Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3116)

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Prometheus...

Chemistrylanddotcom

Single photons are a key ingredient in quantum information systems, but producing them on demand is difficult.

This is a very short article on using the Rydberg excitation state. From the Wiki world:

A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation utilizes quantum properties to represent data and perform operations on these data.

Eventually, we'll hit the limit we can print physically, Moore's Law or More Than Moore. After such a milestone/limit, carbon nanotubes will march us towards the technological singularity, an idea that apparently had its Genesis in the 19th century. I wryly compare this to Prometheus ("Forethought").

 

Physics Today: A Rydberg-atom photon source

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A TIE!...


See my previous post from last year. Apparently, they've decided on two locations for the Square Kilometer Array:
Credit: Physics World

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project will be hosted by South Africa and Australia, following a decision made by the SKA organization today.

SKA will be a €1.5bn ground-based radio-astronomy telescope used to probe the early universe for clues on galaxy evolution, dark matter and dark energy by looking as far back into time as the first 100 million years after the Big Bang. South Africa has been competing to host the array, with a rival bid from Australia.
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By JoVE...



If a photo is worth a thousand words, imagine the understanding that can be captured from 10 minutes at 30 frames per second. A scientific journal dedicated to video—a medium seldom seen in peer-reviewed publications—is finding out.

Increasingly, scientists include short video clips when they submit their manuscripts to a journal. But the Journal of Visualized Experiments—JoVE for short—is an online journal where video is the main medium rather than a supplement.

Each JoVE article consists of a short video segment that visually documents the required steps for performing an experiment. The video is supplemented by several paragraphs of peer-reviewed text. JoVE has developed a following in the life sciences, where being able to reproduce the results of an experiment in a timely fashion is a critical component to becoming a successful researcher.

They plan to offer an Applied Physics section July of 2012.Smiley

 

Technology Review: Science Journal Produces a Different Kind of Viral Video
Web site: JoVE.com

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C-NOT Breakthrough...

Technology Review

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: In the race to build powerful quantum computers, many groups are competing to build logic gates that can process quantum information and still be connected together on a large scale.


One important question remains unanswered, however: what should the devices use to carry quantum information?


Schemes involving charged particles such as Ion traps, electron circuits and superconductors have long looked promising because the qubits they hold can be easily manipulated with electric and magnetic fields. Charged particles also interact easily with each other in a way that can be made to process data.

The problem, of course, is that stray fields also interact with charged particles, causing the quantum information they carry to leak away. Stray fields litter the universe like the plague and this severely reduces the utility of these types of devices.


One alternative is the humble photon, which is unaffected by stray fields and can travel many kilometres through a waveguide without interacting with the environment.

 

Primer: Controlled NOT gate (Wikipedia)
Physics arXiv: Controlled-NOT gate operating with single photons

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Beamed Up...

Crawling the Jefferies Tube - Captain Montgomery Scott

The ashes of late actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery Scott in the original "Star Trek" television series and a series of subsequent films, were on the SpaceX rocket that launched a private spacecraft into orbit this week.

Doohan's character was referenced in the "Beam me up, Scotty" catchphrase associated with "Star Trek."

 

CNN: In the end, it was Scotty who got beamed up

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Physics4All...



We are connected now more than ever before—at every level—as physicists, scientists, members of society, and as humans. The advent of faster travel and instant communication connects people of all backgrounds across national, political, and ethnic borders.

In the modern connected world, physics is no longer an arcane science restricted to those with a PhD: physicists collaborate with biologists, engineers, and economists to help with education, climate science, and energy production. These are issues that affect everyone, and an understanding of physics enables involvement and brings new perspective for the betterment of all.

Physicists have a responsibility not just to discover, but also to share and to educate. Science plays a key role in a connected world, but it is not an automatic one. We must choose to forge the links between science and society, between the lab and the living room, and across the barriers that constantly threaten to divide the world. We must choose to bring physics to all.

 

Society of Physics Students: The SPS Observer


"Education, on the other hand, means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free. To deny education to any people is one of the greatest crimes against human nature. It is to deny them the means of freedom and the rightful pursuit of happiness, and to defeat the very end of their being. They can neither honor themselves nor their Creator. Than this, no greater wrong can be inflicted; and, on the other hand, no greater benefit can be bestowed upon a long benighted people than giving to them, as we are here this day endeavoring to do, the means of useful education."

 

Frederick Douglass, Blessings of Liberty and Education, Teaching American History.

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Birthday Wishes...


 


Electron Configuration: Think Quest

Electrons rule our world, but not so long ago they were only an idea. This month marks the 120th anniversary of a profound and influential creation, the electron theory of Dutch physicist
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. His electron was not merely a hypothesized elementary particle; it was the linchpin of an ambitihous theory of nature. Today physicists are accustomed to the notion that a complete description of nature can rise out of simple, beautiful equations, yet prior to Lorentz that was a mystic vision.

 

Scientific American:
Happy Birthday, Electron!
Nobel Prize:
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz

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Andrew Gemant Award...

College Park, MD, May 16, 2012 —The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has chosen renowned physicist and writer Lisa Randall, Ph.D., as the 2012 recipient of the Andrew Gemant Award, which is given annually for significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimension of physics.


“I was delighted to hear about this award,” said Randall. “It’s very nice for such broader creative activities stemming from physics to be recognized. They can be both risky and rewarding, so it’s very satisfying when they work out well.”

Randall is considered one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the past decade. Her scientific research explores gaps in our current understanding of the properties and interaction of matter, such as why gravity is weaker than other fundamental forces and what is the nature of dark matter.


Randall has used art to communicate some of the exotic ideas that stem from her research efforts. At the invitation of composer Hector Parra, she wrote the libretto for the opera “Hypermusic Prologue: A Projective Opera in Seven Planes.” The opera, which features contrasting tempos and transitions into electronically altered music, delves into the concept of extra dimensions and premiered in 2009 at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Randall also co-curated the Los Angeles Art Association exhibit Measure for Measure, which examined the important scientific concept of scale through the lens of contemporary art.


AIP Press Release:
Theoretical Physicist Lisa Randall Wins 2012 Gemant Award

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The OTHER Mayan Calendar...


 


The ninth-century wall paintings predate existing Mayan astronomical records by hundreds of years


An excavation of an archaeological site in Guatemala has uncovered Mayan astronomical records dating to the ninth century A.D. The tabulated numbers, which predate existing Mayan astronomical documents by several hundred years, chart the motion of the moon and also seem to relate to the orbits of Mars and Venus. (And good news: they
do not predict the world will end this year—in fact, some of the numbers appear to
refer to dates far in the future.)

 

Scientific American:
Earliest Mayan Astronomical Calendar Unearthed in Guatemala Ruins

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Annular Eclipse Sunday...


 


Credit:
Hinode/XRT

Skywatchers in East Asia and the western United States should circle Sunday (May 20) on their calendars. That's when a solar eclipse will block out most of the sun, leaving a spectacular "ring of fire" shining in the sky for observers located along the eclipse's path.

 

The event is what's known as an annular solar eclipse — from the Latin "annulus," meaning "little ring" — and its full glory should be visible from much of Asia, the Pacific region and some of western North America, weather permitting. At its peak, the eclipse will block about 94 percent of the sun's light.

Space.com:
'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse Occurs May 20










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In The Neighborhood...












The Most Likely Places to Find Alien Life according to Seth Shostak of the SETI institute are Enceladus (small moon of Saturn), Titan, Mars, Europa, Venus, Callisto and Ganymede (Jupiter moons).

Mind you, the EXTREME climates on these extraterrestrial candidates are not hospitable to human life, without some well-engineered terra-forming.

However, we have examples on the Earth of life developing under extremes:
crushing pressures at ocean depths; temperatures beyond the boiling point of water where we've found life, thus the theory: if in these places, then elsewhere beyond our solar system.

 

Space.com:
The 6 Most Likely Places to Find Alien Life

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Righteous Indignation...

 



It is a psychosis when one's esteem is based on an entire culture's abasement. It is also, national suicide to
insist that the heavy lifting of
future STEM careers be held up by one culture, one gender over all others.

 


"Melting pot" then becomes less than lyric poetry: it devolves to self-delusional myth, "picket fence" fantasies and a recipe for national disaster as the globe becomes more complex and needs every citizen valued, valuable and rowing in our collective boat. The inane debates on birth control, gay marriage et al have not created a
singlejob, a single educational opportunity for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy to lift themselves by bootstraps... with no laces!

 

"Pyrrhic victory" will be our epitaph.


 
"Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5

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Signs of Shake, Rattle and Roll...


 


Earthquake in Chile:
Bostondotcom


ABSTRACT:
During earthquakes preparation periods significant disturbances in the ionospheric plasma density are often observed. These anomalies are caused by lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere interaction, particularly by the seismic electric field penetrating from the ground surface into the ionosphere. The seismic electric field produces electromagnetic EB drift changing plasma density over the epicenter region and magnetically conjugated area. The paper is devoted to analysis of regular Global Positioning System observations and revelation of seismo-ionospheric precursors of earthquakes in Total Electron Content (TEC) of the ionosphere. Global and regional relative TEC disturbances maps (%) have been plotted for 2005-2006 M6, D<60 km seismic events and analyzed in order to determine general features of precursors. The obtained results agree with the recent published case-study investigations.

 

Physics arXiv:
Searching for seismo-ionospheric earthquakes precursors:Total Electron Content disturbances before 2005-2006 seismic events

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SEM shows a gold nanotip (top) and localized photocurrent from the nanotip apex (middle). A schematic depicts the photoelectron escape trajectory (with quenched quiver motion) from the nanolocalized field (bottom). (Courtesy of University of Göttingen)

 


In 1905, Albert Einstein used his “quantum” view of light to explain key attributes of the photoelectric effect: The energy of electrons emitted from a metal does not increase at higher light intensities, as the classical wave theory contends, but only the number of emitted electrons increases, consistent with light quanta. With the photon energy E = hν, each electron acquires energy from one photon, and only by increasing the light frequency ν (and not intensity) can the energy of the emitted electrons be increased.

Now, more than a century later, scientists at the University of Göttingen (Göttingen, Germany) have demonstrated that in the so-called strong-field regime—the interaction of extremely high-intensity laser light with atoms and surfaces—classical dynamics may indeed prevail in photoemission from metal nanostructures.1

“In the usual photoeffect, one electron absorbs one photon, but in our experiments, we found electrons that had hitched a classical ride on the light field itself to escape confinement on the nanoscale,” says University of Göttingen scientist George Herink. “Strong, few-cycle infrared light pulses focused on gold nanotips cause the energy of electrons to grow with increasing intensity and wavelength; some electrons acquire the energy of not just one photon, but more than a thousand photons.”

 

Laser Focus World:
STRONG-FIELD PHYSICS: Ultrafast pulses, gold nanotips renew classical view of the photoelectric effect

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Nanotech Cancer Fighters...


 


Health New Medicine

For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to develop nanoparticles that would deliver drugs more effectively and safely. The idea is that a nanoparticle containing a drug compound could selectively target tumor cells or otherwise diseased cells, and avoid healthy ones. Antibodies or other molecules can be attached to the nanoparticle and used to precisely identify target cells. "One of the largest advantages of nanotechnology is you can engineer things in particle form so that chemotherapeutics can be targeted to tumor cells, protecting the healthy cells of the body and protecting patients from side effects," says Sara Hook, nanotechnology development projects manager with the National Cancer Institute.

 

But executing this vision has been difficult. One challenge: a drug's behavior in the body can change dramatically when it's combined with nanoparticles. A nanoparticle can change a drug's solubility, toxicity, speed of action, and more—sometimes beneficially, sometimes not. If a drug's main problem is that it's toxic to off-target organs, then nanotechnology can ensure that it's delivered to diseased cells instead of healthy cells. But if a drug depends on being absorbed quickly by diseased cells to be effective, a nanoparticle may slow the process and turn an optimal therapeutic into second best.

 

Technology Review:
Fine-tuning Nanotech to Target Cancer

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Eclipsing Expectations...


 
 
 


 



Fred's Excellent Eclipse Image (that's the cred)


Black Sun,” a feature-length documentary, chronicles two celestial events: the May 20, 2012 annular solar eclipse and the November 14, 2012 total solar eclipse. The movie follows two astrophysicists who study the solar atmosphere during eclipses:

•Dr. Alphonse Sterling of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center stationed in Japan (a man who had early success in the US, but left his home country to further cultivate his wide-ranging interests).

Dr. Hakeem Oluseyiof the Physics & Space Sciences department at the Florida Institute of Technology (a scientist who beat all of the odds: poverty, homelessness, single-parent, poor early education, etc., to get to where he is today).

“Black Sun” explores how and why the two men became scientists, their opposing paths and personalities, their struggles as minorities in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field, and their noteworthy accomplishments today.


 



Related Link:
Hubble's Diverse Universe

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edX...



 
 
 

Harvard Gazette

An organization established by MIT and Harvard that will develop an open-source technology platform to deliver online courses. EdX will support Harvard and MIT faculty in conducting research on teaching and learning on campus through tools that enrich classroom and laboratory experiences. At the same time, edX also will reach learners around the world through online course materials. The edX website will begin by hosting MITx and Harvardx content, with the goal of adding content from other universities interested in joining the platform. edX will also support the Harvard and MIT faculty in conducting research on teaching and learning.

 

Such as:
MITx 6.002x Circuits and Electronics
Info:
edX online
Technology Review:
Harvard and MIT Offer Online Education for Free

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