Monthly Archives: April 2011

Baez & Huerta in Scientific American: “The Strangest Numbers in String Theory”

Posted on April 30, 2011 by

  “Octonions were largely neglected since their discovery in 1843, but in the past few decades they have assumed a curious importance in string theory. And indeed, if string theory is a correct representation of the universe, they may explain why … Continue reading →

Posted in Mathematics, Physics, Science, String Theory | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Boucher in Nature Climate Change: Contrails can evolve into cirrus clouds causing more climate warming today than all the carbon dioxide emitted by aircrafts

Posted on April 28, 2011 by

“Contrails formed by aircraft can evolve into cirrus clouds indistinguishable from those formed naturally. These ‘spreading contrails’ may be causing more climate warming today than all the carbon dioxide emitted by aircraft since the start of aviation.Aviation is at present … Continue reading →

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A single photon can be in as many as four places at the same time

Posted on April 26, 2011 by

Vladan Vuletic, “Quantum physics: Entangled quartet,” News & Views, Nature 468: 384–385, 18 November 2010, summarizes the paper K. S. Choi, A. Goban, S. B. Papp, S. J. van Enk & H. J. Kimble, “Entanglement of spin waves among four … Continue reading →

Posted in Optics, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The future of the LHC at CERN

Posted on April 24, 2011 by

The Higgs agenda at CERN pass from Higgs discovery at the LHC (measure its mass and its width), to precision physics in the Higgs sector at the SLHC (measure cross sections x BR, ratios of couplings to particle, measure CP … Continue reading →

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Haber on “Present status and future prospects for a Higgs boson discovery”

Posted on April 24, 2011 by

“The electroweak symmetry breaking dynamics of the Minimal Standard Model (MSM) employs a self-interacting complex doublet of scalar fields, which consists of four real degrees of freedom.  Three of this four degrees of freedom has been already observed in the … Continue reading →

Posted in LHC at CERN, Particle Physics, Physics, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Bodanis on “pre-Hiroshima and post-Hiroshima steel”

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

From David Bodanis, “E=mc². A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation,” Walker Publishing Company, Inc., 2000. Footnote 191 . . . “there were hundreds of open-air tests: Which is how pre-World War I German battleships—or at least parts of them—have … Continue reading →

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Pathological science in Goodstein’s “On Fact and Fraud”

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

“Cold Fusion is a pariah scientific field founded by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. Cold fusion papers were almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those articles didn’t receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. Although there is … Continue reading →

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Haiman in Nature, “Cosmology: A smoother end to the dark ages”

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

“Independent lines of evidence suggest that the first stars, which ended the cosmic dark ages (lasting for 100 million years), came in pairs rather than singly. The appearance of the first stars marked a significant milestone, separating the history of … Continue reading →

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The Ortega hypothesis in Goodstein’s “On Fact and Fraud”

Posted on April 5, 2011 by

“Science is a true meritocracy, however, it is important to be in the right place at the right time.” The Ortega hypothesis: “Financial support for doing science and access to scientific facilities should be shared democratically, not concentrated in the hands of a … Continue reading →

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