Physics in the News

Friday, September 5, 2014

The plan to make the Moon an enormous detector of cosmic rays

Artist impression of the Square Kilometer Array. If all goes according to plan in the next decade, we could see these small perturbations on the moon—and begin to solve some of the mysteries of space. (Credit: SKA)
Artist impression of the Square Kilometer Array. If all goes according to plan in the next decade, we could see these small perturbations on the moon—and begin to solve some of the mysteries of space. (Credit: SKA)
via gizmodo

NASA scientists study the Sun by listening to it

via popsci

What would it be like if you fell into a black hole?

via universetoday

Astronaut all-stars will visit China to talk space cooperation

China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, is now vice director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office. (Credit: CMS)
Space travelers from around the world are headed to China this month for an international Planetary Congress, which will explore the possibilities for expanding human spaceflight cooperation among different countries. Pictured above is China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, is now vice director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office. (Credit: CMS)
via space

The ATLAS Humanoid Robot has advanced to the level of a lazy teenager

via gizmodo

AI: How Algorithms make systems smart

An animation of the quicksort algorithm sorting an array of randomized values. The red bars mark the pivot element; at the start of the animation, the element farthest to the right hand side is chosen as the pivot. (Credit: RonaldH)
An animation of the quicksort algorithm sorting an array of randomized values. The red bars mark the pivot element; at the start of the animation, the element farthest to the right hand side is chosen as the pivot. (Credit: RonaldH)
via wired

Google branches out from D-Wave in quantum computing initiative

rather than keeping all its eggs in D-Wave's basket, Google's "Quantum A.I. Lab" announced that it is starting a collaboration with an academic quantum computing researcher, John Martinis of the University of California-Santa Barbara. (Credit: Wiki, Timmer)
Rather than keeping all its eggs in D-Wave’s basket, Google’s “Quantum A.I. Lab” announced that it is starting a collaboration with an academic quantum computing researcher, John Martinis of the University of California-Santa Barbara. (Credit: Wiki, Timmer)
via arstechnica

Sep 5th: Mysterious outer solar system series – The Kuiper Belt

via cosmoquest

Space Station’s ‘Cubesat Cannon’ has Mind of its Own

In the grasp of the Japanese robotic arm, NanoRack’s CubeSat deployer releases a pair of miniature satellites last month. (Credit: NASA)
In the grasp of the Japanese robotic arm, NanoRack’s CubeSat deployer releases a pair of miniature satellites last month. (Credit: NASA)
via discovery

Physics in the News

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Stalking the Shadow Universe(VIDEO)

via nytimes

The mathematics of quantum computing

(Credit: Ritvars Skuja)
The Quantum Computer Science project was completed in August 2013. The project focused on the mathematical aspects of quantum computing. Andris Ambainis, a theoretical computer scientist at the University of Latvia in Riga, was the principal coordinator of the project. (Credit: Ritvars Skuja)
via youris

Perth’s planet hunter helps discover unusual exoplanet

Perth engineer ‘TG’ Tan hunts planets with his backyard observatory in Mt Claremont. (Credit: TG Tan)
Perth engineer ‘TG’ Tan hunts planets with his backyard observatory in Mt Claremont.      (Credit: TG Tan)
via phys.org

Touchdown! Supply capsule arrives at International Space Station

The International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo craft. (Source: NASA TV)
The International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo craft. (Credit NASA TV)
via cbs

The machine learning community contest to take on the Higgs

(Credit: Sandbox Studio, Chicago)
Kaggle is currently running about 20 contests on its site. Most of them will attract between 300 and 500 teams. But the Higgs contest, which does not end until September, has already drawn almost 970. Names appear and drop off of the leader board every day. (Credit: Sandbox Studio, Chicago)
via symmetrymagazine

Pentagon enlists Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to design a space plane

DARPA wants its new experimental spaceship to fly 10 times within in 10 days and it wants the contractor to show that the vessel can fly at 10 times the speed of sound or more. (Credit: DARPA)
DARPA wants its new experimental spaceship to fly 10 times within in 10 days and it wants the contractor to show that the vessel can fly at 10 times the speed of sound or more. (Credit: DARPA)
via thedailybeast

Physicists propose molecular clock to expose new physics

(Credit: S. Schiller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2014))
A lot of physics is based on the assumption that the mass of a proton remains constant over time—pretty much forever. But what if that’s not true? What if it grows or shrinks over time? That would mean that the ratio between them and electrons changes as well, and if that’s true, then physicists are going to have to come up with some new ideas to explain what that might mean. (Credit: S. Schiller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2014))
via phys.org

Holographic displays coming to smartphones

Quantum Photonic Imager: Ostendo’s light-field display produces 3-D images using light-emitting pixels and piles of pixel-level processing. (Credit: Ostendo Technologies)
Light-field displays for mobile devices might be only a year away. Ostendo’s light-field display produces 3-D images using light-emitting pixels and piles of pixel-level processing. (Credit: Ostendo Technologies)
via spectrum