Our planet’s history includes episodes of cold so extreme that glaciers reached sea level in equatorial regions. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/whats-coldest-earth-has-ever-been…
Tag: Mirrors
Physicists Made an Insanely Precise Clock That Keeps Time Using Entanglement
fahrbot-bot quotes an article from Science Alert: Nothing keeps time like the beating heart of an atom. But even the crisp tick-tock of a vibrating nucleus is limited by uncertainties imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Several years ago, researchers from MIT and the University of Belgrade in Serbia proposed that quantum entanglement could push clocks beyond this blurry boundary….
Urban Explorers Discover A Treasure Trove Of Soviet Computing Power
“The building did not stand out. Unremarkable industrial building, which was built in hundreds of Soviet cities,” explains a web site called Russian Urban Exploration. Hackaday describes what happened next:
It’s probably a dream most of us share, to stumble upon a dusty hall full of fascinating abandoned tech frozen in time as though its operators walked away one day and simply…
Light-Based Quantum Computer Exceeds Fastest Classical Supercomputers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: For the first time, a quantum computer made from photons — particles of light — has outperformed even the fastest classical supercomputers. Physicists led by Chao-Yang Lu and Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Shanghai performed a technique called Gaussian boson sampling with their quantum…
Tips on choosing telescopes and binoculars for beginners
Tips for beginners: how to choose binoculars or your first telescope. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-to-choose-1st-telescope-binoculars…
What Hunting Bigfoot Taught a Republican Congressman about Misinformation, Political Extremists, and Grift
Republican congressman Denver Riggleman was once a defense contractor for America’s National Security Agency. But in 2004, he paid more than $5,000 to join an amateur expedition searching for Bigfoot. Not because he believed in the mythical ape-like creature said to live in the woods, according to the Washington Post, but “to indulge a lifelong fascination: Why do people — what…
BMW Demos a Powered Wingsuit That Can Fly 186 MPH
Wingsuits normally create a wide surface area of fabric between a skydiver’s legs and from their legs to their arms, substantially slowing their fall. But to create a buzz for the unveiling of BMW’s new iX3 electric SUV, the company’s creative consultancy Designworks “has partnered up with Austrian stuntman Peter Salzmann to unveil a wicked-cool new electric powered wingsuit that can…
Apple Suspends Supplier For Using Illegal Student Labor In China
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple has reprimanded one of its largest manufacturers after a Financial Times investigation found that thousands of student interns had worked overtime to assemble iPhones, in breach of Chinese law. After being contacted by the FT, Apple said it had stopped giving “new business” to Pegatron, its second-largest iPhone assembler after Foxconn….
Control ions for quantum computing and sensing via on-chip fiber optics
Walk into a quantum lab where scientists trap ions, and you’ll find benchtops full of mirrors and lenses, all focusing lasers to hit an ion “trapped” in place above a chip. By using lasers to control ions, scientists have learned to harness ions as quantum bits, or qubits, the basic unit of data in a quantum computer. But this laser setup…
New Mars rover is ready for space lasers
When the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, they brought devices with them called retroreflectors, which are essentially small arrays of mirrors. The plan was for scientists on Earth to aim lasers at them and calculate the time it took for the beams to return. This provided exceptionally precise measurements of the Moon’s orbit and shape, including how it changed slightly…