The APS March Meeting has arrived. About 10,000 attendees from around the world have gathered in Boston to participate in this massive physics conference. Over 8,000 research talks will be presented, and many of them have beautiful accompanying images and videos.
So to start off the week, here's a glimpse into the aesthetic side of the March Meeting.
Soap Memory
Experiments show that soap bubbles can become stuck in colorful configurations. This soap memory can be demonstrated through a triangular prism.
Related Talk: Memory effects in soap film arrangements
Researchers present evidence of sophisticated sonic illusions in ancient sites around the world.
Through an exclusive partnership with NASA, Physics Central is bringing you a series of educational videos from space. Hosted by astronaut Don Pettit, the videos demonstrate a number of fun microgravity experiments performed on the International Space Station.
Known as Science Off The Sphere, the project will provide a new video — and new experiment — every one to two weeks. The second video, called "Bistro-nauts," has been released today. In the video, Pettit addresses the following question: How do astronauts drink in space?
On September 22nd the OPERA collaboration announced that neutrinos arrived at their detectors 60 nanosecond early. In about that amount of time, the physics world was all in a tizzy with comparisons to cold fusion fiasco of 1989, saying it had to be wrong and arguing over whether or not we should even be publicizing the published results. Well today a "sources familiar with the experiment" says the result can be blamed on faulty wiring.
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Did you know that the Apollo Lunar Module is bigger than a T-Rex? Or that Rhode Island is larger than most super-dense neutron stars?
Blocking infectious disease depends to a surprising degree on taking local steps, mathematicians find.
Since 1997, residents and tourists alike have reveled in a mysterious sound emanating from a Chinese square. When fireworks are set off near the Southern Jiangsu Victory Monument, a seconds long echo — that sounds uncannily like a bugle — can be heard.
Some attributed spiritual significance to the sound because of the monument's proximity to a sacred Taoist mountain. Scientists, however, have found that there's a straightforward physics explanation behind the bugle-like sound.
You can hear the bugle-like sound after every fireworks "pop" in the video below.
Recently there has been a lot of buzz about the physics of ponytails. An article published this week Physical Review Letters used statistical physics to show mathematically what every girl with a bad hair day already knows; the shape of a hanging ponytail. We here at Buzz headquarters wanted to see if our ponytails were doing what math says they should be.
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Collisions in space may be behind mysterious diamonds found in meteorites.
Quantum Mechanics is notoriously difficult, and the subject has raised some deep questions about the natural world. Perhaps the best known example is the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment that poses the following question: does quantum mechanics imply that a cat can be both dead and alive at the same time?
Physics education researchers have found that professors often glance over or sidestep fundamental questions like this, and it's hindering students' understanding. Touching on these interpretive questions not only makes students more excited about physics, but it also leads to a better understanding of the underlying physics principles.
Your grammar is making you fat, and giant, invasive snakes have eaten everything in the Everglades . . . or not.
Felix Baumgartner epitomizes thrill-seeking. The 41-year-old Austrian skydiver already has a history of impressive feats: He has crossed the English Channel in freefall, BASE jumped from the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, and BASE jumped from the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. Now he plans to raise the stakes.
In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person to reach outer space and orbit the Earth. But Gagarin's flight may not have been possible without the help of many brave, furry astronauts that went into space before him. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union launched dozens of dogs into space to test flight conditions and space environments. Some of the dogs went on to become national heroes, but the program also had its share of tragedies.
Star Wars fans are dedicated. Look around online, and you'll find a plethora of fan fiction, fan films and custom costumes. Building on this dedication, filmmaker and web developer Casey Pugh solicited the help of Star Wars fans from across the globe to recreate the 1977 movie that started it all: Star Wars: A New Hope. Individuals were assigned a 15 second clip from the movie to re-film, and all of the clips were put together seamlessly for a feature length film.
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I am sure there are more than a few classical musicians out there or those that appreciate good music in general. A piece of music is built from several different elements and all come together to create what you hear. Pitch and rhythm generally come to mind first, but we can't forget dynamics, texture and timbre. A group at Harvard has been studying how our ear perceives rhythm, or more specifically deviation from rhythm. Basically, we like how humans play better than how computers play because humans screw up ever so slightly and if we try and mess with computer music to make it sound more "human" it only works if its done in a specific way.
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