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Archive for the ‘physics’ category: Page 190

Sep 17, 2020

Physicists make electrical nanolasers even smaller

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, physics, supercomputing

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and King’s College London cleared the obstacle that had prevented the creation of electrically driven nanolasers for integrated circuits. The approach, reported in a recent paper in Nanophotonics, enables coherent light source design on the scale not only hundreds of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair but even smaller than the wavelength of light emitted by the laser. This lays the foundation for ultrafast optical data transfer in the manycore microprocessors expected to emerge in the near future.

Light signals revolutionized information technologies in the 1980s, when optical fibers started to replace copper wires, making data transmission orders of magnitude faster. Since optical communication relies on light— with a frequency of several hundred terahertz—it allows transferring terabytes of data every second through a single fiber, vastly outperforming electrical interconnects.

Fiber optics underlies the modern internet, but light could do much more for us. It could be put into action even inside the microprocessors of supercomputers, workstations, smartphones, and other devices. This requires using optical communication lines to interconnect the purely , such as processor cores. As a result, vast amounts of information could be transferred across the chip nearly instantaneously.

Sep 16, 2020

The brain-computer interface is coming, and we are so not ready for it

Posted by in categories: computing, law, neuroscience, physics, wearables

Are you ready?

“if you were the type of geek, growing up, who enjoyed taking apart mechanical things and putting them back together again, who had your own corner of the garage or the basement filled with electronics and parts of electronics that you endlessly reconfigured, who learned to solder before you could ride a bike, your dream job would be at the Intelligent Systems Center of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Housed in an indistinct, cream-colored building in a part of Maryland where you can still keep a horse in your back yard, the ISC so elevates geekdom that the first thing you see past the receptionist’s desk is a paradise for the kind of person who isn’t just thrilled by gadgets, but who is compelled to understand how they work.”

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Sep 15, 2020

Fish, seaweed inspire slippery surfaces for ships

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, transportation

Long-distance cargo ships lose a significant amount of energy due to fluid friction. Looking to the drag reduction mechanisms employed by aquatic life can provide inspiration on how to improve efficiency.

Fish and seaweed secrete a layer of mucus to create a slippery surface, reducing their friction as they travel through water. A potential way to mimic this is by creating -infused surfaces covered with cavities. As the cavities are continuously filled with the lubricant, a layer is formed over the surface.

Though this method has previously been shown to work, reducing drag by up to 18%, the underlying physics is not fully understood. In the journal Physics of Fluids, researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Pohang University of Science and Technology conducted simulations of this process to help explain the effects.

Sep 14, 2020

Physicists discover new magnetoelectric effect

Posted by in categories: computing, physics

Electricity and magnetism are closely related: Power lines generate a magnetic field, rotating magnets in a generator produce electricity. However, the phenomenon is much more complicated: electrical and magnetic properties of certain materials are also coupled with each other. Electrical properties of some crystals can be influenced by magnetic fields—and vice versa. In this case one speaks of a “magnetoelectric effect.” It plays an important technological role, for example in certain types of sensors or in the search for new concepts of data storage.

A special material was investigated for which, at first glance, no would be expected at all. But careful experiments have now shown that the effect can be observed in this material, it only works completely differently than usual. It can be controlled in a highly sensitive way: Even small changes in the direction of the can switch the of the material to a completely different state.

Sep 14, 2020

Physicists who disproved ‘5th force’ win $3 million ‘Breakthrough’ prize

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Three physicists won a $3 million Breakthrough prize for proving there is no fifth force (that we know of). And it all started with a series of table-top experiments using cheap equipment.

Eric Adelberger, Jens Gundlach and Blayne Heckel together lead the “Eöt-Wash Group,” which is devoted to precise tests of physical laws. They take their name from the early-1900s physicist Loránd Eötvös and the University of Washington, where they work. These Eöt-Wash researchers got their start in the mid-1980s, using a device known as a “torsion balance” to disprove claims of an undiscovered fifth force in physics. Since then, they’ve used more elaborate versions of the same device to test the true strength of gravity, detect the tug of dark matter in the Milky Way and search for theoretical physical effects like extra dimensions and “axion wind.”

Sep 12, 2020

Those orange Western skies and the science of light

Posted by in categories: chemistry, physics, science

Sure, it was wildfire smoke that made parts of California and Oregon change hue. But inside that smoke was alchemy — the chemistry and physics of molecules and wavelengths.

Sep 11, 2020

Dark matter hunter who found unexpected, giant ‘Fermi bubbles’ wins $100,000 physics prize

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Tracy Slatyer, known for hunting dark matter in our galaxy and discovering evidence of an ancient Milky Way explosion, has won a $100,000 prize funded by tech billionaires.

Sep 10, 2020

Researchers Find the Origin and Maximum Mass of Massive Black Holes Observed by Gravitational Wave Detectors

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Through simulations of a dying star, a team of theoretical physics researchers have found the evolutionary origin and the maximum mass of black holes which are discovered by the detection of gravitational waves as shown in Figure 1.

The exciting detection of gravitational waves with LIGO (laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory) and VIRGO (Virgo interferometric gravitational-wave antenna) have shown the presence of merging black holes in close binary systems.

Sep 9, 2020

US20060071122A1 — Full body teleportation system

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

A pulsed gravitational wave wormhole system that teleports a human being through hyperspace from one location to another.

Sep 9, 2020

Unity in Knowledge: From Ethics and Islam to Exponential Technology and Robotics

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, ethics, mathematics, physics, robotics/AI, transhumanism

Discussing STEM, the future, and transhumanism with an islamic scholar / scientist.


Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador interviews Imam Sheikh Dr. Usama Hasan, PhD, MSc, MA, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Research Consultant at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change.

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