Feb 10, 2016 11:33 PM
If Einstein's Theory Is True, Scientists Could Unlock New Parts of the Universe
http://mic.com/articles/134903/if-einste...e-universe
EXCERPT: . . . What the alleged discovery means: [...] if LIGO was successful in detecting the gravitational waves, we could see "back to the first one trillionth of a second of the Big Bang." So, to recap, we might have proved an aspect of Einstein's hundred-year-old theory true. Not only that, but we might be able to glimpse the very beginnings of the universe. This breakthrough is so big — literally — that Clifford Burgess, a theoretical physicist at McMaster University in Canada (who penned the leaked email above), bets the discovery will win the Nobel Prize in physics this year....
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/g...d-tomorrow
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/...ecade.html
Trees break at fixed wind speed, irrespective of size or species
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news...or-species
EXCERPT: . . . "We studied why all trees break at almost the same wind speed, and found an explanation based on fertile results of mechanics and biology such as Euler's elastica equation, Griffith criterion and tree allometry that describe, respectively, elasticity, fracture and tree shape," explains Virot. "The result is that trees break at approximately the same wind speed, despite their biomechanical differences (size, age, and species)."...
Big Bang primordial soup created by Cern's LHC shows early universe behaved like a liquid
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-bang-primor...id-1543030
EXCERPT: CERN's Large Hadron Collider has been used to recreate the universe's primordial soup – a combination of fundamental particles that existed in a fraction of time after the Big Bang. Record-high amounts of energy were used to investigate the universe's early elements, namely quarks and gluons. The researchers found that the combination of quarks and gluons – known as quark-gluon plasma – acted more like liquid than a gas, despite its unbelievably high energy. They mapped the changes in quark-gluon plasma as they interact, before publishing their results in the journal Physical Review Letters....
Baby physics
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2...021016.php
RELEASE: If we hold a ball and then let go of it and the ball remains suspended in mid-air, even a baby a few months old will be surprised. Just like an adult, the baby expects the ball to fall to the floor. Even at such a young age humans already have some rudimentary knowledge of the behaviour of solids. Now a new study extends this knowledge to add liquids and other non-solids to the "naïve physics" of infants.
"This new study developed out of previous experiments", explains Alissa Ferry, SISSA research scientist and among the authors of the paper, "in which we observed that infants were surprised when a liquid failed to behave as a liquid (in those experiments we "cheated" by disguising solids as liquids)". Their surprise, explains Ferry, demonstrates that their expectations for a liquid had not been met. "However, what we couldn't establish was whether the infants knew how a liquid should behave or whether they just expected it to be different from a solid".
Ferry and colleagues (the first author is Susan Hespos of Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, where the experiments were conducted) therefore devised a new set of tests with a greater range of materials and "interactions". In a first "habituation" phase, the infants were shown the contents of a glass by tilting the glass in front of them. The glass either contained a solid (which, when not moving, had identical appearance to water) or some water. When the glass was tilted back and forth, the two materials behaved differently: the solid remained perfectly still whereas the water moved. This phase served to teach the infants whether they were looking at a solid or a liquid.
Next, the infants were shown an identical glass to the one seen in the previous phase (making them believe that it was the same glass) which contained either the material they had already seen or the other material. At this point, the infants watched the experimenter either pour the contents (liquid or solid) of the glass into another glass containing a grid or submerge the grid in the liquid (or rest it on top of the solid) inside the glass.
"In the previous experiments we merely poured the contents of the glass. This time we added a grid to find out whether the infants really understood the loose cohesiveness of liquids, which can pass through a perforated surface and recompose in the vessel unlike solids which, being highly cohesive, cannot pass through a grid" explains Ferry.
In the habituation phase, in fact, the infants could know how liquids change shape with movement, but it was unknown if they could use this knowledge to understand other properties of liquids, like loose cohesiveness. "If infants understand the properties of liquids, then they should be surprised when, what they think is a liquid gets trapped on a grid".
And the analysis of the infants' behaviour shows that when they expected a liquid they were surprised to see it blocked by the grid (or see the grid unable to penetrate the material). Conversely, if they thought they were looking at a solid, then they were surprised when they saw it pass through the grid.
The investigators also used other materials like sand and small glass spheres. "Even in these cases the infants showed that they knew the behaviour of substances", concludes Ferry. "This is especially interesting because, while we can imagine that 5-month-old infants already have had extensive direct experience with liquids and especially water through meals, baths and 9 months in the amniotic liquid, it's unlikely that they've had many encounters with sand or glass balls, suggesting that infants have a naïve understanding of the physics of nonsolid substances".
http://mic.com/articles/134903/if-einste...e-universe
EXCERPT: . . . What the alleged discovery means: [...] if LIGO was successful in detecting the gravitational waves, we could see "back to the first one trillionth of a second of the Big Bang." So, to recap, we might have proved an aspect of Einstein's hundred-year-old theory true. Not only that, but we might be able to glimpse the very beginnings of the universe. This breakthrough is so big — literally — that Clifford Burgess, a theoretical physicist at McMaster University in Canada (who penned the leaked email above), bets the discovery will win the Nobel Prize in physics this year....
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/g...d-tomorrow
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/...ecade.html
Trees break at fixed wind speed, irrespective of size or species
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news...or-species
EXCERPT: . . . "We studied why all trees break at almost the same wind speed, and found an explanation based on fertile results of mechanics and biology such as Euler's elastica equation, Griffith criterion and tree allometry that describe, respectively, elasticity, fracture and tree shape," explains Virot. "The result is that trees break at approximately the same wind speed, despite their biomechanical differences (size, age, and species)."...
Big Bang primordial soup created by Cern's LHC shows early universe behaved like a liquid
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-bang-primor...id-1543030
EXCERPT: CERN's Large Hadron Collider has been used to recreate the universe's primordial soup – a combination of fundamental particles that existed in a fraction of time after the Big Bang. Record-high amounts of energy were used to investigate the universe's early elements, namely quarks and gluons. The researchers found that the combination of quarks and gluons – known as quark-gluon plasma – acted more like liquid than a gas, despite its unbelievably high energy. They mapped the changes in quark-gluon plasma as they interact, before publishing their results in the journal Physical Review Letters....
Baby physics
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2...021016.php
RELEASE: If we hold a ball and then let go of it and the ball remains suspended in mid-air, even a baby a few months old will be surprised. Just like an adult, the baby expects the ball to fall to the floor. Even at such a young age humans already have some rudimentary knowledge of the behaviour of solids. Now a new study extends this knowledge to add liquids and other non-solids to the "naïve physics" of infants.
"This new study developed out of previous experiments", explains Alissa Ferry, SISSA research scientist and among the authors of the paper, "in which we observed that infants were surprised when a liquid failed to behave as a liquid (in those experiments we "cheated" by disguising solids as liquids)". Their surprise, explains Ferry, demonstrates that their expectations for a liquid had not been met. "However, what we couldn't establish was whether the infants knew how a liquid should behave or whether they just expected it to be different from a solid".
Ferry and colleagues (the first author is Susan Hespos of Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, where the experiments were conducted) therefore devised a new set of tests with a greater range of materials and "interactions". In a first "habituation" phase, the infants were shown the contents of a glass by tilting the glass in front of them. The glass either contained a solid (which, when not moving, had identical appearance to water) or some water. When the glass was tilted back and forth, the two materials behaved differently: the solid remained perfectly still whereas the water moved. This phase served to teach the infants whether they were looking at a solid or a liquid.
Next, the infants were shown an identical glass to the one seen in the previous phase (making them believe that it was the same glass) which contained either the material they had already seen or the other material. At this point, the infants watched the experimenter either pour the contents (liquid or solid) of the glass into another glass containing a grid or submerge the grid in the liquid (or rest it on top of the solid) inside the glass.
"In the previous experiments we merely poured the contents of the glass. This time we added a grid to find out whether the infants really understood the loose cohesiveness of liquids, which can pass through a perforated surface and recompose in the vessel unlike solids which, being highly cohesive, cannot pass through a grid" explains Ferry.
In the habituation phase, in fact, the infants could know how liquids change shape with movement, but it was unknown if they could use this knowledge to understand other properties of liquids, like loose cohesiveness. "If infants understand the properties of liquids, then they should be surprised when, what they think is a liquid gets trapped on a grid".
And the analysis of the infants' behaviour shows that when they expected a liquid they were surprised to see it blocked by the grid (or see the grid unable to penetrate the material). Conversely, if they thought they were looking at a solid, then they were surprised when they saw it pass through the grid.
The investigators also used other materials like sand and small glass spheres. "Even in these cases the infants showed that they knew the behaviour of substances", concludes Ferry. "This is especially interesting because, while we can imagine that 5-month-old infants already have had extensive direct experience with liquids and especially water through meals, baths and 9 months in the amniotic liquid, it's unlikely that they've had many encounters with sand or glass balls, suggesting that infants have a naïve understanding of the physics of nonsolid substances".