Zapperz reports on the Bad Glossary of Particle Physics Terms
The sad thing in all of this is not that they got it wrong. I would not expect a reporter to get all of this correct. The sad part is that (i) no one bothers to fact-check them and (ii) they don’t have a expert staff or a physicist on call to give this a quick glance. How difficult can it be? It just shows a total lack of respect for this area of reporting.
Though the [Federal Helium Reserve (FHR)] still holds more helium than any other stockpile by far, its stores are rapidly diminishing. Since 2003, the US Bureau of Land Management has been methodically selling off the FHR’s hoard (and repaying the $1.4 billion debt) in compliance with a 1996 Congressional act that called for phasing out the reserve by 2015.
Echoing years of complaints from the scientific community, in January the US National Research Council (NRC) released a report condemning the liquidation of the FHR as a shortsighted blunder that has thrown the global market into turmoil and hindered scientific research.
Built of Facts: A Brief History of Light
A nit (nit being the quanta of disagreement or concern):
Water waves and sound waves need something material to “wave”. Physicists assumed there was a thin and invisible medium called luminiferous aether permeating the universe, and that light waves were oscillations of this substance. But in 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley were able to do a very careful experiment to measure the speed of light as the earth moved through the aether as it orbited in space. Their experiment came up negative. There just wasn’t any aether.
M&M were attempting to ultimately confirm the speed of the earth moving through the ether, via changes in the speed of light, and the reason they knew they had to do this measurement is that way back in 1725, James Bradley had measured stellar aberration — the apparent shift in position of a star due to the motion of the earth, which manifests itself in measurements taken at different times of the year. If the earth were somehow at rest with respect to the ether, there should be no aberration, so this option was already eliminated when the models of electromagnetic wave propagation were being hammered out. The M-M experiment was the experiment that showed we weren’t moving with respect to it, because being at rest wasn’t an option for explaining the null result.
Atomic physicists have steadily improved their ability to cool atoms to temperatures where quantum effects reign, and in the past decade they have also trapped loosely bound pairs of atoms. But only in 2008 did they produce large numbers of ultracold pairs that were bound strongly enough to properly be called molecules. Each of these molecules is in its lowest possible state of vibration and rotation, and their overall motion corresponds to temperatures under a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Bose-Einstein condensation of ultracold atoms 14 years ago spawned a continuing flurry of physics experiments and garnered a Nobel Prize, but researchers expect even richer quantum behavior from ultracold molecules. Understanding how ultracold molecules interact is critical to the experiments.
SciGuy: What is more important: Energy or healthcare?
What is clear is that Americans and American companies value health care over energy by at least a factor of five, and perhaps much more.
That’s pretty incredible considering that, in the modern world, energy is nearly as essential as good health care, and that substantial energy research is considered a requisite to meet future needs.
Or so I would argue.
I think SciGuy makes a mistake her in equating dollars spent with importance. I think one has to consider phase space and pregnant women.
There’s an adage in research that it takes one woman nine months to produce a baby. If one gathers nine women, they will not be able to produce a baby in one month. Research takes time, and there is a point at which adding more money to the problem does not yield improved results — you only benefit if there are new lines of research to be pursued, i.e. the “phase space” of the problem can’t be restricting you. Medical research has lots of problems that can be investigated, and a large number of drugs that can be researched, as well as improvements in diagnostic equipment.
Dairy farmer has a pool of manure in his back yard, and methane bubbles are forming.
Mr. Goltstein asked state regulators to let him pop the bubbles. He said he and his 19-year-old son would slice them open with a knife from a paddleboat.
Bruce Palin, assistant commissioner for the office of land quality at the state environmental agency, said officials were considering the idea. But, he added, “not knowing how much volume of gas is there and how much pressure is on it, we’re concerned with just cutting a hole.”
Last year, a hog farmer in Hayfield, Minn., was launched 40 feet into the air in an explosion caused by methane gas from a manure pit on his farm. He sustained burns and singed hair.
Mr. Goltstein’s attorney, Glenn D. Bowman, acknowledged that the potential existed for an explosion: “We’re aware of that sort of common physics issue,” he said.
Yes, exploding shitbubbles apparently fall under the category of common physics issues.
Technically, things don’t suck. Everything else blows.
Ultra-powerful laser makes silicon pump liquid uphill with no added energy
By using a laser to etch a pattern in the silicon surface.
[I]nstead of sticking to each other, the water molecules climb over one another for a chance to be next to the silicon. (This might seem like getting energy for free, but even though the water rises, thus gaining potential energy, the chemical bonds holding the water to the silicon require a lower energy than the ones holding the water molecules to other water molecules.) The water rushes up the surface at speeds of 3.5 cm per second.
Yet the laser incisions are so precise and nondestructive that the surface feels smooth and unaltered to the touch.
Odd Things I’ve Seen: Anti-Gravity Monuments
To market the mission of the [Gravity Research Foundation], Babson made large donations to various colleges with the stipulation that they each set up one of these strange monuments. Curiously, none of the three colleges that he founded have anti-gravity monuments, those colleges being Babson College in Wellesley, MA; Webber International University in Babson Park, FL; and Utopia College in Eureka, KS. Utopia College has a bit more of an excuse, though, since while the other two still exist, it went defunct years ago. Naturally, no place with a name like that can operate for long without irony, self-consciousness, or feelings of inadequacy rotting it from the inside.
A list of the monuments located in New England is given, with a short description
Tufts University in Medford, MA: Located between Barnum Hall and Ballou Hall at the north corner of the President’s Lawn, this stone has actually been incorporated into a campus tradition. Students who graduate with degrees in cosmology kneel at this stone while professors drop an apple on their heads. Once again, gravity-related humor is so underrated.
