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Category: physics – Page 163

Physicists Discover that Gravity Can Create Light

Researchers have discovered that in the exotic conditions of the early universe, waves of gravity may have shaken space-time so hard that they spontaneously created radiation.

The physical concept of resonance surrounds us in everyday life. When you’re sitting on a swing and want to go higher, you naturally start pumping your legs back and forth. You very quickly find the exact right rhythm to make the swing go higher. If you go off rhythm then the swing stops going higher. This particular kind of phenomenon is known in physics as a parametric resonance.

Your legs act as an external pumping mechanism. When they match the resonant frequency of the system, in this case your body sitting on a swing, they are able to transfer energy to the system making the swing go higher.

Life: Modern physics can’t explain it—but our new theory, which says time is fundamental, might

Over the short span of just 300 years, since the invention of modern physics, we have gained a deeper understanding of how our universe works on both small and large scales. Yet, physics is still very young and when it comes to using it to explain life, physicists struggle.

Even today, we can’t really explain what the difference is between a living lump of matter and a dead one. But my colleagues and I are creating a new of life that might soon provide answers.

More than 150 years ago, Darwin poignantly noted the dichotomy between what we understand in physics and what we observe in life—noting at the end of The Origin of Species “…whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.”

Stephen Hawking’s famous black hole paradox looks to finally have a solution

The ‘Hawking radiation’ emitted by black holes may be able to carry crucial information, a new study suggests. Scientists may have just found the solution to one of astrophysics most mind-boggling mysteries concerning black holes, also known as the ‘Hawking information paradox’. A study published in the journal Physics Letters B last month offers a resolution to a problem the late physicist Stephen Hawking was working on in his final years.

A new measurement could change our understanding of the universe

The universe is expanding, but how fast exactly? The answer appears to depend on whether you estimate the cosmic expansion rate—referred to as the Hubble’s constant, or H0—based on the echo of the Big Bang (the cosmic microwave background, or CMB) or you measure H0 directly based on today’s stars and galaxies. This problem, known as the Hubble tension, has puzzled astrophysicists and cosmologists around the world.

A study carried out by the Stellar Standard Candles and Distances research group, led by Richard Anderson at EPFL’s Institute of Physics, adds a new piece to the puzzle. Their research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, has achieved the most accurate calibration of Cepheid stars—a type of variable star whose luminosity fluctuates over a defined period—for distance measurements to date based on data collected by the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia mission. This new calibration further amplifies the Hubble tension.

The Hubble constant (H0) is named after the astrophysicist who—together with Georges Lemaître—discovered the phenomenon in the late 1920s. It’s measured in kilometers per second per megaparsec (km/s/Mpc), where 1 Mpc is around 3.26 million light years.

Physicists Created ‘Slits in Time’ and Discovered ‘Unexpected Physics’ in Experiment

Scientists have achieved a “temporal analogue” to the famous double-slit experiment that could lead to new optical technologies. ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs. Scientists have discovered “unexpected physics” by opening up “slits” in time, a new study reports, achieving a longstanding dream that can help to probe the behavior of light and pioneer advanced optical technologies.

“Black Hole” Created Using Sound Waves Could Help Enable the Development of a Physical Warp Drive

An artificial black hole produced using sound waves and a dielectric medium has been created in the lab, according to researchers with an international think tank featuring more than 30 Ph.D. research scientists from around the world.

The researchers say their discovery is significantly more cost-effective and efficient than current methods in use by researchers who want to simulate the effects of a black hole in a laboratory environment.

New York-based Applied Physics first achieved recognition with the 2021 publication of a peer-reviewed theoretical paper detailing the mathematics behind the construction of a physical warp drive. More recently, the organization published a method for using Cal Tech’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to detect the use of warp drives in outer space, co-authored by Dr. Manfred Paulini, the Associate Dean of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Professor believes that aliens will be discovered in the next 20 years

Aliens could come to Earth — and they might arrive sooner than you might think.

Writing in the Spectator, Professor Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Exeter, said it is becoming “increasingly likely” signs of extraterrestrial life will be uncovered “within his lifetime”, though that doesn’t mean we will get to meet them.

Physics Breakthrough: Researchers Overcome Long-Standing Limitation of First Law of Thermodynamics

Physicists at West Virginia University have overcome a long-standing limitation of the first law of thermodynamics.

Paul Cassak, a professor and associate director of the Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics at West Virginia University, and Hasan Barbhuiya, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, are investigating the conversion of energy in superheated plasmas in space. Funded by the National Science Foundation, their findings, published in the Physical Review Letters journal, are set to revolutionize the understanding of how plasmas in space and labs are heated and could have far-reaching implications in physics and other sciences.

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