Physics

Quantum field theory in curved space time, quantum gravity....They are one and the same.

Robert Wald has formulated QFT in curved space time in terms of it's algebra of observables on a manifold.  In doing so he has, perhaps unintentionally, provided framework in which very different theories of quantum gravity look very similar.  ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Aug 9 2009 - 8:15pm

BigBOSS Joins The Hunt For Elusive Dark Energy

The hunt for dark energy is on and ways to find it, such as weak gravitational lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation, hold great promise but are as yet unproven.   Supernovae studies, which depend on measuring the redshift and brightness of distant Type ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 8 2009 - 11:04am

The Principle Of Maximal Aging

The Principle of Maximal Aging- Capturing the Essence of Relativity ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Aug 16 2009 - 2:01pm

Exploring Weak Interactions Without A Particle Accelerator

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, have performed sophisticated laser measurements to detect the subtle effects of one of nature's most elusive forces- the "weak interaction& ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 10 2009 - 1:41pm

The Say of the Week

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness in the desert air." Thomas Gray, " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", vv. 53-56. I ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 10 2009 - 3:05pm

Dibosons Keep Blossoming In CDF

A couple of months ago I wrote here about the first observation of a process called "diboson production", a quite rare occurrence in hadronic collisions: for the first time, the CDF collaboration could observe that rare process in events containi ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 13 2009 - 6:56pm

Where Will We Hear About The Higgs First?

The World Conference on Science Journalism held in London 2009 has its own web site, of course. Today they were so kind to let me know they had published there the recordings of all sessions, among which was the one where I gave my speech. The session titl ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 14 2009 - 3:58pm

What's Wrong With E=MC^2?

Google “ E=mc2 is wrong ” and you get 1,060 hits. Google “ E=mc2 is correct ” and you get a mere 138 hits. There you have it. It took us a more than a century, but finally this crazy inconsistent theory of relativity got outvoted. Common sense cries victor ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Oct 11 2009 - 11:20pm

The Say of the Week

" We would dig a shaft near 'ground zero' about 10 feet in diameter and about 150 feet deep. We would put a tank, 10 feet in diameter and 75 feet long on end at the bottom of the shaft. We would then suspend our detector from the top of the ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 15 2009 - 3:37pm

Plot Of The Week: The Best Top Mass Measurement Ever

The figure shown below represents the best measurement of the top quark mass ever obtained by a single experiment, and it is a determination with a less than 1% total uncertainty. It has been approved last week by the CDF experiment at Fermilab. The CDF ex ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 20 2009 - 7:37pm