Nov 10, 2015 11:24 PM
(This post was last modified: Nov 10, 2015 11:26 PM by C C.)
Spooky Action at a Distance' Author George Musser Talks Physics Loopholes
http://www.space.com/31066-spooky-action...rview.html
EXCERPT: There's something strange going on in the universe that calls into question scientists' basic assumptions about space and time — that they exist, for one thing, and that they can separate objects and prevent them from interacting instantaneously. But most people don't notice those conflicts unless they know where to look. George Musser's new book, "Spooky Action at a Distance" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), explores a class of subtle effects and paradoxes that show a brash disregard for the concept of spatial separation, such as particles that affect each other instantly when separated by large distances, called entangled particles; and data that must be simultaneously on the surface of a black hole and deep within it. All of the phenomena are examples of nonlocality, which Albert Einstein famously described as "spooky action at a distance." (The book's subtitle refers to the phenomenon's significance to black holes, the Big Bang and theories of everything.) There are hints of nonlocality in multiple fields of physics, and Musser chronicles the messy struggle to understand how it fits into the theories and assumptions that make up physicists' understanding of the universe. Space.com talked with Musser about his new book and the concept of nonlocality, which he called unsettling, in the sense of something that drives research forward — unsettling but also intriguing....
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For the First Time, Physicists Have Measured the "Strong Force" of Antimatter
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/11/for-the...ntimatter/
EXCERPT: The nuclear strong force binds the smallest bits of matter together to form atoms, thereby making our material world possible. Now physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have made the first-ever measurement of a similar strong force for antimatter — the mirror image of regular matter that lies at the heart of one of our biggest cosmological mysteries. [...] It turns out that the antimatter strong force that created those antimatter nuclei looks a lot like the regular strong force that binds matter. Matter and antimatter still seem perfectly symmetric. So it’s probably not the antimatter strong force that’s to blame for the odd imbalance between matter and antimatter back in those earliest moments of the universe....
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The inspiring story of Neil deGrasse Tyson's life-changing first encounter with Carl Sagan
http://www.techinsider.io/inspiring-stor...an-2015-11
EXCERPT: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is well-known as an amazing science communicator and the director of the Hayden Planetarium. [...] But a lot of people may not know that he got his start in astrophysics with a little help from the original science communicator: Carl Sagan. Sagan, who died in 1996, was an astronomer and astrophysicist as well as an avid and skilled science communicator. [...] At the end of the premiere episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," named after Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," deGrasse Tyson told a touching personal story of how the two first met....
http://www.space.com/31066-spooky-action...rview.html
EXCERPT: There's something strange going on in the universe that calls into question scientists' basic assumptions about space and time — that they exist, for one thing, and that they can separate objects and prevent them from interacting instantaneously. But most people don't notice those conflicts unless they know where to look. George Musser's new book, "Spooky Action at a Distance" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), explores a class of subtle effects and paradoxes that show a brash disregard for the concept of spatial separation, such as particles that affect each other instantly when separated by large distances, called entangled particles; and data that must be simultaneously on the surface of a black hole and deep within it. All of the phenomena are examples of nonlocality, which Albert Einstein famously described as "spooky action at a distance." (The book's subtitle refers to the phenomenon's significance to black holes, the Big Bang and theories of everything.) There are hints of nonlocality in multiple fields of physics, and Musser chronicles the messy struggle to understand how it fits into the theories and assumptions that make up physicists' understanding of the universe. Space.com talked with Musser about his new book and the concept of nonlocality, which he called unsettling, in the sense of something that drives research forward — unsettling but also intriguing....
- - - - - - - -
For the First Time, Physicists Have Measured the "Strong Force" of Antimatter
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/11/for-the...ntimatter/
EXCERPT: The nuclear strong force binds the smallest bits of matter together to form atoms, thereby making our material world possible. Now physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have made the first-ever measurement of a similar strong force for antimatter — the mirror image of regular matter that lies at the heart of one of our biggest cosmological mysteries. [...] It turns out that the antimatter strong force that created those antimatter nuclei looks a lot like the regular strong force that binds matter. Matter and antimatter still seem perfectly symmetric. So it’s probably not the antimatter strong force that’s to blame for the odd imbalance between matter and antimatter back in those earliest moments of the universe....
- - - - - - - -
The inspiring story of Neil deGrasse Tyson's life-changing first encounter with Carl Sagan
http://www.techinsider.io/inspiring-stor...an-2015-11
EXCERPT: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is well-known as an amazing science communicator and the director of the Hayden Planetarium. [...] But a lot of people may not know that he got his start in astrophysics with a little help from the original science communicator: Carl Sagan. Sagan, who died in 1996, was an astronomer and astrophysicist as well as an avid and skilled science communicator. [...] At the end of the premiere episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," named after Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," deGrasse Tyson told a touching personal story of how the two first met....