Slashdot Mirror
Domain: aip.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to aip.org.
Stories · 90
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The Hulk and Gammasphere
BuzzSkyline writes "The Hulk may be animated, but the Gammasphere that turns Bruce Banner's hissy fits into raging rampages is real. It's based on a gamma ray detector used at the Berkeley and Argonne National Labs. The actual machine doesn't make monsters, but it helps in studies of nuclear monstrosities. The American Institute of Physics reports on Gammasphere and its role in the movie at Inside Science News Service." -
The Status Quo Of Computer Vision
prostoalex writes "The Industrial Physicist sums up the recent advances and developments in the world of computer vision. They mention an application for human-computer interfacing using a Webcam, Philips Research Lab Seeing with Sound product, which augments vision for visually impaired, as well as various frontal face detection applications." -
Life-Saving Baseballs
DeAshcroft writes "Researchers at the Penn State Acoustics Lab have developed life-saving baseballs. As described in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, the team put microphones and wireless transmitters into baseballs, which they toss into piles of rubble to find the (noise-making) survivors. The advantage with baseballs is that they apparently don't have to stop work on the pile to listen for survivors. So, remember, if you're ever trapped in a collapsed building, the basball is your friend. The college paper has a story." -
Reflections
RevMike writes "The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that Bell Labs/Lucent has developed a method to multiply the bandwidth of cellular networks by using multipath. Robert Lucky developed the system called Blast. He claims that it should multiply the data rates in existing spectrum 300% to 400%. One prototype took a network from 2.5Mb/s to 19.2 Mb/s. Interestingly, the system works better in cluttered environments." And on a related note, Kimberley Burchett writes "The latest Physics News Update mentions that skyscrapers could actually help wireless communication. 'The more scatterers between the transmitters and receivers, the more channels that are available. For the time being, the communication technique is limited to ultrasonic communication - the electronics necessary for exploiting scatterers with wide-band time-reversal antennas at cell phone frequencies simply don't yet exist.'" -
The Fermionic Version of Bose-Einstein Condensates
Sargent1 writes "According to Science magazine's web page, a group of physicists at Duke University have managed to cool fermions to the point that they may be seeing superfluidity in a fermi gas. If they are seeing fermionic superfluidity, their work is to fermions what Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is to bosons, and the creation of BEC won some folks the Nobel prize in 2001. Beyond that, they've got the fermions interacting so strongly that they're a good analog of fermions in white dwarfs and neutron stars. This gives experimenters the chance to investigate neutron stars without having to have one parked out back in the lab." -
More Random Randomness
jfleck writes "According to the American Institute of Physics' Physics News Update, Kent State physicist James Gleeson has developed a technique for generating numbers approaching true randomness. His trick is to shine light through a liquid crystal, taking advantage of its turbulence and avoiding the inevitable risk of predictability in deterministic random number number algorithms." -
More Random Randomness
jfleck writes "According to the American Institute of Physics' Physics News Update, Kent State physicist James Gleeson has developed a technique for generating numbers approaching true randomness. His trick is to shine light through a liquid crystal, taking advantage of its turbulence and avoiding the inevitable risk of predictability in deterministic random number number algorithms." -
Ununoctium Wrapup
rkowen writes "Finding superheavy element 118 would have been a giant step in the quest for the conjectured island of nuclear stability. But now the claimed discovery is thought to have been part of a pattern of deception by one physicist that goes back to 1994." We've done several previous stories: the discovery, hints of trouble, possible fraud. Between this and the Schon case one might think the physics community was full of frauds. -
Laser Light May Display 'Liquid-Like' Properties
verona_beach writes "From Physics News: 'Spanish physicists have shown how the photons in a beam of laser light might be able to condense into "light droplets" with certain liquidlike properties.'" -
Terrabit Per-Square-Inch Hard Drive
BitGuy writes: "Physics News Update reports that current GMR (giant magnetoresistance) harddisk technology will not achieve terrabit-per-square-inch densities. Experiments with EMR (extra-ordinary magnetoresistive), which exceeds 100Gb/in^2 have been successful in the lab. There is even a diagram of the read head if you're interested." -
Terrabit Per-Square-Inch Hard Drive
BitGuy writes: "Physics News Update reports that current GMR (giant magnetoresistance) harddisk technology will not achieve terrabit-per-square-inch densities. Experiments with EMR (extra-ordinary magnetoresistive), which exceeds 100Gb/in^2 have been successful in the lab. There is even a diagram of the read head if you're interested." -
CNFET Rivals Silicon Performance
Baldrson writes "Applied Physics Letters is carrying a paper on a CNFET (carbon nanotube field-effect transistors) advance that now rivals silicon performance for both n and p type devices. There is also a New York Times article in which it is reported that "it would be two to three more years before I.B.M. was ready to work on prototypes of future nanotube chips and as many as 10 years before they would be commercially available". This is may be what's at the end of the road for CMOS." -
CNFET Rivals Silicon Performance
Baldrson writes "Applied Physics Letters is carrying a paper on a CNFET (carbon nanotube field-effect transistors) advance that now rivals silicon performance for both n and p type devices. There is also a New York Times article in which it is reported that "it would be two to three more years before I.B.M. was ready to work on prototypes of future nanotube chips and as many as 10 years before they would be commercially available". This is may be what's at the end of the road for CMOS." -
First Human Clone Eight Weeks Along
Vegeta99 writes "An Italian researcher is claiming ground-breaking progress, and has successfully cloned a human, and the mother is now 8 weeks pregnant, according to this article. Now how long until I can buy my own clone?" It's worth noting that the Roman medical associations bioethicists denied Dr. Antinori permission to proceed with these experiments last month. So doing the math, Rome was a little late... If the pregnancy continues without miscarriage, the tyke may share a birthday with Marie Curie -
Studying Black Holes in the Lab
Alien54 writes: "As seen in this UPI Report, Lab-created "dumb holes" - the acoustic, or sound wave analogs of black holes - may provide important experimental evidence for quantum gravity, a theory that unifies atomic and gravitational forces. Dumb holes arise when fluids flowing faster than the speed of sound form regions that trap sound waves. They too have a surface of no return -- the "acoustic horizon". While black holes remain interstellar objects, researchers can create dumb holes (Sonic Black Holes) in a laboratory. Dumb holes that trap sound waves may yield experimental evidence used to understand quantum gravity because these acoustic black holes exhibit all the characteristics - paradoxes included - of their light-wave brethren. well not quite all. For one thing, sonic black holes do not involve gravity and distortions of space and time." -
Fractal Weather Prediction
Judebert writes "Benoit Mandelbrot, the man responsible for much of the interest in fractals, spoke last month at the American Giophysical Union meeting. He explained how he has been using fractals to find order within complex systems in nature, such as coastlines and weather. (I thought he was dead, but apparently he's just been teaching at Yale.) Earth scientists have taken his fractal work to the point of forecasting the size, location, and windspeed of hurricanes at landfall. Their predictions are being made available to FEMA and other government agencies." -
Quantum Gravity Observed
Lawrence_Bird writes "AIP News is reporting the first observations of quantum gravitational states by researchers in Grenoble using a beam of ultra cold neutrons. This is an incredible observational achievement when you consider the energies involved - order of 1 pico electron volt (10^ -12eV). The full paper is in the 17 Jan Nature." -
Quantum Gravity Observed
Lawrence_Bird writes "AIP News is reporting the first observations of quantum gravitational states by researchers in Grenoble using a beam of ultra cold neutrons. This is an incredible observational achievement when you consider the energies involved - order of 1 pico electron volt (10^ -12eV). The full paper is in the 17 Jan Nature." -
Oceans Potentially More Common In Solar System
nairolF writes "The AIP Physics News Update has a brief note on how water oceans might be more common in the solar system than previously thought, rendering useless the old notion of a narrow "habitable zone" in solar systems, outside of which life cannot exist." -
Oceans Potentially More Common In Solar System
nairolF writes "The AIP Physics News Update has a brief note on how water oceans might be more common in the solar system than previously thought, rendering useless the old notion of a narrow "habitable zone" in solar systems, outside of which life cannot exist." -
Quantum Holography
Buzz Skyline writes "Physicists succeed where psychics fail. Researchers from Boston University propose a quantum holography system that can construct 3d images of objects sealed in closed containers. Could it lead to quantum luggage scanners at the airport?" -
Tiny X-rays of Tiny Animals
Johnny Vector writes: "Scientists at Cornell have taken X-rays of fruit flies, with enough detail to see the hairs on their wings. The AIP has more photos. They did it with an "X-Pinch" machine: vaporize a wire, the resulting plasma implodes, producing a tiny (1/1000 inch), fast (nanosecond) pulse of X-rays. I want one of those machines." -
Micromachines in Modern Use
dragons_flight writes: "Physics Today has a lengthy article on MEMS (microelectromechanical systems AKA micromachines) including the ways they are being put to use right now. Uses include airbag collision detectors in cars, pressure guages, "micro-microphones", video projection, scientific equipment, and the ever popular optical switching technology. In addition there are two brief sidebars discussing how micro- and macro-machines differ and the use of integrated circuit technology to build MEMS." -
Bose-Einstein Condensate: On a chip
The Evil Dwarf from Hell writes "This week's Nature has an article (paid subscription required) by a team that has created a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) using an "atom chip". The chip suspends atoms over the surface using various fields and allows them to be moved from one location to another. A couple of advantages are relaxed contraints on the vacuum and increased speed of BEC formation (down to less than 1 second). (A quickie is available on Physics News Update). This goes with a news story in last weeks Science about 1d and 2d BECs. (A search on arXiv.org gives 167 hits in the last year for BECs)." -
Slashback: Toast, Cube, Light
Slashing back tonight are bits and pieces on optical transistors; a genuine linux toaster; words from Nintendo's president on the real status of the Gamecube; and another potentially nice push in the world of digital archives. Please enjoy.Larry Ellison, watch your back. meforpc writes: "More on LTSP (Linux terminal server project): Riverdale (www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux) decided to make a 'poster child' to get the word out on their project; to do this Bryan Grimshaw made a Linux machine inside of a toaster oven. The idea behind the toaster is to show the ease of setting up a Linux terminal/server network. It's really cool and looks great. (I want one)."
"Oooh, that's one hot system! If you sell it, I hope the buyer doesn't get burned. Might this sort of thing have a Dark Side? Nice rack -- Smmmmmokin'!" Sigh. I've stopped now. The worst pun you can come up with will be rewarded with an official Slashdot groan of derision :)
Soon all will be optical. BdosError writes: "Scientists in Japan seem to have developed an optical transistor, as explained in this article, which I snipped from the Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter. This could go nicely with the optical switching technology mentioned earlier, as it would eliminate the need to convert the electrical signals to/from optical. Plus, it would be a huge benefit for building fast systems which generate less heat in general.
Let's have no comments about the possibilities for a Beowulf cluster."
Well ... no more comments. But actually, why not? This sounds like a good thing for clustered research computers, no?
Of course, we'll see what hits shelves ... TheZalm writes: "The article about Gamecube being in danger is a misrepresentation of the facts. Hiroshi Yamauchi said only that he would reconsider his launch plan, and possibly place a small delay on the launch. See this article at IGN."
Of course, that's what Sega repeatedly said about the Dreamcast, too. The gamecube sounds cool, so I hope it arrives, but it's obviously coming into a hotly contested market.
Commemorating the banal and the momentous. fizban writes: "According to this AP news story, CNN plans to spend the next few years digitizing its entire video archive and making it available to the public over the internet. Excellent! Just think of the multimedia reports the kids of tomorrow will be able to make for their class projects..."
The article skirts the issue of licensing and payment; hopefully CNN will see fit to make at least some of its content free, but I'd be surprised it that's more than a sampling.
The progress may be mind-numbingly slow, but thanks to things like Project Gutenberg, ibiblio and the Internet Moving Image Archive, more and more free content is arriving for us to read, watch and use. ("And, he groused, "it would be nice if all images made with our tax dollars would be available online as well.")
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High-Temperature Superconductors
Anonymous Coward writes "Seems all those scientists who've spent years tweaking exotic materials at freakily low temperatures to turn them into superconductors should've just looked on the lab shelf. Magnesium diboride superconducts at much higher temperatures than other metallics and could even bust the theoretical max T, says this story at New Scientist. There's more research on the same here but 40K's still pretty cold - when's my laptop gonna run for free?" -
What Happens When 99% of the Net Crashes?
Sara Chan writes "The Internet remains connected on a global scale even if a randomly chosen 99% of its connection points break down. It is, however, in danger if its most highly connected points are selectively knocked out. Recent computer simulations have shown that the Internet is fairly resilient because it is scale free. The latest work, published in Physical Review Letters strengthens this conclusion. Two independent groups of researchers applied percolation theory. Percolation theory deals with systems containing points ("sites") and connections between them, and it analyzes the behavior of the system when some of the sites or connections are removed (it was developed by geophysicists for estimating how much oil could be extracted from reservoirs in a porous medium). Abstracts of the papers are available here and here." -
Quantum Security
Triode writes "In this months issue of Physics Today there is a very interesting read entitled 'From Quantum Cheating to Quantum Security' which delves into encryption. Talks about ads and disads of popular encryption (keys, public keys, DES etc), the size of current encryption and why it is not (theoretically) good. Quantum computers could make breaking our current methods of encryptoin easy, so we need to start now with methods of encrytption that would not be so easy. A pretty basic example of a implementation of the B92 protocol is given using a single photon source over a 48km optical fiber. Worth a read. Check it out at the AIP website."This is the best walk-through of quantum encryption I've seen, and one of the few that points out the flaws and unknowns which could plague a completed system in the real world. And depressingly enough, there is a note on the Physics Today main page which reads: "All editorial content from the magazine is available on the Web. In the near future, restrictions will apply." As a selfish site junkie, I hope this only means NYT-style registration, not WSJ-type subscribers-only service.
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Individual Chemical Bond Formed With STM
WillWare writes: "Using a scanning tunneling microscope at the Free University of Berlin, scientists have for the first time manipulated single molecules to perform a complete chemical reaction. (Here are STM pictures of the reaction happening.) ...the making of C12H10 molecules from C6H5I molecules, normally carried out on a copper catalyst and using thermal activation, has here been forced to proceed by employing one molecule at a time at a cryogenic temperature of 20 K. The researchers believe that new manmade molecules, never before seen in nature, can be engineered in this way, including the selective detachment or replacement of parts of larger molecules for individual assembling of molecular based nano-devices. The official article appears in Physical Review Letters, 25 Sept." Nanites. That's all I have to say. -
Individual Chemical Bond Formed With STM
WillWare writes: "Using a scanning tunneling microscope at the Free University of Berlin, scientists have for the first time manipulated single molecules to perform a complete chemical reaction. (Here are STM pictures of the reaction happening.) ...the making of C12H10 molecules from C6H5I molecules, normally carried out on a copper catalyst and using thermal activation, has here been forced to proceed by employing one molecule at a time at a cryogenic temperature of 20 K. The researchers believe that new manmade molecules, never before seen in nature, can be engineered in this way, including the selective detachment or replacement of parts of larger molecules for individual assembling of molecular based nano-devices. The official article appears in Physical Review Letters, 25 Sept." Nanites. That's all I have to say. -
Individual Chemical Bond Formed With STM
WillWare writes: "Using a scanning tunneling microscope at the Free University of Berlin, scientists have for the first time manipulated single molecules to perform a complete chemical reaction. (Here are STM pictures of the reaction happening.) ...the making of C12H10 molecules from C6H5I molecules, normally carried out on a copper catalyst and using thermal activation, has here been forced to proceed by employing one molecule at a time at a cryogenic temperature of 20 K. The researchers believe that new manmade molecules, never before seen in nature, can be engineered in this way, including the selective detachment or replacement of parts of larger molecules for individual assembling of molecular based nano-devices. The official article appears in Physical Review Letters, 25 Sept." Nanites. That's all I have to say. -
Solar Flare vs. Plasmasphere
The appropriately-named Nova Express informs us, "According to the Space Weather Page, 'A powerful X-class solar flare erupted...today at 1530 UT. The flare could trigger radio blackouts and high radiation levels in low-earth orbit...the leading edge of the disturbance will trigger geomagnetic storms when it passes by Earth in 30 - 45 hours.'" Coincidentally, Tei'ehm Teuw passed along this article showing what it'll collide with when it gets here: our plasmasphere, the shell of ions and electrons lying at the top of our atmosphere and extending far out into space. This press release has some amazing photos and movies taken by an equally amazing satellite. -
"Spooky" Quantum Data Encryption
Hardy writes "Imagine an encrypted communications channel that immediately notifies the parties if they are being bugged. The American Institute of Physics site is running an article about exploiting what Einstein described as the "spooky" action at a distance properties of quantum entangled particles. The entanglement process can generate a completely random sequence of 0s and 1s distributed exclusively to two users at remote locations. Any eavesdropper's attempt to intercept this sequence will alter the message in a detectable way and enabling the users to discard the appropriate parts of the data. This random sequence of digits is then used to scramble the message. This approach solves the problem of distributing a shared key to both parties without it falling into the wrong hands. This diagram might help. " -
"Spooky" Quantum Data Encryption
Hardy writes "Imagine an encrypted communications channel that immediately notifies the parties if they are being bugged. The American Institute of Physics site is running an article about exploiting what Einstein described as the "spooky" action at a distance properties of quantum entangled particles. The entanglement process can generate a completely random sequence of 0s and 1s distributed exclusively to two users at remote locations. Any eavesdropper's attempt to intercept this sequence will alter the message in a detectable way and enabling the users to discard the appropriate parts of the data. This random sequence of digits is then used to scramble the message. This approach solves the problem of distributing a shared key to both parties without it falling into the wrong hands. This diagram might help. " -
"Spooky" Quantum Data Encryption
Hardy writes "Imagine an encrypted communications channel that immediately notifies the parties if they are being bugged. The American Institute of Physics site is running an article about exploiting what Einstein described as the "spooky" action at a distance properties of quantum entangled particles. The entanglement process can generate a completely random sequence of 0s and 1s distributed exclusively to two users at remote locations. Any eavesdropper's attempt to intercept this sequence will alter the message in a detectable way and enabling the users to discard the appropriate parts of the data. This random sequence of digits is then used to scramble the message. This approach solves the problem of distributing a shared key to both parties without it falling into the wrong hands. This diagram might help. " -
Nanoguitar - The Next Musical Generation
Sewerpickle writes "Scientists ... have sucessfully made a guitar 10 millionths of a meter big (size of a red blood cell). And based loosely on the Fender Stratocaster. It actually can be played at notes around 10MHz." Let's see. Hemos is a nanotech buff and Cmdr Taco is learning to play guitar. Seems to me the Geek Compound ought to have one of these around. -
Space Probes Too Slow - Scientists Ask "Why?"
Rudolf writes "Newsweek has an article this week, available here, about NASA calculating that space probes, such as Pioneer 10, 11, and Ulysses, are slowing down more than they should. A team of astronomers and physicists couldn't figure it out, so they published their findings in Physical Review Letters to generate discussion. Several possible causes of the slowing have been discussed, but nothing that completely solves the puzzle. Anyone care to rethink gravity and time?" Update: 09/29 09:00 by H :Thanks to Mark for his link to the original citation. -
Chaos-based Computing?
David Eisner sent us a link to this story where you can read about Chaos Based Computing. Theoretically it will operate more like the human brain, and will be better at tasks like pattern recognition. At least in theory. -
Advance in Quantum Computing
James Morrisü^½?? ard writes "An item posted to the The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News mentions that Quanutm error correction has now been demonstrated for the first time, bringing the promise of Quantum computing closer. " -
Denser Discs
Esteban Gutierrez wrote in with this link where you can read about new technology that could be used to store 400 gbits/in^2. Current CDs hold 1.