Again we have a great breakthrough that may lead technology to a new era.
It’s nice to wonder how it’s going to be 7, 9 yeras from now by taking in consideration scientific developments like this. | A team at the University of Calgary has accomplished exactly that: by manipulating a mysterious quantum property of light known as entanglement, they are able to mount up to two photons on top of one another to construct a variety of quantum states of light – that is, build two-story quantum toy houses of any style and architecture |
| “This ability to prepare or control complex quantum objects is considered the holy grail of quantum science” |
| “It brings us closer to the onset of the new era of quantum information technology.”
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| This new generation of technology is expected to endow us with qualitatively new capabilities. This includes measurement instruments of extraordinary sensitivity, dramatically faster computers, secure communication systems and enhanced control over chemical reactions.
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| Light is a particularly interesting quantum object |
| because it’s an excellent communication tool. No matter what future quantum computers will be made of, they’ll talk to each other using photonsRead more at www.labspaces.net |
Makes me wonder what our friends from the 1800’s would say about this…
Still, with all the controversy behind subjects like this, I’d like to see if - and if - they manage to make it work on Earth, how they would actually implement this technology if not on our daily basis, then on industrial or military areas.
Seems like we’re going to live a 70’s movie story very soon. | Researchers may have figured out a way to dislodge dust particles from sensitive equipment on the Moon or Mars using sound waves. |
| Here’s how it works: by playing back a high-pitched (13.8 KHz, 128 dB) standing wave of sound from a 1.25-inch tweeter, and focusing it on a reflector several inches away, researchers from the Department of Physics and Materials Science Program found it was enough to dislodge dust particles on the reflector’s surface |
| Later, the researchers tested this acoustic levitation process, as it is called, on a solar panel that was reduced to just 10 percent of its original power output after being coated with fine dust. The process boosted output back to 98.4 percent of maximum |
| This is especially important since dust particles on the Moon and on Mars are sharper and more abrasive than on Earth, thanks to the thinner atmosphere. The next step: figuring out how to make the process work when actually out in the thin atmosphere |
Without string theory, physicists need two theories to explain how the universe works. General relativity explains gravity, while the other three basic forces are explained by the “standard model.” Moreover, gravity has been very difficult to reconcile with quantum theory, a problem for which string theory offers a solution. | A major problem with string theory is that it has never been confirmed experimentally, which is where Donner Professor of Science Cumrun Vafa and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) come in. |
| A Harvard theoretical physicist has discussed with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland the possibility that they may discover a theorized “stau” particle, with a lifetime of a minute or so, that could provide the first experimental confirmation of string theory. |
String theory, developed in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is a theoretical physicists’ multitool, explaining in one model all four of the universe’s main forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the two that operate inside atomic nuclei, the strong force and the weak force. Read more at www.physorg.com |
| The strongest limit on the number of possible universes is the human ability to distinguish between different universes. |
| Over the past few decades, the idea that our universe could be one of many alternate universes within a giant multiverse has grown from a sci-fi fantasy into a legitimate theoretical possibility. Several theories of physics and astronomy have hypothesized the existence of a multiverse made of many parallel universes. One obvious question that arises, then, is exactly how many of these parallel universes might there be. |
In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16. If that number sounds large, the scientists explain that it would have been even more humongous, except that we observers are limited in our ability to distinguish more universes; otherwise, there could be as many as 10^10^10^7 universes. Read more at www.physorg.com |
| An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious ‘dark matter’ and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity. |
Such a force might solve an even bigger mystery, known as ‘dark energy’, which is ruling the accelerated expansion of the Universe. A more radical solution is a revision of the laws of gravity first developed by Isaac Newton in 1687 and refined by Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein never fully decided whether his equation should add an omnipresent constant source, now called dark energy. |
| the team believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.Read more at www.physorg.com |
“This is the type of result that future theories will have to take into account,” said Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved with the study. “As we move forward to understand the true nature of dark matter, this new result will be impossible to ignore.”
Wow! | Dark matter and normal matter have been wrenched apart by the tremendous collision of two large clusters of galaxies. The discovery, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, gives direct evidence for the existence of dark matter. |
These observations provide the strongest evidence yet that most of the matter in the universe is dark. Despite considerable evidence for dark matter, some scientists have proposed alternative theories for gravity where it is stronger on intergalactic scales than predicted by Newton and Einstein, removing the need for dark matter. However, such theories cannot explain the observed effects of this collision. |
“A universe that’s dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking,” said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona at Tucson, and leader of the study. “These results are direct proof that dark matter exists.” |
By impinging on the virus, it forces it into a superposition of both its ground state and next vibrational energy state. Now the virus should be doing two different things at once – the equivalent of you simultaneously mowing the lawn and doing the shopping. “They have come up with a really neat experiment – inventive and I think feasible,” says Peter Knight of Imperial College London.
You can read the full article for more details on the process. It’s worth reading if you care enough or are just curious.  Quantum weirdness could soon invade the living world, if a scheme to give a flu virus a strange double life comes off. |
In quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This so-called “superposition” is a delicate state, destroyed by any contact with the outside world. The largest objects that have been superposed so far are molecules. It is hard to put a much larger object such as a cat or human into a superposition because air molecules and photons are always bouncing off it. |
But it might be possible with a small life form, according to Oriol Romero-Isart of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and his colleagues. They hope to prove the concept with the flu virus, which exhibits some properties of life, because it can survive in a vacuum – solving the problem of pesky air molecules. |
| Scientists have managed to levitate young mice in research carried out for NASA. Levitated mice may help research on bone density loss during long exposures to low gravity, such as in space travel and missions to other planets. |
| The scientists built a variable gravity simulator consisting of a superconducting magnet that could generate a magnetic field strong enough to levitate the water inside every cell in the mouse’s body. |
| Scientists have previously levitated live grasshoppers and frogs, but this is the first time a mammal has been levitated |
| The levitation experiments were repeated a number of times, and showed that the mice quickly adjusted to the conditions, even eating and drinking normally after a few hours of levitation. Even without sedation, the mice became quite comfortable floating in zero gravity. |
| The powerful magnetic field seemed to have no short term effects on the mice |
“…Our observations also suggest that the Triangulum Galaxy is being ripped apart by Andromeda.”
Andromeda, and our own galaxy the Milky Way, are the two largest members of a small cluster of galaxies known as the Local Group. Triangulum, the third largest member of the Local Group, is about one-tenth the size of Andromeda.
“Within a few billion years Triangulum will be completely destroyed by Andromeda and its stars will be dispersed throughout the Andromeda halo,” says Dr. Widrow. “And a few billion years after that, Andromeda and the Milky Way will collide and merge together to form a giant elliptical galaxy.” | An international team of astronomers, including Queen’s University physicist Larry Widrow, have uncovered evidence of a nearby cosmic encounter. Their study indicates that the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, the two galaxies closest to our own, collided about two to three billion years ago.
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Dr. Widrow, along with John Dubinsky of the University of Toronto, recreated this galactic encounter using a high performance computer and theoretical modeling. Their simulations illustrate how the strong gravitational field of Andromeda could have pulled stars away from the Triangulum disk creating a stream just as the team saw.
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The Pan-Andromeda Archeological Survey (PAndAS), led by Alan McConnachie of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria BC, is using the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope to map the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. This map, the largest of its kind, will allow astronomers to test the hypothesis that galaxies grow by “cannibalizing” other galaxies.
Read more at www.labspaces.net |
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