Physics Buzz

In life, a critical point might describe the time you said yes (or no) to a life-changing opportunity. In physics, a critical point also describes a kind of crux—you can think of it as a point beyond which things change significantly. Critical phenomena is a phrase that describes physical processes close to a critical point.

If you weren’t at the Science Museum in London on Wednesday night, here’s some of what you missed… Image Credit:  Science Museum/Barry MacDonald Image Credit:  Science Museum/Barry MacDonald Image Credit: Science Museum/Barry MacDonald Couture in Orbit was a high-fashion show inspired by high tech. A welcome by ESA astronaut Tim Peake beamed from the International Space Station set an appropriately space-themed atmosphere before models took futurist designs to the runway. Their unique clothes incorporated of state-of-the-art materials technology—wearable sensors that track movement, fabric made from recycled water bottles, materials that are highly insulating, absorbent, and reflective, and other high performance and smart fabrics . The designers were students at top fashion schools in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. These countries were chosen because Couture in Orbit highlighted the 2014-2016 International Space Station ( ISS ) missions of five European

Studying something you’re not sure exists may seem strange to a non-scientist. But when you’re dealing with things so large or so small or so weird that no one even knows what to look for, theoretical predictions can be more than informative, they can be essential.

By relying on scientific advances that recently helped develop invisibility cloaks, scientists have created a new kind of hologram that they suggest could be used in virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, and prevent counterfeiting of cash and credit cards.

X-rays reveal broken bones and objects hidden in airport luggage. They detect abnormalities in breast tissue, examine blood vessels while arteries are being repaired, and kill cancer cells. X-rays illuminate structures in crystals and stars. Although x-rays are an extremely useful tool already, the future looks bright for new applications. Among other projects, scientists are working on ways to control the movement of x-rays more precisely in order to use them for next generation methods of storing and transmitting information.

New advances in the design of metamaterials—specially engineered substances which have properties not found in nature—may have just overcome one of the major challenges in designing compact optical devices. The breakthrough, reported in Physical Review B , could allow scientists to study nanoscale structures using visible light: a task that was, until now, thought impossible.

Yesterday, scientists from NASA’s Kepler team added a whopping 1,284 planets to the official list of planets we’ve found outside of our solar system. Credit for the large number of new exoplanets being added at the same time goes to a new, automated technique for analyzing planet-like signals and verifying that they actually are from planets.

Sharon from Pittsburgh, PA wants to know: Would it be a bad thing to shoot our nuclear waste into the sun? It's a fun idea, and at first blush you might think it'd be a great way to get rid of something toxic—after all, what's more "gone" than something incinerated in a giant fusion reactor, ninety million miles away? But let's dig a little into how such a proposal could work, along with some potential pitfalls.

Not too long ago, I went on a trip with my family. We were leaving the country, taking a ten-hour flight that left way too early in the morning for my taste. Sitting at the kitchen table, munching on some fruit and squinting at the light, I heard the low rumble of a suitcase being rolled down the hardwood floor of the hallway, accompanied by the tap tap tap  of my mom's heels. She strode into the kitchen through the open doorway, beaming with excitement about the coming vacation.

A study on knots recently revealed a surprising feature of the mathematical system describing the electrical activity that plays a role in some heart attacks. This work could help us better understand the physical context of these heart attacks, and also demonstrates a new approach to one of the fundamental goals of knot theory.

Though it's spoiler-free, if you still haven't seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you may want to click away from this post and go take some quiet time to reflect on your life choices. I've uploaded very short clips from the first 30 minutes or so of the movie. If you don't count stormtroopers, and I don't, BB-8 is the first character we are introduced to in Episode VII. It's a unit astromech droid operating approximately thirty years after the Battle of Endor, and currently the lovable companion droid of Resistance pilot Poe Dameron. He also has the first closeup and line, with "Bwao boooop. Beepbeepbeepbeep." Just a minute into the movie, it's apparent that at least as far as merchandising goes, BB-8 will easily be the cute little star of the show, the belle of the ball (droid).

Happy "Star Wars Day" from PhysicsCentral! In a case of seriously excellent timing, the European Southern Observatory recently released a photo of their telescope being calibrated. Is it just us, or does it look suspiciously familiar?

Scientists have recently added key details to a kind of map that could lead to the ultimate prize in high pressure physics: the creation of metallic hydrogen.

In honor of yesterday's  Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day , here is a look at some important scientific advancements made by parent-child collaborations. Just imagine the dinner conversations… *Please note that each person mentioned is an esteemed scientist in his or her own right, with many other important contributions that aren’t mentioned in these brief highlights.

“We are looking back in time by simply studying the grandfathers and all our stellar ancestors.” Dr. Anna Frebel is an Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT and the author of Searching for the Oldest Stars , and she looks for and studies stars that are almost as old as the universe itself . “That's why we call this kind of work stellar archaeology.”

The universe is teeming with galaxies, but gravity distorts our view of them. Astrophysicists with the ongoing Dark Energy Survey have now collected giant catalogs of the distorted shapes of 24 million distant galaxies, making it possible to probe the underlying structure of the rapidly expanding universe.

“ For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers.”—Carl Sagan in Cosmos .

Scientists at the Institute for Plasma Research have observed a phenomenon in the lab that could help predict collisions between satellites and space debris in the Earth’s ionosphere. Bits of dead and disintegrating satellites, spacecraft, and spend rocket stages clutter lower Earth orbit. The amount is growing at an alarming rate. Traveling as fast as 17,500 mph, even a piece the size of a penny could cause serious damage in a collision with a live satellite. The serendipitous story of new research that could help detect, and therefore prevent such collisions takes place at the intersection of basic research and practical need. A good place to start is back in 1834.

The “Hoverboard”: simultaneously one of the most popular and irritating gadgets to emerge in recent memory. From the misleading name (unlike other hoverboards we've encountered, they don’t even hover!) to their tendency to go up in flames, the meteoric emergence of hoverboards is a case study in the dynamics of fads…and patent infringement. But we’re not here today to talk about the sociological aspects of this goofy-looking invention—rather, we’re discussing the technical ones.

Experimentally verifying a prediction can be ground-breaking and extremely important, like the recent detection of gravitational waves . But finding something that disagrees with a generally accepted prediction? That can be the science of game-changing discoveries…assuming, of course, that there isn’t a problem with the experiment. As University of Houston physicist Roy Weinstein puts it, “When something new is found, the first suspect is always ourselves.”