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| FASTEST STOPWATCH IN THE WORLD |
| A new ultrafast stopwatch can now measure the speed of atomic processes down to the smallest fraction of a second yet. |
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| SMALLEST WHIRLPOOLS CAN PACK STUNNINGLY STRONG FORCE |
| Researchers studying physical and chemical processes at the smallest scales, smaller even than the width of a human hair, have found that fluid circulating in a microscopic whirlpool can reach radial acceleration more than a million times greater than gravity, or 1 million Gs. |
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| PHYSICIST DESIGNS PERFECT AUTOMOTIVE ENGINE |
| Marlan Scully, the Texas A&M University professor who applied quantum physics to the automotive engine and came up with a design that emits laser beams instead of exhaust, has been tinkering under the hood again. This time, he's sized up the perfect engine -- and improved it. |
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| LEARNING ABOUT ASTROPHYSICAL JETS IN THE LAB |
| Many astronomical objects, from galactic nuclei to black holes surrounded by accretion disks, emit very long plumes of plasma, called astrophysical jets. |
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| RECORD-HIGH MAGNETIC FIELDS IN LAB MAY ALLOW RE-CREATIONS OF EXTREME ASTROPHYSICAL PHENOMENA |
| Using a new technique, researchers from Imperial College, London, and the Rutherford Appleton lab in the UK have created super-strong magnetic fields that are hundreds of times more intense than any previous magnetic field created in an Earth laboratory and up to a billion times stronger than our planet's natural magnetic field. Such intense magnetic fields may soon enable researchers to recreate extreme astrophysical conditions, such as the atmospheres of neutron stars and white dwarfs, in their very own laboratories. |
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| JEFFERSON LAB'S HALL A EXPERIMENT EXAMINES HOW ENERGY BECOMES MATTER |
| Just as matter can be converted into energy, so too can energy become matter. That's what five-dozen Jefferson Lab researchers were counting on for an experiment in Hall A. |
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| RESEARCHERS GET FIRST LOOK INTO ANTIMATTER ATOMS |
| It seems like the stuff of science fiction, but NSF-sponsored researchers working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, have probed the properties of whole atoms of antimatter, the "mirror image" of matter, for the first time. Their results provide the first look into the inside of an antimatter atom and are a big step on the way to testing standard theories of how the universe operates. |
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| COPPER-OXIDE PLANE AT SURFACE OF SUPERCONDUCTOR HAS SURPRISING PROPERTIES |
| The peculiar behavior of high-temperature superconductors has baffled scientists for many years. Now, by imaging the copper-oxide plane in a cuprate superconductor for the first time, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found several new pieces to this important puzzle. |
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| HIDING IN THE NOISE AND CHAOS |
| A new and novel way of communicating over fiber optics is being developed by physicists supported by the Office of Naval Research. Rather than using the amplitude and frequency of electromagnetic waves, they're using the polarization of the wave to carry the signal. Such a method offers a novel and elegant method of secure communication over fiber optic lines. |
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| PHYSICISTS DELVE INTO MYSTERY OF MASSIVE PARTICLE |
| It seems every time physicists make a discovery, they find new frontiers waiting on the horizon, each with a new potential for understanding nature.
Some Kansas State University professors are at one of those frontiers, as they explore the world of the "top quark," the latest mystery in the world of physics. |
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| POSSIBLE SOUND-INDUCED NUCLEAR FUSION POSITED. ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTS ARE NEEDED. |
| A team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has reported the observation of phenomena that could point to the possibility of nuclear fusion using a novel technique for plasma confinement. The approach, called "bubble fusion," is reported in the March 8 issue of Science magazine. |
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| GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING |
| WE'D all like to get something for nothing. But harnessing the energy of empty space?
It sounds crazy, but the idea is not so far-fetched, thanks to a strange force that comes out of nothing. Researchers have persuaded this force, called the Casimir effect, to slide tiny gold plates past each other. |
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| ULTRACOLD PLASMAS ARE A CHILLING PUZZLE |
| Plasmas, which include the bright glowy stuff in a fluorescent lamp, are clouds in which ions and free electrons move around independently as charged particles. Plasma is thought to be the most common form of matter in the universe, but it’s usually pretty hot. The plasma in a solar corona can have a temperature in the millions of degrees. |
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| PHOTON SWITCH ON LEADING EDGE OF MORE POWERFUL COMPUTERS |
| Manipulation of photons could serve as the fundamental basis needed to turn quantum computing into a reality. Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a "switch" involving the manipulation of a photon that may lead to the creation of an optical transistor and usher in a new era of more powerful computers. |
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| IN POWERFUL GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, NEUTRINOS MAY FLY OUT FIRST, SCIENTISTS SAY |
| The most powerful explosions in the universe, gamma-ray bursts, may come with a 10-second warning: an equally violent burst of ultra-high-energy particles called neutrinos. |
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| SCIENTISTS EXPECT TO 'SEE' MINIATURE BLACK HOLES |
| An article soon to be published in the conference proceedings of Snowmass 2001, "The Future of Particle Physics," fuels excitement that scientists will be able to see the traces of miniature black holes created in an accelerator. |
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| PHYSICISTS COUNT SUBATOMIC PARTICLES RELEASED BY THE SUN |
| The sun not only radiates light all over the place, but it also emits millions of tiny invisible particles called neutrinos. A team of Texas A&M University physicists has reported in the journal Physical Review C one of the most precise results about the number of solar neutrinos by using an original approach starting a new sub-discipline within nuclear astrophysics. |
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| QUANTUM COMPUTING EXPLORED |
| How to build a super fast computer that uses the bizarre properties of quantum physics is the aim of a project by computer scientists Fred Chong of the University of California, Davis, Isaac Chuang at MIT and John Kubiatowicz at UC Berkeley. The five-year project is supported by a grant of $3 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The grant will establish a Quantum Architecture Research Center between MIT, UC Davis and UC Berkeley. |
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| ‘THE DISH’ TESTS EINSTEIN'S WARPED SPACE |
| In the most precise astrophysics experiment ever made, Australian and U.S. astronomers have used CSIROs Parkes radio telescope to measure the distortion of space-time near a star 450 light-years (more than 4 000 million million kilometres) from Earth. |
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| MUONS CHALLENGE THE BASIC PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE SUBATOMIC WORLD'S ORGANIZATION |
| Studying a magnetic trace of subatomic particles, muons, scientists came to the conclusion which contradicts the dominant physical models of the subatomic world’s organization. Over 30 years, the standard model of the world’s physical organization had been withstanding all critical opinions pertaining to the properties prediction and elementary particles interaction. Despite the obvious success of the theory, physicists suspected they dealt with uncompleted picture of the subatomic world. During the experiment an international team of researchers carried out at Bruckheiven’s National Laboratory of New-York, a negligible deviation from the standard model’s prediction for a magnetic field of muons. The results were announced on February 8th at the laboratory colloquium.
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