Monthly Archives: January 2011

A summary of “Chamonix 2011 LHC Performance Workshop”

Posted on January 25, 2011 by

Chamonix 2011 LHC Performance Workshop started last Monday, 24 January 2011. Next friday, 28 January, the final decision on the operation and performance of the LHC at CERN will be taking. The slides of the presentations, the majority only of technical interest, can be downloaded here. … Continue reading →

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Peebles in Nature, “How galaxies got their black holes”

Posted on January 19, 2011 by

“A large galaxy usually has a central, compact massive object, termed a relativistic black hole for want of a better idea of what it is, that can produce great bursts of energy. When the black hole is surrounded by a … Continue reading →

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Kane in Physics Today, “String theory and the real world”

Posted on January 18, 2011 by

“String theory solutions make unambiguous, testable predictions about our four-dimensional universe. To test string theory is like to test Newton’s second law F = ma (a relation between the force F on a particle with mass m and its acceleration … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Mathematics, Physics, Science, String Theory | Leave a comment

Gómez-Ullate et al., “Exceptional orthogonal polynomials”

Posted on January 15, 2011 by

Mathematics is full of surprises. Orthogonal polynomials and their properties appear in many important questions in mathematics, in physics, and in chemistry. It was thought that the classical orthogonal polynomials, which are captured by Bochner’s celebrated 1928 theorem, covered all … Continue reading →

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Miller in Science, “Why loneliness is hazardous to your health”

Posted on January 13, 2011 by

“John Cacioppo, a social psychologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, studies the biological effects of loneliness. In a steady stream of recent papers, he and collaborators have identified several potentially unhealthy changes in the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous … Continue reading →

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Triply eclipsing solar system discovered by Kepler spacecraft

Posted on January 13, 2011 by

“This movie shows the dynamical evolution of the KOI-126 system over the time of the Kepler spacecraft observations used in the determination of the system parameters. The thin top panel shows the three stars (A, B, and C) relative to … Continue reading →

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Twistors killed the Feynman diagram

Posted on January 12, 2011 by

Sing “Twistors killed the Feynman diagram” like “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by The Buggles. A theoretical physicist is a human Feynman’s diagram calculator, nearly by definition. “Richard Feynman’s famous diagrams allow the calculation of how particles interact. However, new mathematical tools,” … Continue reading →

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The advice of Albert Einstein to candidates for string theorists

Posted on January 3, 2011 by

Excerpt from Albert Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics,” Philosophy of Science 1: 163-169, Apr. 1934.

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