Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

Hafu..

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 6, 2015 at 9:34am

Ariana Miyamoto - Miss Japan 2015, image source @ link below

Topics: Beauty, Commentary, Civil Rights, Human Dignity, Human Rights

The American enterprise has been emulated since "Exceptionalism" became a neologism in our lexicon. We may have also exported some of our evils.

Perhaps the indigenous population of the Japanese nation don't quite realize they are an amalgamation of several migrating tribes of humanity: Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian (see link). I'm speculating, I really don't know. Masutatsu Oyama - the founder of Kyokushin Karate - was born Choi Young-Eui in Gimje, South Korea during the Japanese occupation. Wikipedia One of his books - Mastering Karate - traced martial arts to the African continent. We are ALL from the African continent, all aspects and hues of humanity started there as the tropics near the equator was the best incubator for "man-thinking": homo sapiens; tools and opposable thumbs; weapons for defense and offense Going from tree dwellers to hunter-gatherers, we settled in villages with agriculture. City-states emerged, fueled by architecture, writing and trade. Eventually, some of us migrated eastward and northward, probably driven by curiosity, deficit attention spans; greed and power. Over time, our outward appearance due to ultraviolet radiation and Melanin, changed with respect to our environments.

Over time, we thinking men created our own mythologies about our unique tribes. Our deities generally looked like us; our culture and jurisprudence fashioned on not getting struck by their wrath. Slowly, verifiable evidence measured higher than dogma as far as survival. The Scientific Method was born.

Perhaps there are no relatives of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, or at least nowadays in minimal numbers. Perhaps there is no cultural memory of the indignities paid to people like George Takei (Mr. Sulu of Star Trek), when his entire Japanese-American family was interned during World War II for the crime of being Japanese. Or maybe, that's the point here.

Mythologies are self-deluding, and become echo chambers and fill in gaps that actual histories could occupy. One begins to believe the "internal press" about one's culture; one's people...one's exceptionalism.

Ariana Miyamoto is exceptionally beautiful. The fact her parentage is Japanese and African American is irrelevant to that reality. "Hafu" is the Japanese neologism for half-Japanese, similar to light-skinned or Mulatto in the United States. As I said, we've inadvertently exported our sins and dirty laundry.

Beyond tribalism, we should become true cosmopolitans - residents of the Earth and by extension the universe - and part of the tribe called human.

The beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, Tokyo

Cartoon Physics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 5, 2015 at 6:37am

Image Source: Amazon.com

Topics: Comic Books, Physics Humor, Physics and Pop Culture

Comic books are our modern mythology. We await with baited breath the donnybrook also known as Batman v Superman, though we don't yet know why the "Super Friends" start their inevitable bromance with a grudge match. Avengers: Age of Ultron answered who else was "worthy" enough - Vision - to lift Thor's hammer - forged in the heart of a dying star, which kind of suggests a Brown Dwarf or White Dwarf, meaning nothing in the universe worthy or not should be able to lift a teaspoon of Mjolnir (except apparently, a nail on the wall of Dr. Jane Foster's apartment in "Dark World" - seriously, look again). Technically, Vision came to life from it, so a one-armed curl shouldn't be past his AI abilities. Of course, there are others who lift "the smasher" - including the Hulk, who heretofore couldn't no matter how mad he got!

Currently in vogue on television are series like Agents of Shield (with the exception of enhanced humans and demigods, pretty terrestrial in its physics); Arrow (essentially, Batman with a bow); Gotham (that is so dark, it's a wonder Bruce Wayne or Jim Gordon WANT to stay there); and of course the breakout hit, the societal, self double entrendre: The Flash.

The series ended (spoiler alert) with a lot of cockeyed physics, like running at twice the speed of sound, colliding with a single proton in an accelerator and opening a wormhole so his nemesis - The Reverse Flash (a really pissed-off psychopath that comes back to create The Flash to KILL him - ahem: keep up), so he could go home. Home in this case, the 25th Century, bypassing Kirk and Picard's paltry epochs by two centuries where they apparently have time travel, but no cows for hamburgers, if Rev is to be "believed." The cliffhanger was Barry doing the heroes sacrifice of running into a black hole opening above Central City - that in real world physics would have killed most of the population with its radiation and ground the Earth into hamburger meat, Flash included. Ray Bradbury would be proud of the echo from his "A Sound of Thunder," an apocryphal foundation for time travel stories since its inception.

Of course, it's all hokey fun. Doing a serious and somewhat tongue-in-cheek search on the actual physics of superluminal (i.e. faster than light speed travel) resulted an interesting paper and related article [1, 3]; some humorous posts [2, 4], also tongue-in-cheek funny. Humor is always a good hook for STEM lectures and teenagers.

I enjoy the shows just like anyone else. For any story line to sell its audience, there is the usual suspension of belief in the verisimilitude of the fictional world and its "laws of cartoon physics." Alas, poor Yorick - our laws are binding. Even the Batman - my favorite, since he was for me the most believable - can't escape the laws we're subject to on a daily basis - like all of us mere mortals subject to Entropy, he wears out too. Life without magic is kind of a drag, but there's still much wonder in reality.

For any of these shows, I become that kid on 25th and Cleveland Avenue in Winston-Salem, NC that used to enjoy a nerdy Saturday with my best friend - trading and reading comic books, something sadly I don't think kids do much of anymore. I'm trying not to be the sour physics guy pointing out every impossibility in a movie or TV series - as I've gotten older, I'm better in large groups at keeping my mouth shut.

1. Physics arXiv: How superluminal motion can lead to backward time travel
Robert J. Nemiro and David M. Russelly
2. Geek: Quantum physics just solved one of the great paradoxes of time travel, Graham Templeton
3. Scientific American: Time Travel Simulation Resolves “Grandfather Paradox”, Lee Billings
4. PBS News Hour: Spider-Math and Bat-Physics: Science in a Superhero World, Rebecca Jacobson

Alice's Wonderland...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 4, 2015 at 9:06pm

Image Source: ESA Rosetta Blog

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Comets, Rosetta, Spectrograph

A close-up of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by NASA's ultraviolet instrument surprised scientists by revealing that electrons close to the comet's surface—not photons from the Sun as had been believed—cause the rapid breakup of water and carbon dioxide molecules spewing from the surface.

Since last August, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has orbited within a hundred miles of the comet in this historic mission. The spectrograph onboard, named Alice, specializes in the far-ultraviolet wavelength band and was developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). Alice examines light the comet is emitting to understand the chemistry of the comet's atmosphere, or coma. A spectrograph is a tool astronomers use to split light into its various colors. Scientists can identify the chemical composition of gases by examining their light spectrum. Alice is the first such far-ultraviolet spectrograph to operate at a comet.

NASA's Alice ultraviolet (UV) spectrograph, seen here during construction, is aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

"The discovery we're reporting is quite unexpected," said Alice instrument Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern, an associate vice president in SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division. "It shows us the value of going to comets to observe them up close, since this discovery simply could not have been made from Earth or Earth's orbit with any existing or planned observatory. And, it is fundamentally transforming our knowledge of comets.

Phys.org: Alice instrument's ultraviolet close-up provides a surprising discovery about comet's atmosphere

Higgs and Mattresses...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 3, 2015 at 6:45am

Skip Sterling for Quanta Magazine

Topics: Higgs Boson, Higgs Field, Large Hadron Collider, LHC, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics

Three physicists who have been collaborating in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past year have devised a new solution to a mystery that has beleaguered their field for more than 30 years. This profound puzzle, which has driven experiments at increasingly powerful particle colliders and given rise to the controversial multiverse hypothesis, amounts to something a bright fourth-grader might ask: How can a magnet lift a paperclip against the gravitational pull of the entire planet?

Despite its sway over the motion of stars and galaxies, the force of gravity is hundreds of millions of trillions of trillions of times weaker than magnetism and the other microscopic forces of nature. This disparity shows up in physics equations as a similarly absurd difference between the mass of the Higgs boson, a particle discovered in 2012 that controls the masses and forces associated with the other known particles, and the expected mass range of as-yet-undiscovered gravitational states of matter.

In the absence of evidence from Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) supporting any of the theories previously proposed to explain this preposterous mass hierarchy — including the seductively elegant “supersymmetry” — many physicists have come to doubt the very logic of nature’s laws. Increasingly, they worry that our universe might just be a random, rather bizarre permutation among uncountable other possible universes — an effective dead end in the quest for a coherent theory of nature.

Their solution traces the hierarchy between gravity and the other fundamental forces back to the explosive birth of the cosmos, when, their model suggests, two variables that were evolving in tandem suddenly deadlocked. At that instant, a hypothetical particle called the “axion” locked the Higgs boson into its present-day mass, far below the scale of gravity. The axion has appeared in theoretical equations since 1977 and is deemed likely to exist. Yet no one, until now, noticed that axions could be what the trio calls “relaxions,” solving the hierarchy problem by “relaxing” the value of the Higgs mass.

Inspired by a 1984 attempt by Larry Abbott to address a different naturalness problem in physics, they sought to recast the Higgs mass as an evolving parameter, one that could dynamically “relax” to its tiny value during the birth of the cosmos rather than starting out as a fixed, seemingly improbable constant. “Though it took six months of dead ends and really stupid models and very baroque, complicated things, we ended up landing on this very simple picture,” Kaplan said.

In their model, the Higgs mass depends on the numerical value of a hypothetical field that permeates space and time: an axion field. To picture it, “we think of the totality of space as being this 3-D mattress,” Dimopoulos said. The value at each point in the field corresponds to how compressed the mattress springs are there. It has long been recognized that the existence of this mattress — and its vibrations in the form of axions — could solve two deep mysteries: First, the axion field would explain why most interactions between protons and neutrons run both forward and backward, solving what’s known as the “strong CP” problem. And axions could make up dark matter. Solving the hierarchy problem would be a third impressive achievement.

Quanta Magazine: A New Theory to Explain the Higgs Mass, Natalie Wolchover

Cosmic Old Faithful...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 2, 2015 at 10:28pm

This artist's impression illustrates how high-speed jets from a supermassive black hole would look. Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Casada (ESO)

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology, Einstein, General Relativity

Powerful jets of material spewing from the edge of monster black holes may be more likely to arise where two galaxies have merged together, a new study suggests.

Like a cosmic version of Old Faithful (the famous Yellowstone geyser), some black holes at the center of galaxies will spew jets of material into space that stretch for thousands of light-years. You can see an illustration of what these gushing pillars look like in a video of the galaxy crash discovery.

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, new research suggests these jets are more likely to be found in galaxies that are the product of galaxy mergers.

Scientific American: Galaxy Crashes May Give Birth to Powerful Space Jets, Calla Cofield and SPACE.com

Quantum Spin Liquid...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 1, 2015 at 11:08pm

Data taken with synchrotron diffraction indicates a short range, honeycomb-based nanostructure, which is the basis for the anomalous magnetism of Ba3CuSb2O9. NCNR neutron scattering data confirmed this structure and provided evidence for the resulting quantum spin liquid.
Credit: H. Sawa/Nagoya University
View hi-resolution image

Topics: Ferromagnetic, Fluid Mechanics, NIST, Quantum Mechanics, Spin, Superconductivity, Superfluidity

Back from a "blog break." I saw this article last month, but delayed it until the first due to a series of work-related classes (tiring, but very good I might add). I anticipate a few more, as I have that and two family reunions this summer. Not complaining about my people, but as far as my families, they could stagger these...just saying.

Trivia: Today is my wife's birthday; yesterday we went to Shadows Restaurant - her favorite. It's also (to be seen) the expiration of the Patriot Act. CNN and 24-hour cable news was born on this day in 1980. Since I can recall the era of three major network channels, a few UHF stations and television going off at midnight, I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Due to the massive amounts of competition with channels that produce movies on demand, music and reality shows, cable news has trended towards yellow journalism. Happy 35th birthday CNN, for better or worse...

Gaithersburg, Md.—An international team of researchers including scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found what may be the first known example of a "spin-orbital liquid," a substance in a never-before-seen quantum mechanical state.

The discovery, reported May 4, 2012, in the journal Science, has been sought for years by the physics community. Though the team does not posit immediate applications for the material, its properties relate to the same quantum effects that give rise to superconductivity, in which electricity flows through a material with no resistance, and superfluidity, in which a liquid flows across a surface with no friction.

The term "spin liquid" can be deceptive, as it describes a substance that in many ways fits our conventional understanding of a solid. Indeed, the material the team studied looks like a chunk of earth, but at the molecular level, it is made of copper, oxygen, barium and antimony atoms arranged in a crystalline lattice structure. In this particular structure the copper atoms exhibit unusual properties generally associated with liquids. Specifically, their magnetic orientation remains in a constant state of flux.

When materials with magnetic atoms—like iron—solidify, they generally do so in crystal structures whose atoms have an orderly arrangement of magnetic orientations. (When magnetic atoms interact "ferromagnetically" you get a refrigerator magnet.) Because magnetism stems from a quantum property in the atom's electrons called spin, another way of saying this is that the spins in these atoms' electrons all line up in a single direction. Ferromagnets feature an orderly, static arrangement of electron spins.

NIST Contributes to Discovery of Novel Quantum Spin-Liquid, Chad Boutin

Unexceptionalism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 24, 2015 at 10:00am

Topics: Economy, Education, Exceptionalism, OECD, Politics, United States, Singapore

Exceptionalism: It's not even really a word, it's a mythology we tell ourselves, over and over like a meditative mantra. As with most naval gazing, we tend to believe our own inner press instead of examined facts and data. Self-myth is Linus's security blanket.

It traces back to Tocqueville, even though it's obvious we've retained the old world's sins: classism, racism, the ability and willingness to wage war.

"In recent years scholars from numerous disciplines, as well as politicians and commentators in the popular media, have debated the meaning and usefulness of the concept. Roberts and DeCuirci ask:

"Why has the myth of American exceptionalism, characterized by a belief in America’s highly distinctive features or unusual trajectory based in the abundance of its natural resources, its revolutionary origins and its protestant religious culture that anticipated God’s blessing of the nation—held such tremendous staying power, from its influence in popular culture to its critical role in foreign policy?" Wikipedia

However: of The 10 smartest countries based on math and science, America is exceptionally left out of the top ten...we tie with Italy at twenty-eighth.

What we're exceptional at is pseudoscience like creation science/museums and anti-vaxxers, the inane devotion to the testing industrial complex (making a killing on standardized tests in all 50 states) that Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada (the only one from the North American CONTINENT) have no relevant equivalent in this continued lunacy. As Ken Ham builds an ark and sues to only hire young Earth creationists - legalizing a patently discriminatory hiring practice; Bill Nye the Science Guy is crowd funding a solar sail. Go figure...

Mark Twain once famously remarked: "there are lies, damned lies and statistics," but this is not a lie, damnable or otherwise. Callously, politicians are telling people what they want to hear versus what they need to; making them comfortable to merely hold onto their positions for 20...30+ years and accomplish nothing.

There is still good work being done in high tech in this country. That good work is being done by engineers and scientists that are daily...getting older. They will eventually be pushed out (sadly), or retire. National prosperity is not the result of magical thinking. To continue our leadership and advances in STEM fields, the current workforce will have to have replacements once they can no longer produce at the same level as they did when they were younger; when there was industry, commerce and manufacturing that demanded their brilliance. Our university professors are in the same boat. They can only train students based on demand, and that demand cannot increase when our employment is freely traded across oceans to meet the bottom-line of "bean counters" oblivious to the real world between lattes.

We are exceptionally prone to conspiracy theories: false links to vaccines and autism; every shooting a "false flag" operation; the common nomenclature for military exercises - the exercise code name + YY (e.g. "15") - made into "the boogie man" in Texas by Alex Jones ditto head nincompoops that confuse the strict rules regarding research with disparate links of search engine results after an obvious drunken stupor.

As we advance in technology, there is a fear of it. Everyone has become Al Qaeda, The Tea Party, the Unabomber or ISIS: who all want us all in huts, cabins or caves; women covered head-to-toe, not driving or working, barefoot and pregnant (always) and living in some Shangri-La parallel to the voices loudly booming in their heads.

Hopefully, Robert De Niro's sage yet colorful advice to his co laborers in the arts is not appropos to the rest of the nation. We're sliding down an incline, slowly...inexorably...sliding. Rock bottom will hurt unless we start back up the incline.

I'll be out in a class. My 1,962 post and coincidentally the year of my birth. See you 1 June.

Nanorods and Photovoltaics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 22, 2015 at 11:14am

FIG. 1.
(a) Morphology of the NRs with 5–10 nm Ag nanoparticles. (b) Magnified image of 1(a). One NR with 5–10 nm Ag nanoparticles. (c) SEM image of the reference sample without Ag nanoparticles.
Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 117, 193101 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4921424

Topics: (100), Nanoparticle, Nanorod, P-Type Silicon Substrate, Photoluminescence, Photovoltaic, Raman Spectroscopy, Wurzite

Abstract:

The test structures for photovoltaic (PV) applications based on zinc oxide nanorods (NRs) that were grown using a low-temperature hydrothermal method on p-type silicon substrates (100) covered with Ag nanoparticles (NPs) were studied. The NPs of three different diameters, i.e., 5–10 nm, 20-30 nm, and 50–60 nm, were deposited using a sputtering method. The morphology and crystallinity of the structures were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. It was found that the nanorods have a hexagonal wurtzite structure. An analysis of the Raman and photoluminescence spectra permitted the identification of the surface modes at 476 cm−1 and 561 cm−1. The presence of these modes is evidence of nanorods oriented along the wurtzite c-axis. The NRs with Ag NPs were covered with a ZnO:Al (AZO) layer that was grown using the low-temperature atomic layer deposition technique. The AZO layer served as a transparent ohmic contact to the ZnO nanorods. The applicability of the AZO layer for this purpose and the influence of the Ag nanoparticles on the effectiveness of light acquisition by such prepared PV cells were checked by reflectance and transmittance measurements of the AZO/glass and AZO/NPs/glass reference structures. Based on these studies, the high-energy transmittance edge was assigned to the ZnO energy gap, although it is blueshifted with respect to the bulk ZnO energy gap because of Al doping. It was also shown that the most optimal PV performance is obtained from a structure containing Ag nanoparticles with a diameter of 20–30 nm. This result is confirmed by the current-voltage measurements performed with 1-sun illumination. The structures show a plasmonic effect within the short wavelength range: the PV response for the structure with Ag nanoparticles is twice that of the structure without the nanoparticles. However, the influence of the Ag nanoparticle diameters on the plasmonic effect is ambiguous.

American Institute of Physics:
Si/ZnO nanorods/Ag/AZO structures as promising photovoltaic plasmonic
E. Placzek-Popko^1,a), K. Gwozdz¹, Z. Gumienny¹, E. Zielony¹, R. Pietruszka², B. S. Witkowski², Ł. Wachnicki², S. Gieraltowska², M. Godlewski^2,3, W. Jacak¹ and Liann-Be Chang⁴

Dark Matter Shine...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 21, 2015 at 6:39am

An artist's concept shows a black hole eating material from a nearby star. Researchers say its possible dark matter swirling around a black hole could radiate gamma rays that could be seen by telescopes.
Credit: An artist's concept shows a black hole eating material from a nearby star. Researchers say its possible dark matter swirling around a black hole could radiate gamma rays that could be seen by telescopes.

Topics: Black Holes, Cosmology, Dark Matter, General Relativity

Dark matter circling the drain of a massive black hole could radiate gamma-rays that might be visible from Earth, according to new research.

Dark matter is five times more plentiful in the universe than regular matter, but it does not emit, reflect or absorb light, making it not just dark but entirely transparent. But if dark-matter particles around black holes can produce gamma-rays (high-energy light), such emissions would give scientists a new way to study this mysterious material.

The process responsible for creating the gamma-rays is somewhat counterintuitive, because it seems to defy two common assumptions: that nothing can escape from a black hole and that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

A 3D computer model of what the dark-matter gamma-ray signal might look like around a black hole. Because the particles are orbiting around the black hole (left to right) the signal is only visible on one side.
Credit: Jeremy Schnittman

Space.com: Black Holes Might Make Dark Matter Shine, Calla Cofield

Quantum Biomimetics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 20, 2015 at 3:12pm

Image Source: Technology Review and Physics arXiv

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Biology, Biomimetics, Computer Science, Humor, Quantum Computers, Quantum Mechanics

This reminded me of the Old Star Trek episode "The Devil in the Dark." It was unique in that it posited the Horta wasn't carbon-based (as we are), but silicon-based life, and a mother. Talk about "seek out new life." The write up and the paper are intriguing in that it does speculate something we altogether have never encountered, and if we did - or, in this case, create it, what then? What would we call it; what would it call us (mom/dad, or irrelevant/obsolete?), and how would we deal with our uncomfortable insignificance as a species in current 21st Century geopolitics? It's Wednesday, and I probably shouldn't think too deeply on such things. I just hope I haven't broken the three rules of Gremlins, and inadvertently fed the trolls...

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Computer scientists have long known that evolution is an algorithmic process that has little to do with the nature of the beasts it creates. Instead, evolution is set of simple steps that, when repeated many times, can solve problems of immense complexity; the problem of creating the human brain, for example, or of building an eye.

And, of course, the problem of creating life. Put an evolutionary algorithm to work in a virtual environment and it doesn’t take long to create life-like organisms in silico that live and reproduce entirely within a virtual computer-based environment.

This kind of life is not carbon-based or even silicon-based. It is a phenomenon of pure information. But if the nature of information allows the process of evolution to be simulated on an ordinary computer, then why not also on a quantum computer? The resulting life would exist in virtual quantum environment governed by the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics. As such, it would be utterly unlike anything that biologists have ever encountered or imagined.

But what form might quantum life take? Today we get an insight into this question thanks to the work of Unai Alvarez-Rodriguez and a few pals at the University of the Basque Country in Spain. They have simulated the way life evolves in a quantum environment and use this to propose how it could be done in a real quantum environment for the first time. “We have developed a quantum information model for mimicking the behavior of biological systems inspired by the laws of natural selection,” they say.

Physics arXiv: Artificial Life in Quantum Technologies
U. Alvarez-Rodriguez, M. Sanz, L. Lamata, E. Solano

Related Link
Science Alert:
An Electronic Memory Cell Has Been Created That Mimics the Human Brain
Fiona MacDonald

Pairing Without Superconductivity...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 19, 2015 at 8:14pm

Schematic diagram of the single-electron transistor. The long green line on the right of the diagram is the gate. The two green lines connected to the yellow structures are the source and drain. The nanodot is the isolated green line between the source and drain. (Courtesy: Guanglei Cheng et al./Nature)

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Nanotechnology, Quantum Mechanics, Superconductivity

Electron pairing without superconductivity has been seen for the first time by a team of physicists in the US. Confirming a prediction made in 1969, the electron pairs were spotted in strontium titanate using a single-electron transistor. The observation could provide useful insights into the nature of superconductivity, and perhaps even help in the design of new high-temperature superconductors.

In a conventional superconductor, electrons with opposite spin come together to form Cooper pairs that pass through the atomic lattice without scattering. This interaction occurs because the presence of one electron pulls in positive ions from the lattice, and this in turn attracts the next electron. These pairs then interact with each other to form a condensate from which individual electrons cannot be easily scattered. For this to work, however, the electrons have to be relatively close together. This is not the case in strontium titanate, which has a very low electron density yet is a superconductor at temperatures below a critical temperature (T_C) of about 300 mK (millikelvin).

Physics World: Electron pairing without superconductivity seen at long last, Tim Wogan

Quantum Shortcut...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 18, 2015 at 11:05pm

A shortcut to adiabaticity (STA) offers a fast route to quantum state preparation, similar to how a toll road offers a fast route to a traveler’s destination; both shortcuts involve costs, but the costs are hopefully worth the time saved. (The image depicts a road sign produced by the Swedish Transport Agency.)

Topics: Adiabatic Processes, Computers, Consumer Electronics, Cryptography, Quantum Mechanics

Quantum technologies come in a wide variety of forms, from computers, sensors, and cryptographic systems to simulations and imaging systems. But one thing that all current and future quantum systems have in common is the need to achieve reliable control over physical systems such as atoms or photons. A frequently used method to prepare quantum systems in the desired quantum state is a quantum adiabatic process, but these processes often take so long that environmental noise causes the quantum state to decohere and lose its "quantumness."

To speed up quantum state preparation and minimize decoherence, physicists have devised so-called "shortcuts to adiabaticity" (STA), which refer to any process that prepares quantum states in a shorter time than adiabatic processes without losing the benefits of being adiabatic. Originally developed for simple systems consisting of a single particle, STA has recently been extended to many-body systems, which are more relevant for applications. However, the implementation of STA in many-body systems is still very challenging due to the inherent complexity of these systems.

Phys.org: Quantum shortcut could speed up many quantum technologies, Lisa Ziga

Dreaming Electric Sheep...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 15, 2015 at 9:35am

Image Source: Headbirths - Technology, Neuroscience, Philosophy

Topics: Computer Science, DARPA, Humor, Robotics, Science Fiction, Virtual Reality

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," by Philip K. Dick, a rather colorful and disturbed science fiction writer, whose novel was the inspiration for the Dystopian movie: "Blade Runner." Like all good science fiction, it ask the question quite literally: "what does it mean to be 'human,' especially in light of self-aware androids in our midst. You'll see this is more about simulation than dreaming, but in thinking of a title, I fell for the poetic irony. DARPA coincidentally, played an early important role in the concept and development of the Internet.

In a month’s time, a motley assortment of robots will attempt to navigate a punishing obstacle course laid out in a fairground park in Pomona, California. At the challenge, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA), about two dozen machines will make their way through a series of tasks meant to push the limits of robot navigation, manipulation, and locomotion.

Before many of the robots set foot (or wheel) on the course, however, they will be put through their paces in a highly realistic virtual world. This 3-D environment, called Gazebo, makes it possible to try out robot hardware or software without having to power up the real thing. It’s a cheap and quick way to experiment without risking damage to valuable hardware components. And it allows many researchers to work on a single robot simultaneously.

“We are trying to mimic reality as closely as we can,” says Nate Koenig, CTO of the Open Source Robotics Foundation, which is developing Gazebo, and who has spent the last decade leading its development. “The goal is to easily switch over to a real robot.”

Technology Review: Even Robots Now Have Their Own Virtual World, Will Knight

Soft Matter Physics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 14, 2015 at 8:07pm

The humble soap bubble – a whole new field of physics. Photograph: Alexander Boden/flickr

Topics: Materials Science, Soft Matter Physics, Theoretical Physics

Respectfully, in memory of Sir Sam Edwards...

Many of the objects in the everyday world around us are squidgy when squashed, flow easily, or are very sensitive to changes in temperature. These sorts of materials – ranging from paint to frogspawn, from yogurt to snot – fall into the category of ‘soft matter’: materials whose dynamics are governed by timescales of seconds rather than hugely longer or shorter times.

The study of these systems, which are often complex and heterogeneous, grew out of the more traditional field of condensed matter physics. Whereas condensed matter physicists of the early-mid twentieth century traditionally studied in minute detail the properties of simple, one-phase materials such as copper or silicon, as soft matter grew as a discipline the range of material types studied expanded enormously.

There are two towering figures, both theoretical physicists, who are usually identified with the birth of this new field: Pierre Gilles de Gennes and Sir Sam Edwards. Both were trained as conventional theorists, both saw the richness of the newer materials and how the mathematical tools they were familiar with could be taken over to the study of this new class of materials.

It was the Frenchman de Gennes who won the 1991 Nobel Prize for this work with a citation that read “for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers”. But his friend and friendly rival the Welshman Sir Sam Edwards, who died last week at the age of 87, was equally active and influential; many felt he was unlucky not to share the prize.

The Guardian: The birth of soft matter physics, the physics of the everyday,
Athene Donald

Witnessing A Birth...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 13, 2015 at 8:38pm

The Antennae galaxies, shown in visible light in a Hubble image (upper image), were studied with ALMA, revealing extensive clouds of molecular gas (center right image). One cloud (bottom image) is incredibly dense and massive, yet apparently star free, suggesting it is the first example of a prenatal globular cluster ever identified.

NASA/ESA Hubble, B. Whitmore (STScI); K. Johnson, U.Va.; ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Topics: ALMA, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Molecular Gases, Proto Stars, Radio Astronomy

Globular clusters — dazzling agglomerations of up to a million ancient stars — are among the oldest objects in the universe. Though plentiful in and around many galaxies, newborn examples are vanishingly rare and the conditions necessary to create new ones have never been detected until now.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered what may be the first known example of a globular cluster about to be born: an incredibly massive, extremely dense, yet star-free cloud of molecular gas.

“We may be witnessing one of the most ancient and extreme modes of star formation in the universe,” said Kelsey Johnson from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. “This remarkable object looks like it was plucked straight out of the very early universe. To discover something that has all the characteristics of a globular cluster, yet has not begun making stars, is like finding a dinosaur egg that’s about to hatch.”

This object, which the astronomers playfully refer to as the “Firecracker,” is located approximately 50 million light-years away from Earth nestled inside a famous pair of interacting galaxies — NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 — which are collectively known as the Antennae galaxies. The tidal forces generated by their ongoing merger are triggering star formation on a colossal scale, much of it occurring inside dense clusters.

Astronomy Magazine: ALMA discovers proto super star cluster,
NRAO, Charlottesville, VA

NIST News...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 12, 2015 at 8:27pm

NIST Director Willie E. May
Credit: NIST

Topics: Chemistry, Diversity in Science, Optics, National Institute of Science and Technology, Photonics

Washington, D.C. – On May 4, 2015, the U.S. Senate confirmed Willie E. May as the second Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and the 15th director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). May has been serving as acting director since June 2014. He has worked at NIST since 1971, leading research activities in chemical and biological measurement science activities prior to serving as associate director for laboratory programs and principal deputy to the NIST director.

“Willie has been a partner and champion in our efforts to strengthen America’s manufacturing sector and promote innovation, key drivers to spurring economic growth, and core pillars of the Department’s ‘Open for Business Agenda.’ In addition to serving as a world-class research institute, NIST has taken the lead on several major Department of Commerce and Obama Administration priorities, including implementing a national network of manufacturing institutes and working with industry and other stakeholders to develop the NIST Cybersecurity Framework,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.

Among many other awards and honors, May was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2011. He has been recognized with the Department of Commerce's Bronze (1981), Silver (1985) and Gold (1992) medals. The National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) has recognized him with both the Percy Julian Award for outstanding research in organic analytical chemistry and the Henry Hill Award for exemplary work and leadership in the field of chemistry. May received the 2007 Alumnus of the Year Award from the College of Chemical and Life Sciences at the University of Maryland, and in 2010 he was among the first class of inductees into the Knoxville College Alumni Hall of Fame. He was the keynote speaker for the 2002 winter commencement ceremonies for the University of Maryland's College of Life Sciences, and for Wake Forest University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences commencement exercises in 2012. [1]

* * * * *

The science and technology of light are essential to a multitude of applications that have transformed our society, and there is much promise that optics and photonics will remain at the forefront of the world’s innovations well into this century.

Moreover, the general excitement in and impact of optics and photonics is growing dramatically. This presentation will highlight: (a) past breakthroughs, present advances and potential future growth in the science and technology of light, (b) the convergence of the International Year of Light, the Nobel Prizes based on light and the various U.S. government initiatives in photonics, and (c) the critical nature of metrology to harnessing the exquisite capabilities of high-frequency, coherent light for different industries. This talk is part of an afternoon NIST program celebrating World Metrology Day. [2]

1. Senate Confirms May as 15th NIST Director, Jennifer Huergo
2. Optics and Photonics: Essential for Our World, May 20, 2015

Nanoneedles and Nanodots...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 12, 2015 at 8:24pm

Scanning electron mictographs of a uniform array of conical Polysilicon nanoneedles, with a < 100nm tip diameter, 600nm base diameter, 5 micron length and 2 micron pitch (Courtesy ACS Nano).

Topics: Biology, Nanotechnology, Photolithography, Quantum Dots

Biocompatible silicon nanoneedles, which can efficiently deliver nucleic acids and nanoparticles into biological cells without damaging them, have been developed by an international team of researchers. The porous needles are capable of delivering these drugs into live cells that are normally difficult to penetrate, and the technique could help damaged organs and nerves to repair themselves, and could also act as intracellular pH sensors.

The researchers, based at Imperial College London and the Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas, made their nanoneedles using photolithography techniques. The structures can be patterned onto standard silicon chips in different ways, and the length and width of the needles can also be adjusted. Because they are porous, they can be made to take up a significantly greater amount of nucleic acid, nanoparticles and other therapeutics. Importantly, the porous silicon from which they are made is biocompatible – unlike ordinary silicon – and it clears the body in about two days, without leaving behind any toxic residue.

The plasma membrane and "endo-lysosomal compartment" of a cell are major biological barriers that limit the therapeutic efficiency of many drug-delivery vehicles by preventing nanostructures from entering the cells. According to team member Ennio Tasciotti from the Department of Nanomedicine at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, the new nanoeedles can "successfully deliver nucleic acids into cells, bypassing their plasma membrane and endo-lysosomal compartments without damaging the cell".

Physics World: Silicon 'nanoneedles' deliver nanodots and nucleic acids, Belle Dumé

The Calendar...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 12, 2015 at 8:21pm

Image Source: ACGHS.org

Topics: Anniversary, Calendar Quirk, Diversity in Science, Mother's Day (originally posted 7 May)

Given time, you may notice the calendar repeats itself quite literally every six years - date and day of the date.

Today (7 May), I lost my mother six years ago. I'm currently in the process of moving to another apartment. I've gained appreciation for the expression "tote that barge; lift that bail!" as engineering and science textbooks can be quite hefty!

Staying busy will keep me focused on the task at hand. A few things I'll never forget:

The impressive explosion I made with my chemistry set wasn't enough to discourage me from science. I did notice however, my mother and father made sure to buy erector sets, electronics kits, a microscope, a telescope, tool boxes...i.e., things that couldn't blow up! I also noticed the absence of the chemistry set in about two years.

You can never forget the loss of your parent, no matter how hard you might try. The next day, I saw the reboot of Star Trek: Mr. Spock lost his mother in spectacular fashion. I at least didn't lose my planet to a vengeful Romulan (not much of a spoiler since it's out on DVD).

I don't think its for humans to forget, just remember and honor the sacrifices made to make you successful in wherever you are in life.

For her sacrifices, for her love, I am grateful to have been her son. I will always love her.

I'll be unpacking from the move, so hopefully I'll get back online Monday. Enjoy the following related posts:

#P4TC:
Dear Mrs. Flynt...January 17, 2014
Mother's Day (repost)...May 12, 2013
Identity Crisis...August 15, 2012

Accelerators...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 6, 2015 at 8:00pm

Image Source: Rob's capibara.com techblog

Topics: Accelerators, Particle Physics, Physics Humor, Semiconductor Technology, STEM

It's interesting most don't know how particle accelerators were "born" and how they affect our everyday lives. I happen to work in a semiconductor manufacturing facility - AKA a wafer "fab" (short for fabrication) facility. The accelerators I see often are called Ion implanters, which in device physics is how an impurity is introduced into a semiconductor's energy band gap - usually rather wide as it would appear in nature (Silicon, Germanium) otherwise, you wouldn't have your laptop or smartphone; your microwave, essentially everything electronic around us we normally take for granted.

Particle accelerators even have a fun history of their beginnings, or as you've probably experienced in a high school physics class - a Van de Graaff Generator. It's more fun if you (ahem, unlike me) have hair...

American Institute of Physics: History of Accelerators

Europe To The Moon...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 5, 2015 at 10:28pm

The European Space Agency has been looking at what it takes to construct a moon outpost.
Credit: ESA/ Foster + Partners

Topics: European Space Agency, Humor, ISS, Moon Colony, Space Exploration

Living on our closest neighbor has some advantages. I've seen articles about how long-term radiation would alter our astronauts' brains on a trip to Mars, for example. There's a low probability of getting "super powers," e,g. the fictional "Fantastic Four," but an extreme likelihood of dying prematurely - a rather unpleasant outcome for the astronauts and their families. The International Space Station does have shielding, but its exposure to radiation is by far not as harsh as would be encountered by a crew on an interplanetary flight. We'll have to come up with some knew design configurations/materials for shielding, and being a mere 238,900 miles (384,400 km) from Earth is probably a good place to start. Although I must admit: the representative photo looks like a graphic from a "Doctor Who" episode (explain to your non-nerd friends if that completely went over their heads).

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — The incoming leader of the European Space Agency is keen on establishing an international base on the moon as a next-step outpost beyond the International Space Station (ISS).

Johann-Dietrich Wörner expressed his enthusiasm for a moon colony at the Space Foundation’s National Space Symposium, a gathering of global, commercial, civil, military and "new space" experts that was held here from April 13 to April 16.

"It seems to be appropriate to propose a permanent moon station as the successor of ISS," Wörner said. This station should be international, "meaning that the different actors can contribute with their respective competencies and interests." [Living on the Moon: What It Would Be Like (Infographic)]

Space.com:
Europe's Next Space Chief Wants a Moon Colony on the Lunar Far Side,
Leonard David