Science Quick Picks » Physics

What A New Space Race Would Accomplish

Guest Blogger — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:43:05 +0000

With NASA struggling to stay alive and the world mired in economic trouble, interest in astronomy, cosmology and other space-related sciences seems to have waned in the public eye. Yet, the knowledge we glean from space research can help us with practical applications here on Earth, as Huntingdon Life Sciences shows us. Perhaps what we need is a new space race. What would this accomplish? Well, it would:

Expand the search for Earth-like planets outside our solar system
One of the hottest fields in astronomy right now is exoplanet detection, which has benefited greatly from new technologies. Exoplanet detection, which is the discovery of planets outside our star system, used to be only possible by deducing a celestial body in the shadow of a star. Newer, more sophisticated techniques have made it more likely we will discovery planets hospitable for life.

Expand the development of a fusion-powered rocket
Fusion power in a rocket would not only reduce the incredible cost of putting men and women in space, it would exponentially increase the distances we could traverse. As it stands now, space travel is slow and costly.
Increase the chance of a trip to Mars. The Red Planet has beckoned us for years but the sheer cost of making the trip and ambiguity over what this journey would accomplish has hindered progress. A new space race to Mars would probably parallel the Cold War in terms of creating nationalistic pride.

Add to our understanding of climate change
The more science progresses the more we learn about how our planet operates and how it traps and is affected by the sun’s rays and greenhouse gases.

Make us safer from asteroids
In 1883, hundreds of comet fragments narrowly missed the Earth. We didn’t even know about this until recently, after turning up evidence from a 19th century astronomer. A new space race would force us to draw up contingency plans.
Increase the chance of a colony on the moon. Because of cosmic threats like asteroids, as well as more domestic threats like war, disease, and pollution, it’s probably a good idea for humans to not have all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. Establishing a lunar colony would aid in scientific research, as well as provide some DNA safeguards in the event of a planetary calamity.

Learn more about the origins of the universe
The further out we go, the further back we go in time. New telescopes are peering deeper into the history of universe than ever before. Someday it may be possible for us to actually observe the direct aftermath of the Big Bang.

This is what would likely be accomplished with a new space race. While the cost would be high, so too would be the gains in knowledge, technological advancement, and global safety.

What A New Space Race Would Accomplish is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

10 Cool Facts About Space Research

Guest Blogger — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:27:22 +0000

This post is a guest contribution by Rachel.

1) International space stations, sent up into space to carry out research, orbit the earth at around 350km high. Passenger aeroplanes only reach around 9km high.

2) We have achieved much in space research: putting a man on the Moon, and exploring Mars. However, there is still a very long way to go, and more to explore than we could ever imagine. We’ve yet to reach any of the stars: the nearest, Proxima Centurai, would take tens of thousands of years to reach with current technology.

3) Space satellites and research missions help us understand the earth and its climate, as well as the world beyond it. It gives us the ability to observe our climate and weather, and see how we are being affected by global warming.

4) Space research has many spin-offs that are useful down here on Earth. These have included barcodes, smoke detectors and heart pacemakers. Space research pushes the boundaries of what can be done so frequently, that it is always likely to lead to innovation in many fields.

5) Space may be vast and largely unexplored, but spacecraft have explored huge areas of our solar system, and travelled further and faster than we could ever have believed possible a few decades ago. Much of this exploration has been done by robots: they are the most useful tool space researchers have, as sending humans long distances is not often possible. They have been to most of the planets and moons in our solar system, and some are making their way out of it to explore the universe beyond.

6) Space-based imaging technology uses x-rays and electromagnetics that can only work outside the Earth’s atmosphere in order to create images of space. The images they create open the door on a magical, mysterious work of incredible energy. We can now see colliding galaxies and exploding stars in all their amazing glory.

7) Space research has found that all particles have a negative version of themselves: like a parallel universe. This is what is known as anti-matter. When matter and anti-matter collide, they explode, destroying each other.

Space is thought to be full of radiation that was created by the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. This is known as cosmic microwave background, and is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence we have for the Big Bang theory.

9) Space researchers think that the universe might be made up mainly of a mysterious substance called ‘dark matter’. Dark matter cannot be seen, and cannot be detected with any of the scientific research instruments we have available, and its nature remains uncertain. It could make up invisible black holes.

10) While NASA may dominate space research, they’re not the only players: here in the UK we have a new space innovation centre at Harwell Oxford. It’s the first of its kind in Europe.

Rachel is a keen blogger with a particular interest in space exploration and the science of the universe. Personal heroes include Sir Patrick Moore and Professor Stephen Hawking.

10 Cool Facts About Space Research is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Physics Nobel Prize 2010

Jorge Goncalves — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 11:47:06 +0000

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”.

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.

Geim and Novoselov extracted the graphene from a piece of graphite such as is found in ordinary pencils. Using regular adhesive tape they managed to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom. This at a time when many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable.

Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene is suitable for producing transparent touch screens, light panels, and maybe even solar cells.

When mixed into plastics, graphene can turn them into conductors of electricity while making them more heat resistant and mechanically robust. This resilience can be utilised in new super strong materials, which are also thin, elastic and lightweight. In the future, satellites, airplanes, and cars could be manufactured out of the new composite materials.

Some Posts on Graphene published on this blog:

Andre Geim’s page at University of Manchester

Konstantin Novoselov’s page at University of Manchester

Wikipedia: Graphene

Physics Nobel Prize 2010 is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Another Stunning Graphene Experimental Surprise

Jorge Goncalves — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:53:53 +0000

Graphene, the extraordinary form of carbon that consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, has produced another in a long list of experimental surprises. In the current issue of the journal Science, a multi-institutional team of researchers headed by Michael Crommie, a faculty senior scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, reports the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory – just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene.

“We have shown experimentally that when graphene is stretched to form nanobubbles on a platinum substrate, electrons behave as if they were subject to magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla, even though no magnetic field has actually been applied,” says Crommie. “This is a completely new physical effect that has no counterpart in any other condensed matter system.”

Crommie notes that “for over 100 years people have been sticking materials into magnetic fields to see how the electrons behave, but it’s impossible to sustain tremendously strong magnetic fields in a laboratory setting.” The current record is 85 tesla for a field that lasts only thousandths of a second. When stronger fields are created, the magnets blow themselves apart. The ability to make electrons behave as if they were in magnetic fields of 300 tesla or more – just by stretching graphene – offers a new window on a source of important applications and fundamental scientific discoveries going back over a century. This is made possible by graphene’s electronic behavior, which is unlike any other material’s.

A carbon atom has four valence electrons; in graphene (and in graphite, a stack of graphene layers), three electrons bond in a plane with their neighbors to form a strong hexagonal pattern, like chicken-wire. The fourth electron sticks up out of the plane and is free to hop from one atom to the next. The latter pi-bond electrons act as if they have no mass at all, like photons. They can move at almost one percent of the speed of light. The idea that a deformation of graphene might lead to the appearance of a pseudo-magnetic field first arose even before graphene sheets had been isolated, in the context of carbon nanotubes (which are simply rolled-up graphene). In early 2010, theorist Francisco Guinea of the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid and his colleagues developed these ideas and predicted that if graphene could be stretched along its three main crystallographic directions, it would effectively act as though it were placed in a uniform magnetic field. This is because strain changes the bond lengths between atoms and affects the way electrons move between them. The pseudo-magnetic field would reveal itself through its effects on electron orbits.

In classical physics, electrons in a magnetic field travel in circles called cyclotron orbits. These were named following Ernest Lawrence’s invention of the cyclotron, because cyclotrons continuously accelerate charged particles (protons, in Lawrence’s case) in a curving path induced by a strong field. Viewed quantum mechanically, however, cyclotron orbits become quantized and exhibit discrete energy levels. Called Landau levels, these correspond to energies where constructive interference occurs in an orbiting electron’s quantum wave function. The number of electrons occupying each Landau level depends on the strength of the field – the stronger the field, the more energy spacing between Landau levels, and the denser the electron states become at each level – which is a key feature of the predicted pseudo-magnetic fields in graphene.

Describing their experimental discovery, Crommie says, “We had the benefit of a remarkable stroke of serendipity.”

Continue reading the press release Graphene Under Strain Creates Gigantic Pseudo-Magnetic Fields at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s News Center.

Another Stunning Graphene Experimental Surprise is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Physics World Magazine Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Invention of the Laser

Jorge Goncalves — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:17:49 +0000

Physics World and physicsworld.com are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser – one of the outstanding success stories in physics with a special edition that we can download for free (after registration).

Physics World’s special May issue contains the story of the race to build the world’s first laser, a special timeline of laser history and six experts’ predictions for where laser science will go next.

The editors also take a look at the laser’s huge impact on popular culture and everyday life, and delve into the latest research into ultrafast and ultrahigh-power lasers. Find out about the technological impact of lasers in fibre optics, and the quest to create green-wavelength laser diodes that could allow mobile phones to project full-colour images onto any surface.

Physics World Magazine Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Invention of the Laser is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures

Jorge Goncalves — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:51:43 +0000

Microsoft Research and Bill Gates Bring Historic Physics Lectures to Web: Microsoft Research, in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, today launched Project Tuva, a web site that makes an acclaimed lecture series by the iconic physicist Richard Feynman freely available to the general public for the first time. The lectures, which Feynman originally delivered at Cornell University in 1964, have been hugely influential for many people, including Gates. Gates privately purchased the rights to the seven lectures in the series, called “The Character of Physical Law,” to make them widely available to the public for free with the hope that they will help get kids excited about physics and science.

Feynman was one of the most popular scientists of the 20th century, equally regarded for his scientific insights as well as his ability to convey his enthusiasm for science through his lectures and writings. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 and was also known for his quirky sense of humor and eccentric and wide-ranging interests.

“No one was more adept at making science fun and interesting than Richard Feynman,” said Gates. “More than 20 years after first seeing them, these are still some of the best science lectures I’ve heard. Feynman worked hard during his life to popularize science, so I’m sure he’d be thrilled that now anyone, anywhere in the world, can just click a button and experience his lectures.”

Curtis Wong, a principal researcher with Microsoft Research, enhanced the experience of viewing the lectures by integrating the historic video with a Microsoft Silverlight-based video player that allows viewers to search the lectures for references to particular subjects, take notes that are synchronized to the video, and click on hyperlinks to related Web content, among other customized operations.

Microsoft Research: Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences.

Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator

Jorge Goncalves — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:46:54 +0000

BELLA: Accelerating Science by Accelerating Electrons: Berkeley Lab scientists stunned the world in 2006 when they proved they could accelerate electrons to very high energies (1 GeV, or a billion electron volts) in a distance of centimeters rather than hundreds of meters. Using the same concepts, those scientists plan to take the project to the next level and build a laser-based accelerator capable of zapping electron beams to energies exceeding 10 GeV in a distance of just one meter.

When completed in about four years, the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator, or BELLA, will demonstrate the promise of a novel and compact method of accelerating high-energy particles, by making use of a series of synchronized laser systems. The results will be of interest not only to high-energy particle physicists but also to chemists, biologists, doctors, and national security officials.

Related reading from Berkeley Labs: BELLA – The Next Stage in Laser Wakefield Acceleration

BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

All About Richard Feynman

Jorge Goncalves — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:27:28 +0000

Feynman Online. ‘This web site is dedicated to Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988), scientist, teacher, raconteur, and musician. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantum electrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and cut to the heart of the Challenger disaster. But beyond all of that, Richard Feynman was a unique and multi-faceted individual.’

All About Richard Feynman is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Large Hadron Collider: Cold and Ready for Physics

Jorge Goncalves — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:14:36 +0000

CERN: LHC completes the circle. ‘At a brief ceremony deep under the French countryside today, CERN Director General Robert Aymar sealed the last interconnect between the main magnet systems in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is the latest milestone in commissioning the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

The LHC’s superconducting main magnets will operate at a temperature of just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (-271.3 ^oC), colder than outer space. To cool the magnets, over 10 000 tonnes of liquid nitrogen and 130 tonnes of liquid helium will be deployed through a cryogenic system including more than 40 000 leak-tight welds. Today’s ceremony marks the end of a two year programme of work to connect all the main dipole and quadrupole magnets in the LHC. This complex task included both electrical and fluid connections.

“This is a huge accomplishment,” said Lyn Evans, LHC project leader. “Now that it is done, we can concentrate on getting the machine cold and ready for physics.”

The LHC is a circular machine, 27 kilometres around and divided into eight sectors, each of which can be cooled down to its operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero and powered-up individually. One sector was cooled down, powered and warmed up in the first half of 2007. This was an important learning process, allowing subsequent sectors to be tested more quickly.’

Large Hadron Collider: Cold and Ready for Physics is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Supersolidity

Jorge Goncalves — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:22:25 +0000

Evidence for “Supersolidity” Becomes More Solid. ‘In recent years, no topic in condensed matter physics has been hotter than the study of ultracold solid helium. Subtle experiments suggest that as temperatures dip toward absolute zero, crystalline helium can bizarrely flow like a liquid with no viscosity, a phenomenon known as supersolidity. Now, a new experiment lends credence to that controversial claim by revealing a possible second sign of the transition.’

Penn State Live: High-quality helium crystals show supersolid behavior. ‘High-quality, single-crystal, ultra-cold solid helium exhibits supersolid behavior, suggesting that this frictionless solid flow is not a consequence of defects and grain boundaries in poor-quality, polycrystalline, solid helium, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

In 2004, Penn state physicists — Eunseong Kim, then-graduate student and Moses Chan, the Evan Pugh professor of physics– announced the observance of frictionless superflow in solid helium at nearly absolute zero. This new phenomenon is a cousin of Bose-Einstein condensate observed in gases in 1995 and in liquid helium in 1938.

Since then, their results have been replicated at the University of Tokyo, Keio University, Japan, and Cornell University. While the experiment was duplicated at Cornell, one experiment there found that if the solid helium was annealed –- cooled slowly from the melting point –- the supersolid behavior disappeared. This suggested that the theoretical idea of supersolidity is possible only in poor-quality solid helium and that the superflow is due to defects in the poorly grown crystals.

To create solid helium, the gaseous helium must be cooled very close to absolute zero and put under at least 25 atmospheres. Unlike other gases, helium remains a liquid at ambient pressure all the way down to absolute zero. Determining that the solid helium acts as a supersolid or Bose Einstein condensate is tricky. In a Bose-Einstein condensate all the atoms are at the lowest possible energy state, and they all behave in unison. The supersolid portion of the crystalized helium appears to flow without friction. For liquids and gases, this idea is less difficult because the atoms of both move around more and can easily slide past each other. But, in a solid, especially a very cold one, atoms do not usually flow easily or without friction.’

PhysicsWorld: The quantum solid that defies expectation. ‘In 2004 researchers reported the first clear evidence for superfluidity in solid helium-4. However, Matthew Chalmers describes recent experimental and theoretical work that has brought the very existence of such a “supersolid” into question.’

Physical Review Focus: Supersolid, with a Twist. ‘The strange quantum phenomenon known as supersolidity occurs when atoms flow without friction through a solid block of helium, possibly along a network of defects extending through an otherwise perfect crystal. In the 20 July Physical Review Letters, physicists find such a flow in computer simulations even when the atoms that make up the defects form a regular pattern, unlike the disorderly arrangement used in previous calculations. The results open a new way of understanding this extraordinary state of matter, which has properties of both solids and liquids.’

Kavli Institute Rapid Response to Supersolidity: ‘Is It There or Is It Not?’ May Be the Answer as Well as the Question (PDF).

Supersolidity is a post from Science Quick Picks, a blog dedicated to the world of Science.

Science Quick Picks » Physics

What A New Space Race Would Accomplish

Related posts

10 Cool Facts About Space Research

Related posts

Physics Nobel Prize 2010

Related posts

Another Stunning Graphene Experimental Surprise

Related posts

Physics World Magazine Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Invention of the Laser

Related posts

Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures

Related posts

BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator

Related posts

All About Richard Feynman

Related posts

Large Hadron Collider: Cold and Ready for Physics

Related posts

Supersolidity

Related posts