
That I am thankful for, really.
Christopher Emdin, professor of science and education writes "5 Ways to Stop a Black Scientist - Kiera Wilmot's Arrest" and I have to say something not just for clarity, but for sanity. The five ways are thus:
Criminalize curiosity - needed for scientific research.
Sending student to "expulsion schools" - see my comments below.
Stifling innovation.
Putting outdated rules over education.
Prison-type policies.
We keep observing like the proverbial deer in headlights an oncoming global train wreck with the smug arrogance that "America" is somehow a magical chant; an incantation that inoculates us from slipping from preeminence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our global competitors do NOT have tax-funded "creation museums"; our global competitors do NOT make political litmus tests involving a litany of science denial (The Big Bang, Climate Change, Evolution, Relativity - the MOON landing!); our global competitors do NOT have draconian standardized tests converting their students into the equivalent of Pavlov's canines: their teachers TEACH, and the profession is rightly revered. Finland, for example has not resorted to for-profit charter schools that will enrich a few and serve no one, and they are whipping our intellectual assets in an academic smackdown across Terra Firma!
We're not a "post-racial" society: if anything, 2008 and 2012 showed the rising political power of so-called minorities and much maligned millennials; their ability to make themselves known at the ballet box. We're still sectioning ourselves into "proper" career pursuits, and societal positions - note the diversity in AP classes at any high school campus; note the celebration of athletic or musical prowess and which groups are targeted in advertising it.
Blocking their wishes, rigging the system, changing "times and laws," making it harder to vote only will encourage them to wait - 5, 10 15 hours or more - to make their desires heard, as they do not have unlimited amounts of monies to pour and and purchase a politician. They/We naively believe democracy was based on Jefferson's trinity of three greatest men, and is worth participating in and preserving. Lessening access to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and knowledge is the opposite of John Donne's wisdom: it lessens America from chant to sad historical footnote.
This is far beyond Kiera and race: it is what we want to eventually be as a nation going forward, or in the words of the Bard: "not to be!"
The charges have been dropped, thankfully. Kiera is currently at an "expulsion school," waiting to see if she can return to her campus in the fall, hopefully with her scientific curiosity safely intact.
Orlando Sentinel:
Kiera Wilmot, student who caused small explosion won't face charges
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| This artist's concept shows the huge, scorching-hot "Einstein's planet," formally known as Kepler-76b, orbiting its host star, which has been tidally distorted into a slight football shape (exaggerated here for effect). The planet was detected when astronomers spotted brightness changes in the star induced by the planet due to relativistic effects. CREDIT: David A. Aguilar (CfA) |
Einstein's special relativity has proven more useful than ever, as scientists have now used it to discover an alien planet around another star.
The newfound world — nicknamed "Einstein's planet" by the astronomers who discovered it — is the latest of more than 800 planets known to exist beyond our solar system, and the first to be found through this method.
The planet, officially known as Kepler-76b, is 25 percent larger than Jupiter and weighs about twice as much, putting it in a class known as "hot Jupiters." The world orbits a star located about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
Note: I reproduced the text verbatim, but I think that General Theory - i.e., gravitational lensing - is probably how the planet was discovered, and it is not a new or unique method. RG
Space.com: 'Einstein's Planet': New Alien World Revealed by Relativity
by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor
"Applying such a commodity approach to education, just as in applying it to art or science, or classics or history, or poetry or math or love or joy, defeats the whole point of living and learning and turns universities into trade schools whose sole purpose is to supply the skills that enable one to get a job to earn money to buy things. Our primary asset is not our money. It is the quality of our time on earth. It is the vast misunderstanding by a generation that has lost touch with--or perhaps never really knew--what education should do: open us up to wonder and the great meaning and aesthetic beauty of life."
Fool Me Twice: Fighting The Assault on Science in America, Shawn Lawrence Otto
"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty."
"Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach."
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it."
Albert Einstein
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| View of the main solenoid of the CMS detector at CERN: is new physics lurking in the vast amounts of data acquired by the experiment? (Courtesy: CERN/Samuel Morier-Genoud) |
After discovering the Higgs boson last year, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider are now trawling through the data as the collider undergoes an 18-month shutdown for repairs and upgrades. The goal is to discover hints of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics – but tantalizing glimpses of new physics have been harder to spot than many physicists had expected.
But while the public has largely taken the discovery of the Higgs boson as mission accomplished for the €3.8bn collider, many particle physicists have been shaking their heads in disappointment. Since it started collecting data, the LHC has exposed few – if any – traces of physics beyond the Standard Model, a framework that is now some 40 years old. There has been no solid evidence for dark matter, supersymmetry, miniature black holes, extra dimensions or any of the other exotic phenomena that theorists excitedly talked about prior to the machine's switch-on. If there is new physics still waiting to be found, the question is: where? And will it turn up in the current shutdown period from an analysis of existing data or in the next, higher energy run?
Physics World: Higgs hunters look beyond the Standard Model
Image Credit: IndieRockCafe.com
An anniversary, of sorts...
History of Mother's Day
"The first official Mother's Day celebrations in the United States took place in West Virginia in 1908, at the urging of Anna Jarvis. Anna's mother (also named Anna), who was active in her community, frequently organized women's groups to promote friendship and health. It had been her dream to reunite families divided by the Civil War with a day dedicated to mothers. When she passed away on May 12, 1907, Anna held a memorial service at her late mother's church in her honor. Her mother's idea of Mother's Day quickly caught on, and within five years of her death, virtually every state was observing the day on the anniversary of her death. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday of May as the official Mother's Day.
"Although Jarvis had promoted wearing a white carnation as a tribute to one's mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased. Over time, the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. However, what had originally been primarily a day of honor became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts and in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday that she had helped establish.
"Mother's Day is celebrated around the world, either on this date, or at other times of the year. In 17th century England, those who had moved away were allowed to visit their home parishes and their mothers on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. This became "Mothering Sunday," now celebrated earlier in the year in England. Some countries have also continued to observe ancient festivals; for example, Durga-puja, honoring the goddess Durga, remains an important festival in India."
"You can do anything you want to do, if you set your MIND to it. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." Mildred D. Goodwin, sunrise 15 September 1925, sunset 7 May 2009, laid to rest 12 May 2009.
Despite my challenging background (#16 on the list), she said this often, and believed the quote I reproduced above, and more importantly: she believed in me.
Mildred: Her name means "gentle strength." She was that. Her name for me was "stink": diapers. You understand.
Please honor your mother (while she lives), who assists you in fulfilling your dreams: http://www.e-cards.com/area/mothers-day/ (also source of "history of Mother's Day" above)
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| Lorenz Attractor - the never-repeating trajectory of a single chaotic orbit, figure 2 (see link) |
With undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics, Lorenz had served as a meteorologist in World War II before completing his doctoral studies in meteorology at MIT and joining the MIT faculty in 1955.
At the time, most meteorologists predicted weather using linear procedures, which were based on the premise that tomorrow’s weather is a well-defined linear combination of features of today’s weather. By contrast, an emerging school of dynamic meteorologists believed that weather could be more accurately predicted by simulating the fluid dynamical equations underlying atmospheric flows. Lorenz, who had just purchased his first computer, a Royal McBee LGP-30 with an internal memory of 4096 32-bit words, decided to compare the two approaches by pitting the linear procedures against a simplified 12-variable dynamical model. (Lorenz’s computer, though a thousand times faster than his desk calculator, was still a million times slower than a current laptop.)
In classical physics, one is taught that given the initial state of a system, all of its future states can be calculated. In the celebrated words of Pierre Simon Laplace, “An intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis . . . for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.”1 Or, put another way, the clockwork universe holds true.
Herein lies the rub: Exact knowledge of a real-world initial state is never possible—the adviser can always demand a few more digits of experimental precision from the student, but the result will never be exact. Still, until the 19th century, the tacit assumption had always been that approximate knowledge of the initial state implies approximate knowledge of the final state. Given their success describing the motion of the planets, comets, and stars and the dynamics of countless other systems, physicists had little reason to assume otherwise.
Starting in the 19th century, however, and culminating with a 1963 paper by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz, a series of developments revealed that the notion of deterministic predictability, although appealingly intuitive, is in practice false for most systems. Small uncertainties in an initial state can indeed become large errors in a final one. Even simple systems for which all forces are known can behave unpredictably. Determinism, surprisingly enough, does not preclude chaos.
Physics Today: Chaos at Fifty
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| A. Haimovici et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2013) Figure 1: (Left column) Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments have revealed that the brain at rest is organized into several areas in which fluctuations of brain activities are correlated, so-called resting state networks (RSN). From top to bottom: Medial visual (VisM), lateral visual (VisL), auditory (Aud), and sensory-motor (SM) RSNs. (Right columns) Results from the work of Haimovici et al. [1] show that a simple model can reproduce the statistical properties of RSNs only if the model is tuned to criticality (at TC) |
Neuroscience is at the brink of an unprecedented advance in obtaining instant, detailed maps of neuronal activity during higher brain functions such as object recognition and decision making. These maps will become possible thanks to a rapid cross fertilization among fields (molecular biology, optics, imaging, microfabrication processes, and nanotechnologies) and are considered crucial to make sense of the complex activities that emerge from the billions of neurons making trillions of connections that constitute the human brain. Relevant large-scale research projects are being carried out or are being planned internationally: the Human Connectome Project and BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) in the US, the Human Brain Project in Europe, and the Brainnetome project in China. The overarching goal of these large undertakings will be to explain how the brain functions, by acquiring and integrating detailed information on brain structure and its dynamical behavior. But will these endeavors succeed? Knowledge about fine structural details of the brain and observations of neuronal activities may not be sufficient if the emergence of forms of collective behavior is not properly captured. Writing in Physical Review Letters, Ariel Haimovichi, at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, and co-workers [1] beautifully exemplify how cooperative phenomena play a key role in determining brain dynamics, by showing that the brain in its resting state (i.e., when not performing an explicit task) is a system at criticality.
APS Viewpoint: The Critical Brain
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New NIST Reference Materials for MEMS devices are micromachined and further processed to contain miniature cantilevers, beams, stair-like step heights, microscale rulers and test structures for measuring surface-layer thickness. On the left is RM 8096, which was manufactured with an integrated circuit process; on the left is RM 8097, made with a MEMS process. Credit: NIST |
As markets for miniature, hybrid machines known as MEMS grow and diversify, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has introduced a long-awaited measurement tool that will help growing numbers of device designers, manufacturers and customers to see eye to eye on eight dimensional and material property measurements that are key to device performance.
The NIST-developed test chips (Reference Materials 8096 and 8097) are quality assurance tools that enable accurate, reliable comparisons of measurements on MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) devices made with different equipment and by different labs or companies. These capabilities will make it easier to characterize and troubleshoot processes, calibrate instruments and communicate among partners.
MEMS were once considered a stepchild of the semiconductor industry and largely confined to automotive uses—primarily as accelerometers in airbag systems. But the devices have branched out into an array of applications, especially in consumer electronics markets. A high-end smart phone, for example, contains about 10 such devices, including microphones, accelerometers and gyroscopes. MEMS devices also are important components of tablet computers, game consoles, lab-on-a-chip diagnostic systems, displays and implantable medical devices.
NIST: New NIST Measurement Tool Is On Target for the Fast-Growing MEMS Industry
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| Structure of superionic ice in (left) the bcc phase and (right) the newly discovered and more stable fcc phase. Credit: Hugh F. Wilson, et al. ©2013 American Physical Society bcc = body-centered cubic; fcc = face-centered cubic |
(Phys.org) —While everyone is familiar with water in the liquid, ice, and gas phases, water can also exist in many other phases over a vast range of temperature and pressure conditions. One lesser known phase of water is the superionic phase, which is considered an "ice" but exists somewhere between a solid and a liquid: while the oxygen atoms occupy fixed lattice positions as in a solid, the hydrogen atoms migrate through the lattice as in a fluid. Until now, scientists have thought that there was only one phase of superionic ice, but scientists in a new study have discovered a second phase that is more stable than the original. The new phase of superionic ice could make up a large component of the interiors of giant icy planets such as Uranus and Neptune.
The scientists, Hugh F. Wilson (now at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO] in Australia), Michael L. Wong, and Burkhard Militzer at the University of California, Berkeley, have published a paper on the new phase of superionic ice in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.
Phys.org:
New phase of water could dominate the interiors of Uranus and Neptune
MCOR Technologies White Paper: How 3D printing works.
Entertainment:
Last year’s blockbuster sci-fi thriller, Prometheus, owes some of its success to the visionary work of FBFX Ltd, a film industry model company, and to the 3D printers that brought their creations to life.
Set on a, shall we say, unhospitable planet, the characters in Prometheus are constantly wearing spacesuits. While the fabric portions of these spacesuits can be mocked up by costume designers, the high-tech, LED-filled helmets had to be created using 3D models. That job fell to Grant Pearmain, FBFX’s managing director, and his team.
Engineering:
One of the most difficult parts of integrating electronics with biological tissue is getting the numerous tissues and materials to meld. At a lab in Princeton, New Jersey scientists are making progress on this effort using 3D printing.
According to Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, “In general, there are mechanical and thermal challenges with interfacing electronic materials with biological materials.” In the past, researchers have attempted to overcome this hurdle by binding a piece of “seed” tissue to an electronic component.
But at McAlpine’s lab, that un-artful solution is being challenged with new state of the art techniques. “[O]ur work suggests a new approach -- to build and grow the biology up with the electronics synergistically and in a 3D interwoven format."
To do this, the Princeton team used 3D printing to create the complex topography of the human ear with a matrix of hydrogel and calf cells. Silver nano particles, which made up the structure of the antenna, were added to the ear's form to create a new audio receiver.
Anarchy:
Nearly a year ago the founder of Defense Distributed, Cody Wilson, announced his plans to create the world’s first 3D printed gun. In the coming days, Wilson plans to release his 3D Printed gun. Its name: “The Liberator”.
Over the course of the last year, Wilson and his team at Defense Distributed have made remarkable strides in creating 3D printed components like a magazine and lower receiver for the much maligned AR-15 assault rifle.
However, Wilson’s newest design is a complete departure from their previous work in that The Liberator is a standalone, fully functional 3D printed handgun. In fact, according to Wilson the only functional component in the gun that isn’t 3D printed is the weapon’s firing pin. To comply with the US Undetectable Firearms Act, The Liberator also contains a 6 oz. piece of steel to make it detectable by metal detectors, however, anyone who prints the weapon could simply decide not to add this component to their model.
Ironically: conservative icon near-demigod Ronald Reagan banned plastic weapons, so I expect the introduction of a single nail or cube of metal into the fuselage will be challenged in courts, as no such modification can be regulated, hence anarchy (both the domestic and international terrorist kind). Mike Weisser drops the science in an open letter to Wayne LaPierre. And, the gun industry will soon realize that 3D printing can be as detrimental to bottom-line capitalism as gun sales without selling paranoia that the government is going to take them: why walk in a gun store when you ARE the gun store?
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| Illustration showing the magnetic spins precessing with respect to the magnetic fields. (Courtesy: J Shi/Princeton University) |
An atomic magnetometer that can detect magnetic fields one hundred billion times smaller than the Earth's and does not require stringent shielding from the Earth's own field has been developed by an international group of researchers. The device is based on multi-pass atomic vapour cells and, the team says, can be used in various magnetic sensing applications such as measuring biological magnetic fields and land-mine clearance, as well as in geology and fundamental physics experiments.
Atomic magnetometers work by detecting how the energy levels of atoms are modified by an external magnetic field. This is the famous Zeeman effect – a quantum effect whereby the magnetic spin states in an atom split in the presence of an external magnetic field. This interaction between the atomic magnetic moment and external field is used to measure the field. This is normally done by using a pump laser to "polarize" the atoms by populating specific spin states, while a probe laser measures the spin precession, which is proportional to the magnetic field.
Physics World: Atomic magnetometer is most sensitive yet
Join us at the 2013 SACNAS National Conference “Strengthening the Nation Through Diversity, Innovation and Leadership in STEM" in San Antonio, Texas, October 3-6 and help us celebrate our 40th anniversary!
Join over 3,700 attendees for four days of scientific research presentations, professional development, networking, exhibits, culture, and community. One of the largest annual gatherings of minority scientists in the country, the interdisciplinary, and interactive SACNAS National Conference motivates and inspires. The SACNAS National Conference supports its diverse membership showcasing cutting-edge science and features mentoring and training sessions. Programming is specifically tailored to support undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and career professionals at each transition stage of their career as they move towards positions of science leadership.
Mission
SACNAS is a society of scientists dedicated to fostering the success of Hispanic/Chicano and Native American scientists—from college students to professionals—to attain advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in science.
SACNAS: 2013 SACNAS National Conference & Special 40th Anniversary Celebration
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| Kiera Wilmot |
Thomas Edison was known for explosions.
Throughout his childhood, Thomas Edison was full of curiosity about how things worked and always asked a lot of questions. He didn't do very well in a traditional school setting, and often got punished for annoying the teacher with too many questions. As a result, after the age of twelve, he was home-schooled by his mother. His interest in science was first sparked when his mother bought him his first scientific book, The School of Natural Philosophy. He thoroughly studied the book and performed all the experiments described in it at home. He soon set up his own laboratory in his room and began performing original experiments. After a few disasters, he was asked by his parents to move his laboratory to the basement. The explosions from the basement constantly shook the house, often upsetting his father.
But...the experiments did NOT stop.
A motivational speaker once used Edison as an example of perseverance.
Lab Assistant (exasperated after an explosion):
When are you going to give up this STUPID idea? That was the 9,999th time you have NOT invented this light bulb! You could have gotten us killed!
Edison:
That's right. This is the 9,999th trial. But, please make note of the explosive application that might prove useful later...
I've referenced my own 1st experiment as a spectacular explosion. It was my parents' support that carried me through some rough times in science, one of which my middle school science teacher called me "a big dummy" in front of class. I LAUGHED in his face! Did he want me to kowtow to his lowered expectations? Did he not know Lewis Latimer aided Edison in his "stupid idea"? Who DID he think he was? When you have confidence and support from loved ones, you automatically have chutzpah. As I did, this young queen should do so as well: hold your head high.
Sometimes, science can be dramatic, dangerous, and if you survive the adventure: thrilling and invigorating. Not de-emphasizing safety here, just access...to knowledge, and ultimately power and self-determination.
News of Kiera Wilmot’s arrest has seriously unnerved me. She is the Florida high school student who was experimenting with common household chemicals in science class that resulted in a minor explosion. There were no injuries and no damage to school property; however, she was taken away in handcuffs, formally arrested and expelled from school.1
A 16 year old Florida student with good grades, who is described by her principal as a “good kid”, is now facing felony charges for a science experiment gone wrong.2
Really?
A few probing questions...
Where was the teacher? Answered: this was done before classes began.
Who was harmed? Answered: no one.
What do we do with white collar computer hacks? Answered: we tend to hire them to IT firms.
What are we doing to give the next generation enthusiasm towards STEM careers in a globe increasingly complex, defined by science advancing at light speed, needing this kind of adventurous wonder, when life-and-death decisions are going to be predicated on how deep their critical thinking skills are, their sense of wonder is developed?
...Nothing!
And lastly: which side of the criminal justice system would you rather see Kiera on?
Answer: I'd prefer her in a research lab, or working at an engineering firm, personally.
1. SciAm The Urban Scientist: Florida teen charged with felony for trying science
2. Your Black World: 16 Year Old Charged With Felony After Science Project Goes Wrong
Change.org:
Bartow Police Chief, Tammy Glofelty - State PA: Drop Felony Charges and Release Kiera Wilmot
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| Perched on the International Space Station around 400 km above the Earth, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) collects data from primary cosmic rays before they can interact with the atmosphere. Image credit: NASA. |
The international team running the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) has announced the first results in its search for dark matter. They indicate the observation of an excess of positrons in the cosmic-ray flux. The results were presented by Samuel Ting, the spokesperson of AMS, in a seminar at CERN on 3 April, the date of publication in Physical Review Letters.
The AMS results are based on an analysis of some 2.5 × 1010 events, recorded over a year and a half. Cuts to reject protons, as well as electrons and positrons produced in the interactions of cosmic rays in the Earth’s atmosphere, reduce this to around 6.8 × 106 positron and electron events, including 400,000 positrons with energies between 0.5 GeV and 350 GeV. This represents the largest collection of antimatter particles detected in space.
CERN Courier: AMS measures antimatter excess in space
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| Live from CERN - Antimatter: Mirror of the Universe |
Geneva, 24 April 2013. The LHCb collaboration at CERN1 today submitted a paper to Physical Review Letters on the first observation of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the decays of the particle known as the B0s. It is only the fourth subatomic particle known to exhibit such behaviour.
Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe, but today the universe appears to be composed essentially of matter. By studying subtle differences in the behaviour of particle and antiparticles, experiments at the LHC are seeking to cast light on this dominance of matter over antimatter.
CERN press office: LHCb experiment observes new matter-antimatter difference
There is a difference when science uses the word theory -- and the ubiquitous phrase "in theory" in conversation. A theory is a well-researched explanation of a hypothesis or group of hypotheses, corroborated by experimentation following the Scientific Method, peer review and repeated - often thousands of times - with reliable results. Thus, you have flu vaccines, AZT, GPS, nanotechnology, your cell phone; the Internet.
When someone ask me "do you believe in the Theory of Relativity and/or Theory of Evolution," my retort is always "do you believe in the Theory of Pythagoras (Pythagorean Theorem)?" I always get strange looks. Again: a2 + b2 = c2 fits the previous paragraph's description.
A fitting comparison for the genius that opened our understanding to the geometry of spacetime...
About 7,000 light-years from Earth, an exceptionally massive neutron star that spins around 25 times a second is orbited by a compact, white dwarf star. The gravity of this system is so intense that it offers an unprecedented testing ground for theories of gravity.
Scientists know general relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915, isn't the complete story. While it does very well describing large, massive systems, it's incompatible with quantum mechanics, which governs the physics of the very small. For something extremely small, yet extremely massive — such as a black hole — the two theories contradict each other, and scientists are left without a physical description.
Rare systems like this binary star pair offer a chance to probe the boundary between the two theories, and search for possible openings toward new physics that could reconcile them.
"We thought this system might be extreme enough to show a breakdown in general relativity, but instead, Einstein's predictions held up quite well," Paulo Freire, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, said in a statement.
Space.com: Einstein's Gravity Theory Passes Toughest Test Yet, Clara Moskowitz
The two observed events from August 2011 (left panel) and January 2012 (right panel). Each sphere represents a DOM (digital optical module). Colors represent the arrival times of the photons where red indicates early and blue late times. The size of the spheres is a measure for the recorded number of photoelectrons. Credit: arXiv:1304.5356 [astro-ph.HE]
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Antarctic research station IceCube are reporting that they've detected the highest ever energy neutrinos ever observed. In their paper they've uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the team describes how in analyzing sensor data over the period 2010 to 2012 they found evidence of two neutrino induced events that were on an order of ten times the energy of any previous event.
Neutrinos are of particular importance to researchers because they have no charge and very little mass. This means they are free to travel through space without having their paths changed due to gravitational or magnetic forces, a trait that makes them very valuable for one day locating their source. The two neutrinos recorded at IceCube (dubbed Bert and Ernie) are of particular relevance because the odds are very good that they came from the far reaches of space, rather than as a by-product of a collision between cosmic rays and Earth's atmosphere—the researchers give it a confidence level of 2.8 sigma—meaning that the two neutrinos are very likely the first detected from outside the solar system since 1987, when detectors recorded neutrinos believed to have come from a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Phys.org: Researchers at IceCube detect record energy neutrinos
Meet Francisca Okeke, Professor of Physics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She recently received the L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Award for her significant contributions to the understanding of daily variations of the ion currents in the upper atmosphere which may further our understanding of climate change. She was also the Dean in the faculty of Physical Sciences at her University, from 2008 to 2010.
Professor Okeke spoke with us about her background and inspiration, the cultural challenges she overcame in achieving success and how she uses her position to encourage and inspire young women scientists in Nigeria.
What challenges did you face, in particular, with regards to the stereotypes of women and the culture in your country, Nigeria, when you decided to get involved in science?
In the past, the core sciences such as physics were regarded as male domains where women were expected not to be seen but to be heard. People used to think that when you get into these core science subjects, like physics, the characteristics that are most worthily accepted for women in our society, including passivity, emotionality, intuition and receptivity would no longer be possessed by that woman. Therefore they fought against women trying to embark on studying these core subjects.
But, my own case was a little different; my father was an old graduate of mathematics who was my mentor, so I did not face that in my family because he was supportive of everything about science. Not only did he encourage me, he was my mentor. He planted and watered the seed of my academic excellence which we are celebrating today. He laboured and inspired my love for science in general, and mathematics in particular. That love for mathematics later metamorphosed into a special love for physics.
"To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter." Euripides
