The Physics Times

2021-05-17 16:17:14 #AlbertEinstein
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A previously unknown letter reveals Albert Einstein's thinking on bees, birds and physics. Now a study led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, discusses how recent discoveries in migratory birds back up Einstein's thinking 72 years ago.

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2021-05-17 06:44:59 Gravity actually increases slightly as you get closer to the center of the Earth, reaching a maximum at the core-mantle boundary due to an increase in density of the core material. Open / Comment

2021-05-14 18:49:30 The Physics Times pinned «#PhysicsNEWS #Schrodinger #Quantum @Phytimes Is the past (and future) there when nobody looks? In 1961, the Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner proposed what is now known as the 'Wigner's friend' thought experiment as an extension…» Open / Comment

2021-05-14 18:48:23 #PhysicsNEWS
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Is the past (and future) there when nobody looks?

In 1961, the Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner proposed what is now known as the 'Wigner's friend' thought experiment as an extension of the notorious Schroedinger's cat experiment. In the latter, a cat is trapped in a box with poison that will be released if a radioactive atom decays. Governed by quantum mechanical laws, the radioactive atom is in a superposition between decaying and not decaying, which also means that the cat is in a superposition between life and death. What does the cat experience when it is in the superposition? Wigner sharpened the question by pushing quantum theory to its conceptual limits. He investigated what happens when an observer also has quantum properties.

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2021-05-12 12:38:06 #PhysicsNEWS
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Researchers generate tunable twin particles of light
Identical twins might seem 'indistinguishable,' but in the quantum world the word takes on a new level of meaning. While identical twins share many traits, the universe treats two indistinguishable quantum particles as intrinsically interchangeable. This opens the door for indistinguishable particles to interact in unique ways—such as in quantum interference—that are needed for quantum computers.
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2021-05-11 01:07:16 #BlackHoles

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In 2019, the first-ever image of a black hole wowed the world. And now, the team at the Event Horizon Telescope has released an updated version, this time revealing how the supermassive black hole looks in polarized light.

Paradoxically, despite their light-swallowing capability, black holes are the most luminous objects in the universe. Material — gas, dust, shredded stars — that falls into a black hole is heated to millions of degrees as it swirls around the drain of doom in a dense maelstrom of electromagnetic fields. Most of that matter falls into the black hole, but some is pushed out, like toothpaste, by enormous pressures and magnetic fields. How all of this energy arises and is marshaled remains unknown to astronomers.

The black hole in question is a monster 6.5 billion times as massive as the sun, and lies in the center of an enormous elliptical galaxy, Messier 87, about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Open / Comment

2021-05-10 22:59:55 #SpaceNEWS
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SpaceX to launch lunar mission paid with cryptocurrency Dogecoin

SpaceX will launch a satellite to the Moon next year funded entirely with the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, Canadian company Geometric Energy Corporation, which will lead the lunar mission, announced Sunday.

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2021-05-08 15:30:27 The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered, controlled flight on another world for the first time. It hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover. Once the rover reached a suitable "airfield" location, it released Ingenuity to the surface so it could perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window.

The helicopter completed its technology demonstration after three successful flights. For the first flight on April 19, 2021, Ingenuity took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered, controlled flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. After that, the helicopter successfully performed additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude.

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2021-05-08 15:15:25 #SpaceNEWS
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Chinese rocket to tumble back to Earth in uncontrolled re-entry
A large segment of a Chinese rocket is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on the weekend, but Beijing has downplayed fears and said there is a very low risk of any damage.
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