Physics Discussion Thread

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 26 Dec 2009 04:12

I find it strange that only humans have evolved great intelligence on this planet.

Billions of species have come and gone and yet only one has evolved a very high level of intelligence. I won't count dolphins, whales or chimps in this category. I'm talking intelligence capable of creating high levels of technology & science.

Eyes have evoloved independantly countless of times which means they are of great importance for survival. Even wings (butterfly, bird) have evolved independantly more than once. Yet very high intelligence has only really evoloved in humanoids alone.

One would think like eyes and wings, a more intelligent brain would offer better chances of survival and would have evolved indepedantly in other species many times. But this is not so.

This makes me wonder if the likelyhood of intelligent life on other planets is incredibly small. Probably there are planets with tons unintelligent creatures running around but almost none with intelligent life. And even if there was, what is the likelyhood that they would be in the nearby vicinity.

What the world needs is a way to travel faster than light. If someone could discover a method for doing this, it would open up the whole universe for exploration.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 27 Dec 2009 01:25

http://www.physorg.com/news181052057.html

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.

"Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."

I wonder if material like this could be a possible alternative explanation to Dark Matter?

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 03 Jan 2010 08:12

First complete quantum computing device is called "breakthrough of 2009"

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41270

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 05 Jan 2010 03:57

Kepler Space Telescope Spots 5 Planets in First 6 Weeks

Wow, just imagine how many it may spot over its entire operational lifetime.

These early detections are of course "hot jupiter" types which have a rapid orbital period. Earth-like planets would be forthcoming after several months, most likely.

Imagine what it would mean to us if we really did discover Earth-like planets, giving off spectral signatures not just for water, but for life itself (eg. chlorophyll)
We could conceivably find other worlds suitable for human habitation, and observe them from afar, even if we know that we can't get there from here.

"It's only a matter of time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer period orbits, coming closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog."

Since India has shown its ability to use star sensor technology with Chandrayaan-1, then why can't this technology be adapted by ISRO to do something similar to what NASA's Kepler spacecraft is doing?
Staring at the stars as our forefathers did is one thing, but staring at the planets orbiting them is an entirely grander feat!

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 05 Jan 2010 11:52

More news on this:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0 ... assortment

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 05 Jan 2010 23:12

Kepler also found (announced in American Astronomical Society meeting yesterday) two "objects" orbiting the stars which are hotter than the stars (surface temperature) ...About 15,000K! (Scientists are puzzled to find such hot objects)

All the 5 'planets' mentioned above are also pretty hot..(more than 1500 K (or C) .. Hot enough to melt steel (or boil lead

)...Little chance of life in this environment of blast furnace. One 'planet' has a density of Styrofoam.

Neighborhood being searched by Kepler is Abhijit Nakshatra.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 06 Jan 2010 06:38

The smaller hotter objects may be white dwarves in binary star systems.

The early planetary finds are naturally going to be bigger and hotter, whereas the smaller and more Earth-like planets will take longer to find, as they'll likely have larger orbital periods and produce less dimming or wobbles.

Still, with 10^24 stars estimated for the known universe, it really makes you wonder why there shouldn't be more civilizations like our own out there? Granted, we have only been able to listen for communication signals for some decades now, so signals from any civilizations beyond 60 lightyears wouldn't have had a chance to reach us yet, and if they did they'd be rather weak and drowned in the static of the universe.

It probably also confirms to us that it's impossible to overcome the lightspeed barrier, as otherwise other civilizations would have detected and reached us by now in their wanderings.

There is the idea that it's fundamentally impossible for any civilization to overcome the challenges of interstellar distance within the constraints of available energy resources in a star system. The higher a civilization rises, the more easily it can destroy itself, and so it's possible that self-destruction would occur before achieving breakout from the confines of the star system.

To me, it's of fundamental existential importance to find out that our Earth is not unique, and that there are other Earth-like worlds out there. This then gives us a truer sense of our place in the universe - and also perhaps a guidepost as to what we must do and where we must go.
It is in our nature as a species to seek out 'greener pastures' - even if they are not easily within reach.

Therefore, we will naturally try to first detect the existence of other Earths out there - maybe some of them might be even more naturally blessed than our own. And once the sense of reward and promise is great enough, it would drive us to seek out ways to get to these places.

The Soviet nobel-winning physicist Andrei Sakharov predicted that the greatest challenge of 21st-century physics would be in discovering the mysteries of the vacuum, by which he meant the actual composition of spacetime itself. Spacetime and its particular properties are what constrain us in terms of how quickly we can travel. So it's inevitable that we will try to investigate it further to meet our needs in this regard.

Meantime, as far as detection is concerned, there are ambitious plans to build telescope arrays which could even image the surface of distant worlds:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=9904

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 Jan 2010 11:00

Rowe, who discovered what he called "Hot companion" guesses that those object are newly born planets (guess about 200 Million years) which makes them very hot -- this of course is on opposite part of the spectrum of the theory, as far as life cycle is concerned, of the white dwarf stars that are dying and shrinking.. as some guess they might be, but such a high temperature was a surprise find according to news reports.. say NY times story:
Planet-Hunting Telescope Unearths Hot Mysteries

Too bad that these five planets are quite far (1800 Light years, 4000 light years..).. The stars themselves are quite dim (need 6" or 8" telescope just to see them)..

As to "seeing" the surface of the planet (with even to resolve 1 km object) with optical telescopes is going to be virtually impossible because of simple optics laws.. one would need an objective mirror/lens larger than our sun.. (Radio telescopes, on the other hand - with current technology - can allow one to send/receive signals to 100's of thousands of light-years)

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 07 Jan 2010 04:04

Amber G. wrote:As to "seeing" the surface of the planet (with even to resolve 1 km object) with optical telescopes is going to be virtually impossible because of simple optics laws.. one would need an objective mirror/lens larger than our sun.. (Radio telescopes, on the other hand - with current technology - can allow one to send/receive signals to 100's of thousands of light-years)

You don't need to do it with a single big lens. It can be done with multiple telescopes positioned at large separation distances and at tight tolerances.

Additionally, there are some very conspicuous telltale signs that serve as biosignatures, such as the vegetation 'red edge' due to absorption band of chlorophyll:

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/01/13 ... ar-planet/

So when might we eventually see vegetation on another planet? The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) looks unlikely to be launched before 2025 and even then might not have the power to do the job.

More ambitious telescopes later in the century, such as a formation of 150 3-meter mirrors would collect enough photons in 30 minutes to freeze the rotation of the planet and produce an image with at least 300 pixels of resolution, and up to thousands depending on array geometry. "At this level of spatial resolution, it will be possible to identify clouds, oceans and continents, either barren or perhaps (hopefully) conquered by vegetation," the researchers write.

India is so well-versed in terrestrial observation for our own resource management purposes, that we could put these skills to use in similarly detecting such things on exo-planets.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Jan 2010 02:00

^^^Thanks for links.

You don't need to do it with a single big lens. It can be done with multiple telescopes positioned at large separation distances and at tight tolerances.

In one sense it matters little, point is even with telescopes array the base line calculation from simple theoretical limit (wavelenght/(baseline or diameter = resolving power) remains valid, and for example, for above mentioned planets you are still looking at a factor of millions (or 100's of millions) of what is available today...heck, except for a few isolated cases for nearby big stars, even measuring the diameter of stars is not possible with direct optical measurements...(and we are talking about resolving power of thousands/hundreds of thousand km only ) ..I guess best of optical telescope arrays at present could get 10^9 or 10^10 ratio for resolution (this translates into 1000Km for an object a light year away )- still quite a bit to go before one can really "see" extra solar planets. (Here, by "seeing" means if we can get to see the planet as a dot ...much less what one gets from say, a typical satellite image of earth.. or chandrayaan's tmc)

(All outside planets are discovered by indirect methods, eg gravitational wobbling, or light variation etc .. of the primary star)

Additionally, there are some very conspicuous telltale signs that serve as biosignatures, such as the vegetation 'red edge' due to absorption band of chlorophyll:

Yes, combine with other info one can get more information..for example my small telescope could see and resolve moon better than it's theoretical limit, when there are long shadows of mountains in lunar morning (or evening) ...
If we really get lucky we may get direct feed from webcam (or google earth type image) located on those planets.. and can get much higher resolution!

..

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 12 Jan 2010 04:49

Here's an amazing image from Mars of some strange-looking tendrils that have formed on the Martian surface:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... n-awesome/

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 12 Jan 2010 23:59

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 25 Mar 2010 03:03

Xpost from TSP thread... state of Physics in TSP:

Just saw a blip (also published in many Paki newspapers eg link here:
from Dawn
That Tamgha-e-Imtiaz was conferred on Maqsood Ahmad

For those who do not know: IIRC - Dr. Ahmmad is known as a cheater and was fired from PU for cheating.
(CERN and the Abdul Salam International Centre for Physics among others put pressure on PU - Reportedly multi-million grant to the university was held up unless this cheaters were fired or forced to retire.

AIP (American Institute of Physics) withdrew their paper after finding massive fraud and "plagiarism" (aka word by word copying) and denounced them. It was in Paki papers too.

Yet this guy gets Tamga! Only in the land of pure.

(One of the link for this saga - from Physics today: )
Plagiarist physicists at Punjab University fired

Physicists from CERN and the Abdul Salam International Centre for Physics have lauded a decision by Punjab University Chancellor Khalid Maqbool to fire five plagiarists at the university. In February, on the recommendations of an inquiry committee, the governor ‘forcibly’ retired on charges of plagiarism PU Centre for High Energy Physics director Fazle Aleem along with Rashid Ahmad, Sohail Afzal Tahir, M Aslam Saeed and Maqsood Ahmad. The issue had delayed approval of a Rs 110 million grant to the university until the matter was satisfactorily resolved. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) released the funds on shortly after the inquiry panel announced their decision.

>>>>>
Also, The link I posted from Physics Today blog about Tamag-e-cheater.. I happened to read comments: (Putting the link again)
Plagiarist physicists at Punjab University fired

One of the comments claim that all the charges are falsie "

as they are not considered plagiarists by the foreign institutions .... .... Maqsood Ahmad, .[and others] were accused of plagiarism with respect to six different publications... All are continuing to write research papers as the American Institute of Physics never alleged plagiarism against them and continues to publish their papers."

Of course, AIP has officially not only alleged plagiarism but did more:
see:
Here

Upon analysis of the above published article, the vast majority of the text can been attributed to nearly identical blocks of text in three sources that were not cited in the article [1-3], and to a fourth source that was cited but to which inadequate attribution was given [4]. The publisher, the American Institute of Physics, is thus issuing a retraction of this article.

Or here:
here

These cheaters do not know that Internet and computers which make it easy to cut and paste also make checking up on them easy too .... specially when 80% (of the first article) too 90% (for second article) are copied word by word. ..

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Apr 2010 19:58

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 761894.cms

Indian, US scientists question Big Bang theory

An Indian and an American scientist have questioned the Big Bang theory, saying it does not serve as a viable explanation for the origin of the universe.

The research papers of Ashwini Kumar Lal of India's Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and Rhawn Joseph of Northern California's Brain Research Laboratory have been accepted for publication in the April issue of the peer-reviewed Harvard journal, Journal of Cosmology.

The research papers come even as scientists at Geneva's European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are in the midst of experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) recreating conditions of the beginning of the universe.

"The two scientific papers cast shadows of suspicion over the efficacy of the Big Bang model. The scientific community may have to ponder afresh over the issue relating to the origin of the universe," Lal told IANS here.

Lal closely studied 38 research works in the areas of astrophysics, physics
and cosmology before writing his paper. This is his third paper on the subject to be published in a foreign journal. The others are Origin of Life (Astrophysics and Space Science, October 2008) and Searching for Life on Habitable Planets
and Moons (Journal of Cosmology, February 2010). He also has to his credit some 30 research papers published in Indian journals.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 05 Apr 2010 21:53

I postulate that the big bhang was caused when Abdul Pacqui forgot to go to pakistan after a heavy dinner of gosht and pindi channa. Please cite/photochor my paper published in call of Nature journal.

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Apr 2010 22:05

So does that mean the debate between big bang vs steady state is still hot ? Iirc even Dr. Narlikar has made contributions in the same area .

biswas · Post by **biswas** » 12 Apr 2010 21:14

I'm looking for some high school final year (movement) physics articles that I can give to the kid I tutor for his assignment. I found one on the physics of skateboarding from sciencedaily, but apparently his friend is already doing it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007 ... arding.htm

^ thats the one there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated =]

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 13 Apr 2010 09:02

negi wrote:So does that mean the debate between big bang vs steady state is still hot ?...... .

*This was written by famous Gamow (one of the original proponent) (with the help from his wife ) way back wrt Fred Hoyle's aversion to accept the facts,

"Your years of tiol"
Said Ryle to Hoyle
"Are wasted years, believe me
The steady state
is out of date
unless my eyes deceive me

My telescope
has dashed your hope;
Your tenest are refuted
Let me be terse:
Our Universe
Grows daily more diluted!"

Said Hoyle, "You quote
Lemaître, I note
And Gamow, well, forgett them!
That errant gang
And their Big bang
Why aid them and able them?

You see, my friend
It has no end
And there was no beginning
As Bondi, Gold
and I will hold
Until your hair is thinning!"

"Not so!" cried Ryle
With rising bile
And straining at the tether;
"Far galaxies
Are, as one sees,
More tightly packed together!"

"You make me boil!"
Exploded Hoyle,
His statement rearranging
"New matter is born
Each night and morn.
The picture is unchanging!"

"Come off it, Hoyle!
I aim to foil
you yet"
"And in a while"
Continued Ryle
"I'll bring you to your senses!"

From oral history archives: http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4325.html

Interesting to listen to Gamow's own words:
h[url]ttp://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/audio/4325_2.html[/url]

Chandragupta · Post by **Chandragupta** » 13 Apr 2010 22:01

I thought the Big Bang theory was well established after it was found that the galaxies are still flying in all directions at breakneck speed, or was that found to be wrong?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 13 Apr 2010 23:07

The explanation for the Cosmic microwave background radiation is the strongest evidence in support of the Big Bang

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 17 Apr 2010 02:58

News caught my eye:Arlington police say suspect denies stealing Nobel prize

People here may recall that many think that the noble prize belonged to Padm Vibhushan George Sudarshan any way.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 22 Apr 2010 07:33

May be a little OT .. but Nice picture(s)
NASA Solar Observatory's First Shots

-

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 27 Apr 2010 21:48

Recently there was a debate in a cycling forum and the topic was: Why heavy bikers are faster than light bikers on a slope, while freewheeling, keeping all other factors constant.

Any takers?

Cheers....

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 04 May 2010 09:27

Quantum encryption and secure money transactions:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25135/

Looks interesting - I wonder whether it would truly be resistant to forgery, though.

BajKhedawal · Post by **BajKhedawal** » 04 May 2010 09:33

neerajb wrote:Recently there was a debate in a cycling forum and the topic was: Why heavy bikers are faster than light bikers on a slope, while freewheeling, keeping all other factors constant.

Any takers?

Cheers....

I am a simble commerce graduate but question still arises in my bania dimag: Is the slope downwards or upwards?

Assuming downward, its the mass on wheels.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 05 May 2010 01:53

neerajb wrote:Recently there was a debate in a cycling forum and the topic was: Why heavy bikers are faster than light bikers on a slope, while freewheeling, keeping all other factors constant.

Any takers?

Cheers....

To make it simple, If you have two identical Bikes (with equal mass, shape and thus moment of inertia of the wheels) and only difference is mass of the rider, going down hill ( and both started with identical velocities etc) then obviously the one which has heavier rider will go faster.

One simple way to think about this to Hint: look at the Kinetic Energy of the bike+rider, there are two components, the rotational energy of the wheels ( (1/2) I*w^2) + linear ( (1/2) m*v^2)) ..

(If it was just a friction-less slope, and both are sliding their velocity will be independent of the mass.. but if you have a rotatiing wheels whose moment of inertia is not negligible there will be difference.)

This is a pretty well known (or ought to be well known) to any one who (or whose kids) took part in Boy's Scout Pine-wood derby.

... its the mass on wheels.

more precisely it's the moment of inertia of the wheels..BTW that's why if you roll a solid sphere and a hollow sphere down hill, the solid sphere will roll fast .. (all other things being equal)

BajKhedawal · Post by **BajKhedawal** » 05 May 2010 02:37

Amber G. wrote:
... its the mass on wheels.
more precisely it's the moment of inertia of the wheels..BTW that's why if you roll a solid sphere and a hollow sphere down hill, the solid sphere will roll fast .. (all other things being equal)

Query with regards to bolded part: All things equal, let’s say there is a ramp on the slope. The hollow log "A" being lighter, probably bit elastic + bouncy: will it not go up the ramp faster, lift off at a higher rate of speed and reach further down the trajectory at a much faster momentum? Compared to the heavier, sluggish, less flexible and thus less bouncy, solid log "B"?

So in such a instance will the log A win the downhill skiing race? Or will log B’s solid musharraf save the day again?

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 05 May 2010 21:20

BajKhedawal wrote:
neerajb wrote:Recently there was a debate in a cycling forum and the topic was: Why heavy bikers are faster than light bikers on a slope, while freewheeling, keeping all other factors constant.

Any takers?

Cheers....
I am a simble commerce graduate but question still arises in my bania dimag: Is the slope downwards or upwards?

Assuming downward, its the mass on wheels.

Freewheeling riders Saar. Thanks for the explanation.

Cheers....

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 13 May 2010 03:20

USA's NIST has finally released a new version of its Handbook of Mathematical Functions, originally released in 1964:

http://www.physorg.com/news192903240.html

Chinmayanand · Post by **Chinmayanand** » 21 May 2010 03:08

Raman Effect: fingerprinting the universe

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 29 May 2010 10:14

Plans for 'nuclear clock' unveiled:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/42813

This thing would be ultra-precise, since it seems to work on nuclear isomer transition.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 01 Jun 2010 09:54

Nice t News Item from LA Times about major discovery about Neutrino - evidence that they have mass.
Physicists unlock mystery of subatomic particle

For the first time, physicists have confirmed that certain subatomic particles have mass and that they could account for a large proportion of matter in the universe, the so-called dark matter that astrophysicists know is there but that cannot be observed by conventional means.

The finding concerns the behavior of neutrinos, ghost-like particles that travel at the speed of light. In the new experiment, physicists captured a muon neutrino in the process of transforming into a tau neutrino.

Researchers had strongly believed that such transformations occur because they have been able to observe the disappearance of muon neutrinos in a variety of experiments.

But the research announced Monday marks the first time that the appearance of a tau neutrino has been directly observed. Physicists from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva and the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics' Gran Sasso National Laboratory were involved.
<snip>

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 03 Jun 2010 07:16

Yes, and I'm wondering how physicists will explain this discovery, since it goes beyond the Standard Model of physics.

Will neutrino mass be the explanation for the much discussed Dark Matter that may pervade the universe?

I'd read that the US Navy is looking into neutrinos for submarine communications.

I'd also read that neutrinos could be used for geophysical measurement, which might be of interest to ISRO given its considerable investment in earth observation satellites and its recent attempt to map the Moon. A sufficiently intense neutrino source could produce a neutrino beam that would easily pass through the entire Earth. This could allow probing of the Earth's interior, as well as that of the Moon and other heavenly bodies, including the Sun and other planets of the solar system.

Given that all stars are prodigious neutrino sources, I'm wondering if neutrino flux could even be used to examine extra-solar planets, including their interiors in particular.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 05 Jun 2010 03:11

^^^
FWIW - wrt to submarine communications etc... sure neutrinos, unlike radio waves, will pass through water (or solid earth) ... I don't know any practical way at present, for neutrino detectors to be used to receive information in any meaningful bit rate....(just for perspective see below for ICAL detectors of INO - just check out the weight of such beasts!... it is much more practical at present to just tow a long antenna from submarine and use low bit rate using traditional EM)..sure something may change some day but I don't think it will happen any time soon.

Yes, neutrinos will pass through the whole earth, sort of effortlessly... but at present it is it is difficult to stop/detect them.
(INO-India-based Neutrino Observatory will be buried under more than a Km or rock, to block most of other background radiation.... so that one can examine neutrinos ... and ICAL detectors there would weigh of the order of 50,000 tons!)

The LA times article I posted, is little sloppy in its knowledge of physics .It has a more than a few odd statements (eg .. telling us the discovery that neutrinos have mass, yet telling that they move at the speed of light.. of course, it could be one or the other)

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 05 Jun 2010 07:33

Well, neutrinos play a role in beta-decay, as do electrons. It's already been demonstrated that altering electron density can have a very strong effect on beta decay. I suspect then that application of similar principles in relation to neutrino density could be used to detect neutrino bursts, or even to produce neutrinos more efficiently.

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/i25/e252501

http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/phy ... rates.html

http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q7843.html

the most dramatic radionuclide in this regard has been rhenium-187, for which a remarkable reduction in the half-life from 4.1 x 10^10 years to about 33 years has been observed.

One idea I had was around what I'd call "radial polarization" - if you had a spherical molecule that you could polarize (and buckyballs and buckyonions are tangible examples), then you could polarize it in a radial direction (something previously unheard of), and create a concentration of electric charge (electrons or holes) towards the center of that molecule.
Because the exterior surface of the spherical molecule would be larger than the interior surface (especially for a buckyonion), then the pressure (force per unit area) would be amplified like in hydraulic brakes, thus trapping that charge concentration in place.

This would enable you to dynamically catalyze the beta-decay rate.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 Jun 2010 05:41

WRT to neutrinos...
Some may enjoy the clip (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1268443) given below:

There was a a very nice presentation by an OPERA collaborator at Fermilab
today describing their tau appearance event. ... quite convincing.

(They expect to observe 18 tau appearance events with their full
dataset in a couple of years, with an expected background of ~1 event.
It is a beautifully executed experiment)

per recent e-emal from CERN:

On Jun 3, 2010, at 11:31 PM, XXXXXX wrote:

> Dear XXXXXX (Physics Dept etc.._
>
> This last week there was an important experimental result announced
> at CERN and the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. The OPERA
> experiment made a very impressive technical achievement and observed
> a single muon neutrino which transformed into a tau neutrino and was
> recorded in an underground experiment. Electronics systems pointed
> tracks back to an emulsion of film where the tiny tracks were
> developed and seen.
>
> This is a very nice confirmation of our picture of neutrino
> oscillations and CERN produced a nice video that the public can
> understand about the science and the detector.
>
> I thought the video was well done and some of you might like to
> watch it:
>
> http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1268443
>
> Let's all enjoy neutrinos!
>
> -XXXXXr

--

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 06 Jun 2010 09:52

Regarding neutrino detection, this was an interesting article from a few years ago:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/36108

Even if the decay-rate correlations with solar flares and the Earth–Sun distance are more than a coincidence, they raise the question of precisely what solar activity is causing the effect. In a more recent paper submitted to Physical Review Letters (preprint at arXiv:0808.3283), the Purdue researchers suggest that the radioactive nuclei are somehow affected by solar neutrinos.

...

Meanwhile, the Purdue researchers have just found yet another example of the decay-rate annual modulation — this time by a US paediatrician who was investigating the decay of plutonium–238–beryllium in 1990. “What our data are showing is that the half lives, or the decay constants, are apparently not fundamental constants of nature, but appear to be affected by solar activity,” says Fischbach. “To summarize, what we are showing is that the decay constant is not really a constant.”

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw147.html

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 08 Jun 2010 02:50

Chandrasekhar Centennial Symposium

http://physics.uchicago.edu/events/chandra100/

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Jun 2010 07:05

^^^ You may like the post posted only a few days ago:
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 83#p883483

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 08 Jun 2010 08:29

Okay. Thanks.