Physicists may be inching closer to a possible to answer to a mystery that has preoccupied their minds for years: if matter and antimatter exist throughout the universe in equal proportions, why is our universe primarily matter? 

A finding has been recently confirmed by an American team of physicists, concluding that certain matter particles actually decay differently than antimatter, a trait that is outside our current understanding of physics. Scientists believe that these differences could hold the key to an explanation of the presence off far more matter than antimatter within our cosmos.

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Via National Geographic:

A diver makes a slow decent into a vortex of 50,000 farmed salmon in British Columbia, Canada. As scuba divers sink deeper underwater, the weight of the water above them creates pressure. As the diver resurfaces, his body decompresses, and extra nitrogen escapes into the bloodstream, where it is carried to the lungs for excretion. If a diver surfaces too fast, bubbles can form in the blood and tissues, causing the bends.

rhamphotheca:

New Uncertainty About the Uncertainty Principle

by Clara Moskowitz

One of the most often quoted, yet least understood, tenets of physics is the uncertainty principle. Formulated by German physicist, Werner Heisenberg, in 1927, the rule states that the more precisely you measure a particle’s position, the less precisely you will be able to determine its momentum, and vice versa.

The principle is often invoked outside the realm of physics to describe how the act of observing something changes the thing being observed, or to point out that there’s a limit to how well we can ever really understand the universe. While the subtleties of the uncertainty principle are often lost on nonphysicists, it turns out the idea is frequently misunderstood by experts, too. But a recent experiment shed new light on the maxim and led to a novel formula describing how the uncertainty principle really works.

The uncertainty principle only applies in the quantum mechanical realm of the very small, on scales of subatomic particles. Its logic is perplexing to the human mind, which is acclimated to the macroscopic world, where measurements are only limited by the quality of our instruments. But in the microscopic world, there truly is a limit to how much information we can ever glean about an object. For example, if you make a measurement to find out exactly where an electron is, you will only be able to get a hazy idea of how fast it’s moving. Or you might choose to determine an electron’s momentum fairly precisely, but then you will have only a vague idea of its location…

(read more: Live Science)        (image: Dreamstime)

yearsofwetcement:

The Microcosm at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland - February 18, 2012

Reblogging things I posted to scinerds so I feel somewhat science-y tonight

Chlorine triflouride is a colorless, poisonous, corrosive and extremely reactive gas, which condenses to a pale-greenish yellow liquid, the form in which it is most often sold (pressurized at room temperature). The compound is primarily of interest as a component in rocket fuels, in industrial cleaning and etching operations in the semiconductor industry, in nuclear reactor fuel processing, and other industrial operations. 

Chlorine Trifluoride is so extremely flammable that it has the ability to set sand on fire. Historically condemned, Hitler refused to include the chemical in his warfare techniques, due to the inevitable risks of injury to his troops. It is actually reported that once, upon a leak of the liquid, it quickly ignited, eventually burning through a foot of concrete and a meter of sand and gravel beneath before burning itself out. 

Image of Big Bang Experiments at CERN

The scientists shoot the particles through a 16-mile long accelerator called CERN at the speed of light. And when the particles collide together in a vacuum colder than -271 Celsius, they put on a spectacular show. Above, particle tracks from the first lead ion collision as seen by the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector.

Image of a Big Bang Experiment within Particle Accelerators at CERN

A collection of tracks left by subatomic particles in a bubble chamber. A bubble chamber is a container filled with liquid hydrogen which is superheated - momentarily raised above its normal boiling point by a sudden drop in pressure in the container. Any charged particle passing through the liquid in this state leaves behind a trail of tiny bubbles as the liquid boils in its wake. These bubbles are seen as fine tracks, showing the characteristic paths of different types of particle.

An argon plasma jet forms a rapidly growing corkscrew, known as a kink instability. This instability causes an even faster-developing behavior called a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, in which ripples grow and tear the jet apart. This phenomenon, the Caltech researchers say, has never been seen before and could be important in understanding solar flares and in developing nuclear fusion as a future energy source. 

Here’s the video.

For details, go here.

What did I just find…? Well, it brings up some good points.
(via)

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes with one in physics and one in chemistry. She was the first female professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Nuclear Fusion Reactor

This illustration shows the plasma surface and toroidal magnetic field coils of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The ITER project is currently building the world’s largest tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at the Cadarache research facility, located in the south of France.

Another crucial age-old mystery has been solved: What are the physics and mathematics behind the ponytail?

Once pondered by Leonardo Da Vinci, British scientists at University of Cambridge have used what they call a “Rapunzel Number,” a ratio of information regarding gravity and length, to find an exact “Ponytail Shape Equation.” Their equation as a whole takes in account the stiffness and waviness of individual hairs, gravity, and how a “bundle of hair is swelled by the outward pressure which arises from collisions between the component hairs.”

In a statement, Professor Raymond Goldstein said:

That determines whether the ponytail looks like a fan or whether it arcs over and becomes nearly vertical at the bottom… Our findings extend some central paradigms in statistical physics and show how they can be used to solve a problem that has puzzled scientists and artists ever since Leonardo da Vinci remarked on the fluid-like streamlines of hair in his notebooks 500 years ago.

So, why did we want to know about ponytail physics? These equations could help the understanding of the structure of materials made up of random fibers, such as wool and fur, in addition to aiding those in the computer graphics and animation industry, where it has proven difficult to properly replicate human hair.