You know the old problem of how to portray the round globe of Earth on a flat map? Now a trio of map experts has worked together to solve this problem. Their new map is 2-sided and round. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/astrophysicists-new-design-world-map…
Tag: dimensions
The 1st sign of intelligent life beyond Earth?
Physicist Avi Loeb of Harvard believes we should take seriously the idea that ‘Oumuamua – the 1st known object to pass through our solar system from interstellar space – might have been created by an alien civilization. His new book is called “Extraterrestrial.” Source: https://earthsky.org/space/book-avi-loeb-extraterrestrial-1st-sign-of-intelligent-life…
Inductance based on a quantum effect has the potential to miniaturize inductors
Mobile-phone chargers and other devices could become much smaller after an all-RIKEN team of physicists successfully shrunk an electrical component known as an inductor to microscale dimensions using a quantum effect. …
Physicists Nail Down the ‘Magic Number’ That Shapes the Universe
Natalie Wolchover writes via Quanta Magazine: As fundamental constants go, the speed of light, c, enjoys all the fame, yet c’s numerical value says nothing about nature; it differs depending on whether it’s measured in meters per second or miles per hour. The fine-structure constant, by contrast, has no dimensions or units. It’s a pure number that shapes the universe to…
We’ve built a fourth dimension of space and we’re about to look inside
We only ever experience three spatial dimensions, but quantum lab experiments suggest a whole new side to reality – weird particle apparitions included Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833041-000-weve-built-a-fourth-dimension-of-space-and-were-about-to-look-inside/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Can we predict large solar flares?
Solar storms pose risks for society, but more accurate space weather forecasts may be coming soon. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/can-we-predict-large-solar-flares-kasano-interview…
Asteroid or space junk? Approaching object might become Earth’s mini-moon
A newly discovered “asteroid” may become a new mini-moon for Earth. Instead of an ordinary asteroid, it might be a lost rocket from the Surveyor 2 mission, launched from Earth more than 50 years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/2020-so-mini-moon-asteroid-or-space-junk…
New approach to exotic quantum matter
In a three-dimensional world, all particles must be either fermions or bosons, but in fewer dimensions, the existence of particles known as anyons, which have intermediate quantum statistics, is possible. Such fascinating objects are strongly believed to exist as emerging quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall systems, but despite great efforts, experimental evidence of anyons has remained very limited. Since quantum statistics…
UK Mathematician Wins Richest Prize in Academia For His Work On Stochastic Analysis
Lanodonal writes: A mathematician who tamed a nightmarish family of equations that behave so badly they make no sense has won the most lucrative prize in academia. Martin Hairer, an Austrian-British researcher at Imperial College London, is the winner of the 2021 Breakthrough prize for mathematics, an annual $3m award that has come to rival the Nobels in terms of kudos…
Magnetic whirls crystallize in two dimensions
In a collaboration between experimental physicists and theoretical physicists in the framework of the Dynamics and Topology (TopDyn) excellence project, a system of many small magnetic whirls could be engineered to form a regularly ordered state. Such a transition from a disordered to an ordered phase is analogous to the well-known crystallization, which, however, occurs here in two dimensions. For the…