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Physics Week in Review: May 23, 2015

Laser-etched logrithmic spirals,  light bulb physics, and the fractal nature of urban growth are among this week's physics highlights.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Physicists Carved 'Logrithmic Spirals' Into Steel with Laser Vortexes.  "I think this is a significant experimental step to elaborate the beauty of photons that follow a series of twisted patterns in space," MIT nanoplasmonics expert Nicholas Fang told Physics World

The Large Hadron Collider broke its own record again in 13-trillion-electronvolt test collisions, producing the first images of those collisions. At first glance they look much like previous proton-proton collisions recorded by the detectors at the world’s biggest particle accelerator, but in fact, as Jon Butterworth writes in the Guardian, no one has seen such events before.

Octopuses, and Maybe Squid, don't need eyes because they Can Sense Light With Their Skin.  Also my prior post on this topic.


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What killed the white dwarfs Aside from the giant explosion)? Merger or extra matter? Two papers come to opposite conclusions in A Tale of Four Supernovas. Related: Astronomers observe a supernova colliding with its companion star. 

How Ants Go Marching And Never Cause Traffic Jams. Traffic scientists study ants because they manage traffic better than humans. Related: The maths of congestion: springs, strings and traffic jams.

Why We Should Let Rome's Iconic Pantheon Crack. Modern architects have a lot to learn from the sound engineering of the ancients.

Water: the weirdest liquid on the planet. The more scientists examine H2O, the stranger it starts to seem. Water bends all the rules – but if it didn’t, ice would sink and firefighters’ hoses would be useless.

Dazzling Photographs of Wine Glasses, Decanters and Other Reflective Objects by Hideki Kuwajima. "He starts off by carefully assembling a composition of wine glasses, decanters, goblets, jars and candlesticks, which he shoots like a large still-life.... then digitally folds and stacks the photographs to reveal ornate patterns of line and tonal gradation."

Quantum physics: What is really real? A wave of experiments is probing the root of quantum weirdness. 

How a sand model helped us trace the origin of ancient water flows on Mars. 

The Surprisingly Complicated Physics Of A Light Bulb.

Defects can 'Hulk-up' materials. "In a study at Berkeley Lab, exposure to alpha-particle radiation has been shown to transform certain thermoelectric materials into far more powerful versions of themselves."

The Quantum Thermodynamic Revolution: Combining theories of quantum information with the science of heat and energy transfer could lead to new technologies.

Topology looks for the patterns inside big data.  See also my 2013 Quanta article on the subject.

Flexible Glowing Paper (Infused with Quantum Dots) Could Pave The Way For Bendy Electronic Devices.

No, a planetary alignment on May 28, 2015, won’t cause an earthquake.

Marvel Science! An Astrophysicist Tries to Explain the Plausability of Multiple Universes. 

Fractal Formations: The Fascinating Future of Urban Growth.

Alan Stern has been studying Pluto for half his life. Now it's about to get real.  Related: Pluto Can Become A Full-Fledged Planet—But Only With Stellar Dance Moves. Per io9: "In the short film Stellar Moves: The Story of Pluto, Pluto is a young man who wants to join the popular dancers known as the Planets, but he’s going to need some astronomical help on his moves."

Stellar Moves: The Story of Pluto from Stellar Moves on Vimeo.

Quantum Life Spreads Entanglement Across Generations. The way creatures evolve in a quantum environment throws new light on the nature of life.

1975: The year that quantum mechanics met gravity. 

The new shape of fusion: a nimbler alternative has emerged: a spherical tokamak. 

Harvesting usable fuel from nuclear waste – and dealing with the last chemical troublemakers. 

The home of the future could be powered by trampoline. This Sheet Of Rubber Generates Power As It Stretches. 

The Astronauts Who Go Spelunking. "Imagine only having a headlight to see in the dark, mimicking the limited visibility of an astronaut’s helmet."  Related: What Happens If A Fire Ignites When Astronauts Are Heading Into Space? 

A Brief History of Spacefarers: How America imagines its astronauts.

Space Station Could Get Laser Cannon to Destroy Orbital Debris. Related: Sure, Space Junk is a Problem. Is a Laser Cannon the Solution?

Aliens Will Be Bear-Size, According to Math (specifically Bayes theorem), scientist speculates.

The Astrolabe: Medieval Multi-Tool of Navigation.

Will Computers Redefine the Roots of Math? When a legendary mathematician found a mistake in his own work, he embarked on a computer-aided quest to eliminate human error. To succeed, he has to rewrite the century-old rules underlying all of mathematics.

Grapefruit Math: figure out the area of a spherical triangle based on its angles. 

When you blow out a candle, you can re-light the wick using the smoke trail left behind. 

Physics in Verse: "To The Chief Musician Upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode" by James Clerk Maxwell. "I come from fields of fractured ice..."

American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation. "Investment in basic research — the fundamental building block for innovation and economic advancement — has steadily declined as a share of the economy."

The Art of Science (above):  Katie Lewis, Visualizing the Unquantifiable. Lewis "uses simple materials like pins and thread to create her artworks, which are based on data she collects about her own 'bodily sensations.'”

Computational Aesthetics Algorithm Spots Beauty That Humans Overlook. Beautiful images are not always popular ones, which is where the CrowdBeauty algorithm can help, say computer scientists.

Liquid-crystal-based compound lenses that work like insect eyes

Gerard Kuiper's Daring Rescue of Max Planck at the End of World War II.

Black Hole "Blazars" reveal hidden side of the universe. 

Thinking wifi will make you ill -- makes you ill, per researchers who strapped fake WiFi routers to people's heads. 

Here's How Space Megastructures Will Look, According to Neal Stephenson. 

Are Mars's moons homegrown—or snatched from the asteroid belt? 

New Magnetic Shield Protects Next-Generation Physics Experiments. 

An Answer to the Question 'Does the Moon Really Orbit the Earth?' and an Explanation for How Both Bodies Move. 

How far Frodo and Sam walked compared to real geography. "The journey was 1,350 miles, which is kind of like walking from Los Angeles, California to Austin, Texas."

Fantastical GIFs Inspired by Real World Physics, “Each gif has its own story but mainly it’s a way for me to provide inspiration and make people question basic things we take for granted,” per their creator, French student Hugo Germain.

Euler's Disc is a puzzling harmony of math, geometry, vision, and sound. 

The Universe’s Dark Ages: After the CMB, before the first stars, there was nothing to see. Or was there?

Finding Fringes: New event horizon telescope detections start trickling in. 

Astronaut ReadsThe Divine Comedy on the International Space Station on Dante’s 750th Birthday. 

How science saved a Bauhaus artist's works from deterioration. 

How to Use Math to Play Better at 'Monopoly': You can't rely entirely on your lucky game piece if you want to demolish your friends and family members in a game of Monopoly. Here are a few math-based game tricks that you can take straight to the bank.

Jane Hawking: "There were four of us in our marriage." Motor neurone disease and physics both played a part in her split from her husband Stephen Hawking, she says. She talks to the Guardian about the challenges they faced in their 30-year marriage and about how close The Theory of Everything was to reality.

Running Python in a Browser Is More Awesome Than You Think. 

No, I’m Not Going to Teleport to Stop & Shop Just Because You Are Out of Contact Lens Solution. "I don’t need the suit to teleport; I need the suit because it can teleport with me. It’s all nylon—that’s important, because it can’t be a natural fiber. There’s a thick outer layer of stiff nylon webbing—that’ll pretty much stop a bullet. Then there’s a softer lining, and in between there’s a thin layer of interlaced copper strips. That creates a Faraday cage. Without going too much into the physics, all the energy from the teleportation process is contained within the suit, instead of being disseminated. That creates a bubble between my suit and my body that travels with me when I teleport. So I can wear underwear underneath it, and carry things in these pockets. You know, like contact solution."

US vs. UK: Mathematical Terminology, e.g. is that shape a trapezoid or a trapezium? 

Octopus-inspired Robotic Arm Manipulates "Organs." Related: How We Made An Octopus-Inspired Surgical Robot Using Coffee

Looking to the heavens for neutrino masses

Scientists print low cost radio frequency antenna with graphene ink. Related: Tunable Liquid Metal Antenna Controlled By Voltage

How an Artificial Intelligence Learned to 'Bluff' at Poker.

New Earth-Orbiting Microwave Gun is Making Killer Maps of Wind Dynamics. 

Museum of Science Fiction and NASA Plan “Escape Velocity”: the  event is one of the first under new Space Act Agreement. 

What Causes These "Sailing Stones" To Move? Physics! 

Astronomer calls scientists ‘boys with toys,’ #girlswithtoys hashtag proves him wrong.  Related: The Toys Are What Make Science Fun. Also: Watch Out! She's Got Science!: On the Portrayal of Female Scientists in Media.

Ever seen dance routines based on star movements? This is Why Science Needs Art.

Looper Meets Groundhog Day In This Eerie, Atmospheric Short Film. Bonus: a Q&A with director Maarten Groen.

ROTOR from DPPLR on Vimeo.