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| Super atoms turn the periodic table upside down |
| Researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands have developed a technique for generating atom clusters made from silver and other metals. Surprisingly enough, these so-called super atoms (clusters of 13 silver atoms, for example) behave in the same way as individual atoms and have opened up a whole new branch of chemistry. A full account can be read in the new edition of TU Delft magazine Delft Outlook. |
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| PHYSICISTS SAVED FROM DROWNING IN COMPLEXITIES OF WETTING THEORY |
| The relationship between a thin liquid film or drop of liquid and the shape of the surface that it wets is explained with a new simplified mathematical formula published this week in Physical Review Letters.
Understanding the precise interaction between liquids and surfaces is important for a number of areas, including the chemical industry and new nanotechnologies. |
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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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| BERKELEY LAB PHYSICIST CHALLENGES SPEED OF GRAVITY CLAIM |
| Albert Einstein may have been right that gravity travels at the same speed as light but, contrary to a claim made earlier this year, the theory has not yet been proven. A scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) says the announcement by two scientists, widely reported this past January, about the speed of gravity was wrong. |
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| UC RIVERSIDE RESEARCHERS' DISCOVERY OF ELECTROSTATIC SPIN TOPPLES CENTURY-OLD THEORY. NEW PHYSICAL PHENOMENON WILL LIKELY IMPACT ATOMIC PHYSICS,.. |
| In a discovery that is likely to impact fields as diverse as atomic physics, chemistry and nanotechnology, researchers have identified a new physical phenomenon, electrostatic rotation, that, in the absence of friction, leads to spin. Because the electric force is one of the fundamental forces of nature, this leap forward in understanding may help reveal how the smallest building blocks in nature react to form solids, liquids and gases that constitute the material world around us. |
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| UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO STUDY CHARTS NEW REALM OF PHYSICS |
| By constructing artificial materials that break long-standing rules of nature, a University of Toronto researcher has developed a flat lens that could significantly enhance the resolution of imaged objects. This, in turn, could lead to smaller and more effective antennas and devices for cell phones, increased space for data storage on CD-ROMs and more complex electronic circuits. |
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| NEW THEORY UNRAVELS MAGNETIC INSTABILITY |
| Reconnection, the merging of magnetic field lines of opposite polarity near the surface of the sun, Earth and some black holes, is believed to be the root cause of many spectacular astronomical events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, but the reason for this is not well understood. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory now have a new theory that may explain the instability and advance the understanding of these phenomena. |
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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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| SCIENTISTS VISUALIZE WAVES IN SPACE CAUSED BY BLACK-HOLE MERGERS |
| Merging black holes will rock the fabric of space and time with gravitational waves that start quiet, grow to a thunderous roar at the moment of impact, and then resonate from the final gong, according to international team of scientists who have created a novel computer model of such a merger based on Einstein's equations. Scientists present these results this week at the Fourth International LISA Symposium on gravitational radiation at Penn State University in University Park. |
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| BLACK HOLE DYNAMO MAY BE COSMOS' ULTIMATE ELECTRICITY GENERATOR |
| Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory believe that magnetic field lines extending a few million light years from galaxies into space may be the result of incredibly efficient energy-producing dynamos within black holes that are somewhat analogous to an electric motor. Los Alamos researchers Philipp Kronberg, Quentin Dufton, Stirling Colgate and Hui Li today discussed this finding at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. |
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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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| YALE ASTRONOMER EXPLORES THE FINAL MOMENTS OF MERGING BLACK HOLES |
| A slow dance lasting up to10 million years between a super-massive black hole and a smaller one culminates in a violent outflow of energy, possibly powering the bright light known as a quasar, a Yale researcher and collaborator have found. |
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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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| SOLUTION TO A 20TH CENTURY MYSTERY |
| A general connection of the quantum coupling constants with ? was anticipated by R. P. Feynman in a remarkable intuitional leap some 40 years ago as can be seen from the following much quoted extract from one of Feynman's books. |
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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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| THE UNIVERSE, NEWTON: IT'S NOT AS WE KNOW IT |
| An international collaboration of physicists, led by an Australian team, has discovered that one of the fundamental physical constants isn't so constant after all. |
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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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| NSF AWARDS INTERDISCIPLINARY PENN TEAM $1.45 MILLION TO STUDY, DEVELOP BUILDING BLOCKS OF NANOSTRUCTURES |
| The National Science Foundation has awarded $1.45 million to scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, establishing a new Nanotechnology Science and Engineering Center that will seek out the building blocks of next-generation nanostructures. |
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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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