Posts tagged physics
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Richard Dawkins @ TEDGlobal2005
NASA astronauts demonstrate a water bubble bursting at zero gravity. Filmed on VHS in 1996.
Higgs decay signature
(via peano)
Like two children… better,
like two physicists
” From theoretical considerations, Hideki Yukawa in 1934 predicted the existence and the approximate mass of the “meson” as the carrier of the nuclear force that holds atomic nuclei together. If there was no nuclear force, all nuclei with two or more protons would fly apart because of the electromagnetic repulsion. Yukawa called his carrier particle the meson, from mesos, the Greek word for intermediate, because its predicted mass was between that of the electron and that of the proton, which has about 1,836 times the mass of the electron. Yukawa had originally named his particle the “mesotron”, but he was corrected by the physicist Werner Heisenberg (whose father was a professor of Greek at the University of Munich). Heisenberg pointed out that there is no “tr” in the Greek word “mesos”. “
(Picture: Yukawa (left), Tomonaga (reight) from http://www.dkimfoundation.org/)
(via likeaphysicist)
(Source: partagetalife)
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
The milky way contains at least 100 billion planets according to survey
Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three extrasolar planets by an observational technique called microlensing. Our galaxy contains a minimum of one planet for every star on average. This means that there is likely to be a minimum of 1,500 planets within just 50 light-years of Earth.
The results are based on observations taken over six years by the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration. The study concludes that there are far more Earth-sized planets than bloated Jupiter-sized worlds. This is based on calibrating a planetary mass function that shows the number of planets increases for lower mass worlds. A rough estimate from this survey would point to the existence of more than 10 billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy.
The team’s conclusions are gleaned from a planet search technique called microlensing. The technique takes advantage of the random motions of stars, which are generally too small to be noticed. If one star passes precisely in front of another star, the gravity of the foreground star bends the light from the background star.
This means that the foreground star acts like a giant lens amplifying the light from the background star. A planetary companion around the foreground star can produce additional brightening of the background star. This additional brightening reveals the planet, which is otherwise too faint to be seen by telescopes. This method, however, does not reveal any clues about the world’s composition.
Of the approximately 40 microlensing events closely monitored, three showed evidence for exoplanets. Using a statistical analysis, the team found that one in six stars hosts a Jupiter-mass planet. What’s more, half of the stars have Neptune-mass planets, and two-thirds of the stars have Earth-mass planets. Therefore, low-mass planets are more abundant than their massive counterparts.
Above: (1) This artist’s illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. The planets, their orbits, and their host stars are all vastly magnified compared to their real separations. (2) Graphical explanation of an extrasolar planet detected by gravitational microlensing.
(via likeaphysicist)
Discovery of the positron. This cloud chamber image was taken during the 1932 work by US physicist Carl David Anderson (1905-1991) that led to the discovery of the positron. This particle is the opposite of the electron and the first antimatter particle to be discovered. The image shows the curved track of a positive particle entering the cloud chamber from below. The particle is known to be positive because of the direction in which it bends in the chamber’s magnetic field. The track is too faint to be caused by a proton, and is more like an electron’s track, hence it had to be the predicted positron. These results were published in 1933
You know it’s right.
“Smoke resolved into its component droplets of wax, with zones of refraction making rainbows on the upper edge.Took me about 25 tries to get everything right.”
blua:
Cambridge University is putting the papers of Sir Isaac Newton online for the first time, including his own annotated copy of his greatest work, Principia Mathematica, with notes and calculations in his handwriting revising the book and answering critic
(via fuckyeahmath)
Murray Gell-Mann
Beauty and Truth in physics
