James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

PARTICLES that also act like waves; the “spooky action at a distance” of entanglement; those dead-and-alive cats. Small wonder people often trot out physicist Richard Feynman’s line that “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. With quantum theory, we have developed an exceedingly successful description of how fundamental reality works. It also amounts to a full-frontal assault on our intuitions about how reality should work.

Or does it? “It only seems strange to us because our immediate everyday experience of the world is so very limited,” says Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology. Intuitive-feeling classical physics is largely devoted to describing macroscopic objects – the things we see and feel directly in the world around us. “It should not be surprising that this breaks down when we push it into domains that we never experience directly,” says Carroll.

There is a big difference between seeming strange and being strange, too. “If quantum mechanics is right, it can’t truly be strange – it’s how nature works,” says Carroll. You can say something similar, after all, about other areas of physics, such as Albert Einstein’s space-and-time-warping theories of relativity. Their effects only truly kick in at close to light speed, or in humongous gravitational fields of the sort, we never experience, so their picture of the world seems alien to us.

.

Shutterstock/agsandrew

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Are you in the market for a loophole in the laws that forbid perpetual motion? Knowing you’ve got yourself an authentic time crystal takes more than a keen eye for high-quality gems.

In a new study, an international team of researchers used Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware to double-check their theoretical vision of a time crystal, confirming it ticks all of the right boxes for an emerging form of technology we’re still getting our head around.

Similar to conventional crystals made of endlessly repeating units of atoms, a time crystal is an infinitely repeating change in a system, one that remarkably doesn’t require energy to enter or leave.

Though such a thing comes close to breaking certain laws of thermodynamics, the fact that the system’s entropy doesn’t increase means it should sit on the right side of physics.

In reality, such a crystal might look like an oscillation of some sort that doesn’t synchronize with the rest of the system’s rhythms. A laser tapping out a steady beat on your time crystal, for example, might make its particles’ spins flip only on every other tap.

This recalcitrant flip-flopping is a signature time crystal behavior and has been used as evidence for the design and production of time crystals in past experiments.

.

The chip used in the creation of a time crystal. (Google Quantum AI)

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

The new theory contradicts earlier predictions that these ‘shortcuts’ would instantly collapse.

Wormholes, or portals between black holes, maybe stable after all, a wild new theory suggests.

The findings contradict earlier predictions that these hypothetical shortcuts through space-time would instantly collapse. 

The sea change comes because tiny differences in the mathematics of relativity, which is used to describe such wormholes,  end up dramatically changing our overall picture of how they behave. 

.

An artist’s impression of the inside of a wormhole. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

On July 9th, 1968, eight white mice were placed into a strange box at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Maybe “box” isn’t the right word for it; the space was more like a room, known as Universe 25, about the size of a small storage unit. The mice themselves were bright and healthy, hand-picked from the institute’s breeding stock. They were given the run of the place, which had everything they might need: food, water, climate control, hundreds of nesting boxes to choose from, and a lush floor of shredded paper and ground corn cob.

This is a far cry from a wild mouse’s life—no cats, no traps, no long winters. It’s even better than your average lab mouse’s, which is constantly interrupted by white-coated humans with scalpels or syringes. The residents of Universe 25 were mostly left alone, save for one man who would peer at them from above, and his team of similarly interested assistants. They must have thought they were the luckiest mice in the world. They couldn’t have known the truth: that within a few years, they and their descendants would all be dead.

.

Calhoun inside Universe 25, his biggest, baddest mouse utopia. Photo: Yoichi R. Okamoto/Public Domain .

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Think your area has had more rain than usual? You’re probably right. 

Think your area has had less rain than usual? Again, you’re probably right. 

For our climate change investigation out this week, called Downpour, USA TODAY reporters used 126 years of monthly data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to analyze average annual precipitation at 344 climate divisions. They used daily precipitation data from weather stations to measure the change in frequency of extreme rain events across the U.S. from 1951-2020.

“We were hearing a lot about extreme rainfall, stories of flooding, people with sewer backups, people flooded out of their homes, and we wanted to know, is this happening everywhere?” said Dinah Pulver, one of the project’s lead reporters. “How many people, how many places, are contending with this kind of rainfall?

We found more than half of the nation’s 344 climate divisions had their wettest periods on record since 2018. We calculated the same rolling averages for states. 

“East of the Rockies, more rain is falling, and it’s coming in more intense bursts,” our report finds. “In the West, people are waiting longer to see any rain at all.

“Taken together, the reporting reveals a stunning shift in the way precipitation falls in America.”

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Leonard’s Comet, expected to be the brightest comet this year, should be the next sky-sighting on your bucket list. The moon has been keeping this comet washed out as it is much brighter than the space rock. There have been conflicting reports on social media over the past few days that the comet might have even disintegrated. Fear not: Leonard’s Comet is still there and was bright enough to be seen on cameras and through telescopes on Thursday, and it should remain bright enough to be seen over the next few weeks. When the solar system formed, not every piece of rock and ice made its way into a planet. These leftover pieces became comets, which now orbit the sun. The celestial rocks range from just a few miles to tens of miles wide. When one of the floating rocks gets close to the sun, it heats up enough that it spews gas and dust, leaving behind that familiar tail in the sky. 

What is Leonard’s Comet?

Astronomer Gregory J. Leonard discovered this comet in early 2021, later named for him, at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in the Santa Catalina Mountains, northeast of Tucson, Arizona. When Leonard spotted the comet, it was extremely dim, out near Jupiter, and was just starting to release it’s heated up gas and dust. Leonard’s comet has spent roughly 35,000 years getting closer to our sun and has finally made its way closer to Earth’s neck of the universe. It’s expected to be the brightest comet of the year. 

.

Leonard’s comet, not pictured, has spent roughly 35,000 years getting closer to our sun and has finally made its way closer to Earth’s neck of the universe. It’s expected to be the brightest comet of the year. Hans/Pixabay

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________