Category Archives: Quantum Physics
How Much Has The Price Of Cable And Streaming Gone Up In A Decade? – TheStreet
When Netflix and other streaming services started catching on with audiences at the start of the 10s, there was a lot of talk about cord-cutting, and the idea that we can finally be rid of the scourge of cable companies and pay a relatively small amount for our entertainment needs.
That did not turn out to be the case.
Large companies, especially entertainment ones, are generally are not in the business of having consumers pay less for things.
After the cord-cutting fervor died down a bit, it became very apparent that if you were a sports or cable news junkie, or you wanted to check out what was on FX or Comedy Central, you still needed a package from your local cable provider.
Plus, its much easier to earn a PHD in Quantum Physics than it is to get a representative from a cable company to cancel your account over the phone.
Thanks to the streaming wars, theres more options for entertainment lovers than ever before, but also more things to pay for.
Many people still stick to one service, or theyll hop around month to month, signing up for, say, Hulu (DIS) - Get Walt Disney Company Report for a month to catch-up on buzzed about shows, only to cancel (or churn) when they are done.
But not only is there more to pay for if you want to feel like youre on top of the latest in pop culture, were all also paying more than we were a decade ago.
A new report from CableTV.com sheds light on just how much more we are paying for both cable and streaming services these days, compared to a decade ago.
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While the streaming boom has eaten into movie ticket sales, people still like to go to the theater, usually for franchises and blockbusters.
The average movie ticket tends to cost about the same as a monthly streaming service, so the fact that the theater industry is at all competitive is testament to how ingrained the theatrical experience is in our society.
In 2012, the cost of an average movie ticket rose to a record high of $8.12, which was considered newsworthy and borderline alarmingat the time. Today, the average cost of a movie ticket is $9.17, though AMC (AMCX) - Get AMC Networks Inc. Class A Reportmight charge you more if its a really popular film like The Batman.
So why are streaming services and cable packages more expensive? In a word: Inflation.
It takes money to make money, as they say, and streaming companies and the networks that prop up cable companies have to keep investing in films and television shows to lure in new subscribers and keep existing costumers in the fold.
Plus, cable companies have maintenance costs and the rising price of infrastructure to deal with.
The ongoing recession were currently experiencing wont last forever. Even when it passes, the cost of streaming and cable will only increase over the years, though maybe not always dramatically, given the year.
But theres still ways to save, as every consumer can figure out what services need to be part of their lives, and which they can check in for a month at a time.
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How Much Has The Price Of Cable And Streaming Gone Up In A Decade? - TheStreet
Scientists conduct experiment that may change physics forever – TweakTown
A paper on the experiment titled "Experimental protocol for testing the mass-energy-information equivalence principle" has been published in the journal AIP Advances.
Dr. Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth has devised an experiment which could demonstrate information as a fifth state of matter, alongside solids, liquids, gases and plasma. Dr. Vopson has previously published research which suggests that information has mass, and that all elementary particles store information in a similar way to DNA in humans.
"This would be a eureka moment because it would change physics as we know it and expand our understanding of the universe. But it wouldn't conflict with any of the existing laws of physics. It doesn't contradict quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics or classical mechanics. All it does is complement physics with something new and incredibly exciting," said Dr. Vopson.
"If we assume that information is physical and has mass, and that elementary particles have a DNA of information about themselves, how can we prove it? My latest paper is about putting these theories to the test so they can be taken seriously by the scientific community," Dr. Vopson continued.
The experiment will use particle-antiparticle collisions to detect and measure the information stored in an elementary particle. Colliding these particles will annihilate them, converting them into energy, typically gamma photons. According to Dr. Vopson, the information from the particle will have to go somewhere, and it will be converted into low-energy infrared photons which can be measured.
You can read more from the study here.
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Scientists conduct experiment that may change physics forever - TweakTown
No rocket science! Why science seems difficult and the books that can help – The Tribune India
Brimming over with challenging calculations, daunting data, and formidable formulas, science seems an intimidating prospect for many people. This seems true for both young people despite their parents' best efforts and their elders who studied it: they have either forgotten most of it, or retain a garbled or even erroneous recollection.
This comes even as STEM learning/careers are being emphasised. The basic principles of science are more important now than ever especially in our post-truth age. Scores of other disciplines, and even certain activities, seek validity by adding science to their names, or comparing themselves with it.
Why science, across its various realms, seems such a fearsome prospect can be explained by an array of psychological, social, pedagogical, and even political factors. But while examining these, the question that arises, for the purpose of this piece, is can and how books can help in the situation.
First, let us examine some of the reasons why science seems so difficult. At the outset, it must be said that the left brain (arts and humanities) / right brain (science/mathematics) theory is plainly wrong, with lateralisation of brain functions usually being unique for every individual and native language, gender, dominant hand, and so on being the key factors in this regard.
Unless there is a learning disability, almost anybody can study science with enough practice. That some may find it boring / dreary is another thing -- but then that has more to do with the quality of teaching and teaching materials, and to be fair, applicability in daily life.
Take teaching of mathematics in schools. This usually comprises five-six years of number crunching, which a basic calculator can do faster and without mistakes, followed by delving into abstract areas such as algebra and calculus. With the focus more on techniques than on applications, its basic purpose of how some real-life problems can be converted into mathematics to find a solution gets ignored.
In other sciences too, if they are just taught to pass examinations, or serve merely as pathways to careers in applied subjects such as engineering or medicine, and be jettisoned at the first opportunity, they are not going to gain many interested adherents.
And then, the socio-political factors, including distrust of experts/intellectuals. Scientific aptitude, be it prowess or just interest, postulates curiosity, the propensity to ask (lots and lots) of questions, including ones on received wisdom and current theories, and argue much, the insistence on verification, and so on. You can gauge how many of these attributes are welcome in a milieu where faith, tradition, "alternative facts", emotions, and sweeping statements meant to be taken as gospel truth are getting priority.
But, as mentioned, a lot of lack of interest in science can be attributed to a lack of insightful and relevant content to engage interest across various age groups, or what we call popular science, or science for the layperson. But this is not a recent innovation, and has existed since the early 19th century.
Scottish scientist and polymath Mary Somerville's "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834), describing the status, in her time, of astronomy, physics, chemistry, geography, and others with minimal diagrams or mathematics was a bestseller that went through at least 10 editions and was translated into various languages.
Then, there are works by the likes of naturalist and climate change crusader Sir David Attenborough, environmentalist Rachel Carson, physicists Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking (and daughter Lucy Hawking), evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond, brain physiologist Susan Greenfield, neurologist Oliver Sacks, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and others explaining their specialised fields for the general reader.
Closer to home, we have had Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Jayant Narlikar, and V.S. Ramachandran, among others. It's unfortunate that Prof. Yash Pal never wrote a book or someone collated his pieces for publication.
Those who grew up in the 1980s might also recall a range of some invaluable popular science books at unbelievably low prices by Soviet publishers such as Progress and Mir. Dmitri Nicolaevich Trifonov's works like "Silhouettes of Chemistry", "Chemical Elements: How They Were Discovered" and "The Price of Truth: The Story of Rare-Earth Elements", among many others, were a sparkling introduction to chemistry.
It is our intention to deal with the fundamental sciences physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics and their key sub-disciplines separately over coming installments, let's begin with a few books that give an overarching idea of science over the last few centuries. Though these may deal mostly with what is called "western science" and may not focus much on the rest of the world, even that has a reason -- as we shall learn.
Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (2016), meant for the general reader by a layman himself, is a good place to start.
Known for his travel books, he takes the same approach in covering quite a bit of science through six parts titled "Lost in the Cosmos", "The Size of the Earth", "A New Age Dawns", "Dangerous Planet", "Life Itself", and "The Road to Us", including such "arcane" subjects as thermodynamics, paleontology and cosmology. It may be a bit overwhelming to go through the sheer amount of facts, but this is made palatable through his quirky, anecdotal and humorous style.
From the first chapter, 'How to build a universe', we learn: "Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive, and about 1 per cent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe." In the same vein is physicist Leonard Mlodinow's "The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos" (2015), which lives up to its title. Divided into three parts -- "The Upright Thinkers", "The Sciences" and "Beyond the Human Senses", it traces critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, the author persuasively shows, were driven by humankind's collective struggle to know how and why.
And its course, through the development of the human brain to the discovery of quantum physics, there are insights into culture, changing patterns of human living, the interaction between religion and state, a new rational approach to knowledge, and so on.
John Gribbin's "Science: A History" (2003) is another broad sweep, but more biographically inclined, ranging from life and the foibles of top scientists -- for instance, Louis Agassiz marching his colleagues up a mountain to prove that the Ice Ages had occurred -- to their tribulations, such as why Madame Curie was forced to study alone.
"The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution" (2016) by David Wootton is a bit provocative, or even polemical. It argues that the advancement of science in the 17th-18th centuries rested not on new discoveries or methods, but on the revolution in attitudes to authority and a paradigm shift in understanding what knowledge is.
This, it goes on to argue, radically transformed meanings of existing words, such as discovery, progress, facts, experiments, hypotheses, theories, et al to "tools with which to think scientifically".
Then for insights into a leading scientist's life, upbringing and thought process, you cannot beat Richard Feynman's anecdotal autobiography "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character" (1985), which intersperses his career as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with his penchant for being a practical joker, amateur safe-cracker, bongo-drum player, and painter of nude portraits.
And finally, "Einstein's War: How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World" by Matthew Stanley (2019), seeking to show how science can rise beyond human binaries and constructs, as it throws light how a leading British astronomer faced abuse and worse as he sought to champion support and experimental verification for Einstein's ground-breaking theory of relativity even as World War I raged. IANS
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No rocket science! Why science seems difficult and the books that can help - The Tribune India
Schrdingers cat and the worry of a quantum apocalypse ahead – Mint
Let me try distracting you from war and disease with a joke. Schrdinger takes his cat to the vet for a check-up. The vet comes back 10 minutes later and says, Well, I have good news and bad news.. If you snickered at this, you know a bit about the Schrdingers Cat paradox, and therefore perhaps a little bit about quantum physics. For those who did not, the paradox explains the seeming contradiction between what we see with our naked eye and what quantum theory tells us actually exists in its microscopic state. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics states that a particle exists in all states at once until observed. Schrdingers cat is in a box, and could be alive or dead. But till the box is opened, you would not be able to know. Thus, the vets quandary.
This principle, among others, powers one of the most exciting and bleeding- edge advances in technology: Quantum computing. I have written about it before in Mint, but to summarize: Our current powerful computers follow the principles of the Turing machine, where information is encoded in bits (1 and 0) and a series of operations (and, or, not, etc) make these bits compute. A quantum computer uses qubits or the quantum version of bits; a qubit is not permanently a 0 or 1, but it can be both at the same time. Only at the end of the computation (when the box is opened), can you know whether its 0 or 1. During the computation process, its exact state is indeterminate and can contain bits of both. If this whooshed over your head, console yourself with what Bill Gates said in a 2017 interview: I know a lot of physics and a lot of math. But the one place where they put up slides and it is hieroglyphics, its quantum."
A quantum computer can exploit these properties of quantum physics to perform certain calculations far more efficiently and faster than any computer or supercomputer, inspiring the likes of Microsoft, IBM and Google to work feverishly on this form of computing. This is especially urgent because Moores Law is flattening but our problems are becoming more complex: climate change, artificial general intelligence, drug personalization. While this is super exciting, a recent BBC article (bbc.in/3pA7pIY ) about the quantum apocalypse made me pause.
As a hidden force behind e-commerce, online banking and trading, crypto trading, social networking and internet messaging, almost everything we do involves encryption. Most encryption uses public and private keys, and that in turn uses arcane mathematical calculations involving prime numbers. Using a Turing computer to crack this encryption is virtually impossible. It would take thousands of years. However, a quantum computer can potentially do this in mere seconds. Every minute, huge amounts of encrypted data is harvested without our knowledge and stored in vast data banks, waiting for the day that it can finally be decrypted. Today, there is nothing data thieves can do with this treasure trove, but once a functioning quantum computer appears that will be able to break that encryption... it can almost instantly create the ability for whoevers developed it to clear bank accounts, to completely shut down government defence systemsBitcoin wallets will be drained." says lyas Khan, chief executive of Quantinuum. Moreover, current encryption methods will be useless, halting online banking transactions, e-commerce, social media interactions, everything. The security of every public blockchain will be under threat from quantum computing power, since it relies on heavy duty cryptography; it was no coincidence that the price of Bitcoin dropped sharply the day Google made its announcement of achieving quantum supremacy a year ago. It was a portent of the quantum apocalypse.
The world is gearing up for this post-quantum world. Google, Microsoft, Intel and IBM are working on solutions. So are specialist startups like Post-Quantum and Quantinuum. The UK government claims that all its top-secret data is already post-quantum. The BBC talks of a beauty parade taking place to establish a standardised defence strategy that will protect industry, government, academia and critical national infrastructure against the perils of the quantum apocalypse." New cryptographic methods like quantum key distribution are being developed, by which even if the message gets intercepted, no one can read it, much like the cat.
All this will not be cheap, nor will it be easy. But we have no choicemost of our world runs digitally now and its wheels need to be kept humming. To do that, we need to think out of the box.
Jaspreet Bindra is the chief tech whisperer at Findability Sciences, and learning AI, Ethics and Society at Cambridge University.
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Schrdingers cat and the worry of a quantum apocalypse ahead - Mint
Eugene N. Parker, 94, Dies; Predicted the Existence of Solar Wind – The New York Times
Dr. Parker, he said, was happy when people pointed out a mistake in his calculations but not pleased when people accepted prevalent scientific assumptions without question.
He had little patience for Its well known that Dr. Turner said.
Even though Dr. Chandrasekhar, a future Nobel laureate, disagreed with Dr. Parkers conclusions, he overruled the reviewers, and the paper was published.
Four years later, Dr. Parker was vindicated when Mariner 2, a NASA spacecraft en route to Venus, observed energetic particles streaming through interplanetary space exactly what he had predicted.
When Dr. Zurbuchen joined NASA in 2016, the agency had been working for years on a mission called Solar Probe Plus, which was to swoop close to the sun repeatedly. Dr. Zurbuchen said he disliked the name Solar Probe Plus and wrote to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine asking it to suggest a person to name the mission after.
The unequivocal response: Eugene Parker.
NASA had never before named a spacecraft after a living person. But Dr. Zurbuchen, who had met Dr. Parker years earlier, said he did not have much trouble getting Robert Lightfoot, the acting administrator of NASA at the time, to approve the change in 2017. Dr. Zurbuchen then called Dr. Parker to ask if that would be all right with him. He said, Absolutely. It will be my honor, Dr. Zurbuchen recalled.
Dr. Parker later said he was surprised that NASA had asked for his permission.
A few months afterward, Dr. Parker went to visit the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, where the spacecraft was built and tested. Dr. Fox, then project scientist for the mission, recalled saying, Parker, meet Parker.
The next year, Dr. Parker and his family traveled to Florida to watch the launch of his namesake spacecraft.
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Eugene N. Parker, 94, Dies; Predicted the Existence of Solar Wind - The New York Times
Jon Lehrer Dance Company To Present The World Premiere of THROUGH THE STORM, May 6 – Broadway World
The CUNY Dance Initiative and the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College announce a performance by Jon Lehrer Dance Company featuring the world premiere of Through The Storm, a full company work set to an original score by composer Zeno Pittarelli.
The program will include additional works, including four New York City premieres. The performance will take place on Friday, May 6, 2022 at 7pm at The Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College, 524 W 59th St, New York, NY. Tickets are $35 and are available at http://www.jonlehrerdance.com.
Jon Lehrer Dance Company (JLDC)'s trademark artistic, athletic, and accessible style is known for striking the elusive balance between art and entertainment. Taking the energy and chaos of a storm as inspiration, Through The Storm represents the past two years of struggle, hardship, but most of all the creativity and perseverance artists held on to throughout the pandemic. Visually stunning, evocative, and physically impressive, Through The Storm will be performed both internationally and nationally as part of JLDC's 22/23 season following the premiere. The program also highlights the range of JLDC's repertory with four New York City premieres (full details below).
JLDC is freshly off a successful four-week European tour where the company "captivated the audience with its grandiose choreography and the ensemble's top dance performance without fail. Dynamism, elegance, acrobatics, power and an absolute passion for dance - these are the attributes that could be used to describe the performance." (Zollern-Alb Kurier - Balingen, Germany)
Program
"Through The Storm" (2022) - world premiere
A full company work set to an original score by Zeno Pittarelli.
"Sum of Us" (2021) - New York premiere
An upbeat showcase for the dancers as individuals and as a strong, cohesive group.
"Murmur" (2012) - New York premiere
A lyrically infused quartet based on the phenomenon of murmuration and quantum entanglement.
"Pulp" (2016) - New York premiere
Inspired by the silent films of Buster Keaton and Scooby-Doo cartoons, this zany romp highlights the company's theatrical comedic side.
"Hearth" (2010) - New York premiere
Performed by JLDC Apprentices, this work was inspired by the many strong, caring, and remarkable women in Jon Lehrer's life.
"Solstice"(2019)
A joyous, uplifting tribute to the first day of Summer, commissioned by Artpark in Lewiston, NY for their "Summer Solstice Celebration."
Jon Lehrer Dance Company (JLDC) began in 2007 in Buffalo, NY and has been based in NYC since 2019. Under Jon Lehrer's artistic direction, the company showcases his unique choreography and definitive style. Jon's extensive background in both the modern and jazz dance idioms fosters choreography that is organic, artistic, accessible and often humorous, reflecting life experience and the human condition. Dance Magazine praised "the company took the house not so much by storm as by quantum physics," and Galerie Ortenau in Offenburg, Germany declares, "Dynamic, Powerful, Elegant - brings an absolute passion for the dance." The company was brought to Russia from 2012-2016 sponsored by the US State Department in order to, as they said, "bring the best in American modern dance to the people of Russia." JLDC tours worldwide, to Europe every other year, and made their 4th trip in January 2022 for another world premiere performance.
JLDC's expressive technique and style is a combination of modern, jazz, and physics. It is based on three main elements of movement - Circularity, 3-Dimensionality, and Momentum, which combine to create a form that is best described as "Organically Athletic." Jon Lehrer Dance Company is dedicated to maintaining the impact of dance through performance, education, outreach, community involvement, and collaboration. The professional dancers of JLDC work collaboratively towards a common creative goal, while maintaining and developing their own artistic voice to bring edge-of-your-seat excitement to audiences. JLDC operates with integrity at all levels and respects and honors ideas from constituent groups including dancers, directors, and the public. Jon Lehrer Dance Company actively promotes and values equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism on an institutional and individual level. http://www.jonlehrerdance.com
Jon Lehrer (Founder & Artistic Director of JLDC), who was raised in Queens, New York, took his very first dance class on a dare at age 19 at the University at Buffalo. While dating a dancer, Jon teased her about how easy it must be to get an A in a dance class. The girl dared Jon to try a beginning level modern dance class and his life was changed. Jon ultimately received his BFA in Dance from the University at Buffalo.
As a professional, Jon danced with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Paul Sanasardo, John Passafiume Dancers, in Merv Griffin's "Funderful" in Atlantic City, NJ, and the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. In 1997, Jon was hired by Giordano Dance Chicago, the world's preeminent jazz dance company. After only three years he was promoted to Rehearsal Director and became the Associate Director two years later. During his ten years with Giordano, Jon also became the resident choreographer, creating seven original works on the company that received rave reviews around the world.
Jon has choreographed for several professional dance companies and universities all over the country. He teaches master classes throughout the U.S. and around the world, having been on faculty at Dance Masters of America, Jazz Dance World Congress, Dance Teacher Summer Conference, Chicago National Association of Dance Masters (CNADM), Chautauqua Institution, Florida Dance Educators Organization, and Florida Dance Masters to name a few. Jon has received many awards and honors, including the University at Buffalo Zodiaque Dance Company Distinguished Alumni Award, CNADM's Artistic Achievement Award, University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, and the "Rising Star" SPARK Award for being an integral part of Buffalo's thriving arts and cultural community.
About Zeno Pittarelli
Composer/Musician Zeno Pittarelli is a musician, engineer, and artist living in New York City. Founder of Newlywed Records and produces, records, mixes + masters in his home studio and remotely. Some of his projects have been featured in major publications including Rolling Stone, NPR, and Stereogum. Pittarello strives to make moving, exciting, and unique records.
JLDC's residency and performance at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater are part of the CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), a transformative incubator that secures two vital yet scarce resources-rehearsal time and performance space-for New York City choreographers and dance companies across the five boroughs. Housed within the City University of New York (CUNY)-the nation's largest public urban university system-CDI is a residency program that supports local artists, enhances the cultural life and education of college students, and builds new dance audiences at CUNY performing arts centers.
CDI receives major support from The Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Jerome Robbins Foundation, SHS Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. CDI is part of Dance/NYC's New York City Dance Rehearsal Space Subsidy Program, made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. CDI is spearheaded by The Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. http://www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative
Additional funding for this residency and performance is provided by the John Jay College Student Activities Association, Inc.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York, an international leader in educating for justice, offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu.
Since opening its doors in 1988, the Gerald W. Lynch Theater has been an invaluable cultural resource. The Theater is a member of CUNY Stages, a consortium of 16 performing arts centers located on CUNY campuses across New York City and the CUNY Dance Initiative. The Theater is home to the Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival & White Light Festival, as well as the New Yorker Festival, Mannes Opera, the World Science Festival, and the revival of Mummunschanz. The Theater has hosted live and recorded events including David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Inside the Actor's Studio, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, Comedy Central Presents one-hour specials, the American Justice Summit, the NYC Mayoral Democratic Debates, and the launch of Jay-Z's REFORM initiative. The Theater welcomes premiere galas, conferences, international competitions, and graduations. For more information, and a schedule of events, please visit http://www.GeraldWLynchTheater.com.
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Jon Lehrer Dance Company To Present The World Premiere of THROUGH THE STORM, May 6 - Broadway World
Klarman fellow blends physics and math to explore string theory | Cornell Chronicle – Cornell Chronicle
What does a six-dimensional figure look like? Theoretical physicist Richard Nally cant show you exactly, but he does have a sculpture a pink shape the size of a grapefruit that can help you imagine a piece of one.
Its called a K3 surface, said Nally, a Klarman Fellow in physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). Of course, we cant make sculptures of things that live in six dimensions, but you can take little slices of them to see what they look like. This is a slice of a four-dimensional shape that is really important to the history and practice of string theory.
Researchers have known about the shapes in string theory for decades, Nally said. But in the past few years, he and others have started to take the shapes seriously as number theoretic objects and to study them in that framework. Nally will spend his three-year Klarman Postdoctoral Fellowship seeking to understand the mathematical structures at the root of gravity and quantum mechanics.
We want to find a nice shape that lets us keep the solution to quantum gravity, while getting the features such as an expanding universe and only having four dimensions that we see in the world around us, he said.
Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.
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Happy birthday, Albert Einstein. We need you right now. (Op-Ed) – Space.com
Albert Einstein was allergic to authoritarians.
His dislike of dogma, playful nature, and ability to constructively concentrate let him visualize unorthodox ways the universe might operate. Some of these proved to be true. Daydreaming his way to deeper understandings was his superpower. It can be ours, too.
Through internal journeys of pure thought, Einstein looked behind the apparent reality of the day-to-day to glimpse the counterintuitive mechanisms that prop up what we believe to be true. By this process, Albert Einstein turned Isaac Newton's universe of absolutes inside out.
Related: Is Einstein's 'theory of happiness' as successful as general relativity?
Einstein saw what others had missed by remaining radically open-minded. It would come to be called his theory of special relativity: A 1905 paper that resolved an apparent conflict between finite speed of light and the invariable laws of physics. But it did so with eerie consequences: Clocks in motion seem to slow down compared to clocks "at rest." What looks like a pair of simultaneous events to one spectator may look widely spaced in time to another. Physical items in motion seem to contract along the dimension they're moving. It's unsettling, but it works for all objects in motion, as long as they don't speed up or slow down.
Einstein dreamed on. He yearned for relativity to hold true when entities accelerated. Through "thought-experiment," he realized that a person standing a windowless box could not know whether that box was parked in a gravity field or rushing "upward" through space. The effects would be equivalent. So, were they really different? This led Einstein to postulate gravity not as an invisible force, as convention dictated, but as nothing more than the curvature of space around an object.
But how to predict the degree of deformation? The simple geometry of Euclid that had supported Newton's universe wouldn't be up to the task. Neither would Einstein, not by himself. He set to work with the mathematician Marcel Grossman, arming themselves with the curved space geometry of Bernhard Riemann and others. It took the pair three years to fully generalize relativity within a rigorous mathematical framework. Contrary to his later public reputation, Einstein was never a lone wolf.
General relativity could then be tested: Light should bend around the dimple in spacetime created by a massive body. Einstein had calculated in 1911, and revised in 1915, the degree to which starlight must curve around the sun [1.7 seconds of arc displaced from their measured position without the sun in between]. The solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, revealed exactly this. Announced in November, the confirmation made global headlines. Einstein's name burst beyond the province of science. He would soon acquire superstar visibility, which became a platform for voicing his thoughts beyond the sphere of science.
Einstein's innately contrarian inclinations had enabled him to revolutionize physics. They also let him see beyond tribalism into an enlightened realm of human tolerance. He would, for the rest of his life, leverage his fame to champion peaceful diversity.
Einstein's infectious positivity can help us navigate these confusing and contentious times. His ability to encapsulate, in an aphorism, a deep truth we can feel can lift us up.
To that end, may I offer you this song: "Simple Relativities (Your Imagination)." The words are Einstein's, graciously licensed by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
With this gentle music, I mean to give you a break from doom-scrolling your newsfeeds. A moment of widened perspective. A pause for self-care through some of Einstein's deep wisdom, distilled and concentrated.And, I hope, a smile or two.
I owe you, here, a note of caution: Einstein intended his relativity theories to explain only facts of physics and mechanics as they relate to one another. He warned philosophers and others outside science not to reinterpret human relations in a relative moral context. He did not want us justifying misbehavior as defensible due to local circumstances.
Though he gave us relativistic physics, Einstein sought the comfort of absolutes. He felt there must be a simple, balanced, undeniable order to the workings of all things. A root causality. His goal was to help reveal it through science. But he felt it must exist, whether or not it could ever be observed.
This faith set the tone for Einstein's public statements about matters far beyond physics. The charismatic force of his unconventional and at times uncompromising personality cut across cultures and languages. Einstein was not just nonconformist; he was actively anti-conformity. A proud bohemian. The prototype of the absent-minded professor and of at least one flavor of hippie. A wild-haired sage.
Venturing into today's media minefield, scientists are impolitely told to stay in their lane. They are too-often accused of fudging their data or bending conclusions to score funding, especially in the domain of climate science. Those who launch into the "Twitter-verse" do so at risk of reputation damage.
Einstein didn't face those undercurrents. The much-slower velocity of non-interactive media let his missives land like Moses' recently down from the mountain.These were typically amplified by hyperbolic headlines the early 20th century's equivalent of clickbait and often wildly inaccurate reporting. Einstein was bemused by press exaggerations, but he respected the public's need for sensationalism and learned to slyly work it.
Driven by his realist methodology, Einstein wasn't afraid to toss away months or even years of physics work if it failed to fit all the data. He took a similar approach to the social sphere: Albert resisted entres from ideological extremists of all stripes looking to co-opt his celebrity. When he did back a cause, he was never afraid to recalibrate if new information came to light.
Convinced in part by discussions with no less a figure than Sigmund Freud of the detrimental impulses of what we, today, might call "toxic masculinity," Einstein became a devout pacifist. Beginning in the 1920s, he advocated for complete disarmament and central controlled by a worldwide government.
With the specter of rising Nazism, Einstein altered this stance. He hated and feared the blind nationalist, ethno-nativist ideology ascendant in Germany. Consequently, by 1931 he was rebuffing the invitations from pacifist organizations to speak on behalf of their cause.But he clung to the concept of a "supranational" peace-keeping body.
He was, however, far from politically impeccable. Einstein passed up opportunities to condemn Stalin's brutality, giving ammunition to those who would paint him as pro-Soviet.
Albert loved America. Emigrating in 1933, he was taken by the depth of free speech he heard around him. Protection of unrestricted expression under the U.S. Constitution's primary amendment suited his non-conformist personality. He sensed in the citizens a tolerance for divergent opinions. I wonder if he'd be disappointed in us, today
Einstein's core belief that there should be a root simplicity underlying the most complex, gnarly rat's nests of data likely allowed him to be a happier, more settled man. This same propensity kept him from accepting foundational discoveries made by younger physicists. He tried to his death to collapsethe strong and weak nuclear forces into electromagnetism and gravity. Yet the four-force model stands today.
Einstein seemed especially intractable when it came to quantum mechanics. In a way, he had sparked the quantum revolution that he would spend the rest of his working life trying to quell: His 1906 paper had lit a beacon pointing at the fundamental quantum of light as a particle, what we now call a photon.
By the early 1920's younger physicists particularly one cluster in Copenhagen had coalesced around physicist Werner Heisenberg's conjecture that we can never know both the exact position of any particle and its precise momentum. Observing one aspect negates the other, with the philosophical implication that certainty can never exist.
Einstein could stomach a universe of gambler's chance. He clung to his belief in the power of field theories with a faith resembling religious fervor. Matter, by Einstein's approach, would never actually granularize into particles. Objects, whether gargantuan or tiny, should all be seen as localized concentrations of very strong fields.It felt counterintuitive, but then so had relativity.
Einstein seemed to regard the messy probability-calculus of quantum mechanics as magical mysticism and superstition, while clinging to his own blind conviction in elegant simplicity as fundamental truth.
We still don't know for sure who is right. But at least Einstein's approach leaves us with a comfortable confidence; an understandable universe implying a planet Earth worth protecting.If it's all merely hierarchies of chance or just a simulation we might feel small, marginalized by the universe; free to throw up our hands and just watch the world burn.
In September 1905, Einstein had quietly published his revelation that an enormous amount of potential energy lies contained in tiny amounts of matter by a formula which later crystalized as E=mc^2. In August 1939, faced with heartless totalitarianism rising in Europe, Einstein leveraged his notoriety to help warn President Franklin Roosevelt that "extremely powerful bombs" were becoming possible.
Einstein was spared direct participation in nuclear weapons research by the FBI's wholly incorrect suspicion that he harbored pro-communist leanings and, likely, by an implicit bias against Jews. Einstein, whose humanitarian bent vectored him toward pacifism, had little interest in hands-on bomb building. [But he did help when asked, devising agaseous diffusion scheme to filter isotopes of uranium.]
Einstein, the revealer of atomic energy, was among the first to realize that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," as U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev would later jointly codify in 1985.
It is, today, up to us decide whether to use Einstein's energetic atoms for horrific destruction or environmental salvation. If we can trust one another to safely managing nuclear power sources, we might radically reduce the dual catastrophe that is the hydrocarbon economy: Autocrats arise on fortunes floated by oil, gas and coal. Island and low-lying nations sink on greenhouse climate disruptions.
Of special interest to we who frequent these Space.com pages: Nuclear-thermal, nuclear-electric and fusion rockets could quickly give us the entire solar system. It's also worth remembering that our current missions to planets, moons, asteroids and comets depend on the degree to which the spacetime around objects of various masses is deformed,calculations first made in 1937 by Einstein with physicists Banesh Hoffman and Leopold Infeld.
It is fashionable today to admonish one another for not "being present." Einstein succeeded because he could be absent. Colleagues noticed he could delicately disappear from conversation to drift in (outwardly) passive contemplation. His comfort with indeed his desire for apartness let him work free of distractions.
Einstein, the realist-dreamer, presents a paradox. His longing for a world-inclusive peace-keeping organization, possessing more military power than any one nation, has proven as unrealistic as a grand unified field theory explaining all the universe's elastic clockworks. Yet Einstein never gave up either vision.
Some lessons are clear: This moment's media zone is flooded with disinformation, misinformation, "alternative fact," propaganda and marketing spin. The signal to noise ratio of social media far worse than most phenomena in the natural world.Consumers seem increasingly ill-equipped to separate truth from bunk. Good-natured skepticism of the sort Einstein personified can inoculate us against this viral epidemic of fakery.
In honor of Albert, we could refrain from branding those with whom we disagree as villainous traitors without incontrovertible evidence; something done thousands of times an hour on Twitter.Better to go quiet. Think it through. Try an Einsteinian "thought-experiment" in which your challenger is not inherently evil. Realize the tiny dimensions of the human domain. Wonder at the amazing comprehensibility of nature. Marvel at the power of the processes out there. And turn the currently destructive tone of our shared universe inside out.
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Happy birthday, Albert Einstein. We need you right now. (Op-Ed) - Space.com
96 Physics Jokes That Might Give You A Massive Case Of Laughs – Bored Panda
Hear ye, hear ye! The gravity of the matter discussed in this article will be unprecedented! The mass of the topic - insurmountable! The velocity of thoughts spinning in your heart after reading - that of light! The shocking, awe-inspiring, and unbelievable topic is *drum roll* - physics jokes! And here you thought that we were going to be discussing how cute cats are That, of course, is also a case of great mass, but let's leave it for some other time.
So, physics jokes are probably the science jokes that test your smarts the most. To truly understand them, you have to at least know the basic functionalities of our world. For instance, the fact that apples fall down from a tree instead of floating right into the cosmos. Also, it would be good to understand the basic principles of mass, velocity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics, of course. However, even if you're just a physics newbie, we are itching to show you these scientific jokes - we are so sure that you will find them to be a real riot!
Okay, so now it is time for you to gravitate towards the clever jokes we've prepared for you. They are, as per usual, just an atom down below. Once you're there and have checked out the funny jokes, vote for the ones that gave you a massive case of laughs. After all that is done - be sure to share these cool jokes with anyone who will understand their true gravity!
Whats the most terrifying word in nuclear physics?
Oops.
Report
Why is it best to teach physics on the edge of a cliff?
Because thats where students have the most potential.
Report
Why was Heisenbergs wife unhappy?
Because whenever he had the energy, he didnt have the time.
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Have you heard of the physicist who got chilled to absolute zero.
Hes 0K now.
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What a physicist hears when he watches Star Wars:
"May the mass times acceleration be with you!"
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Einstein developed a theory about space.
And it was about time too.
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"I was studying frequency in my physics class. Now my brain Hertz."
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Did you hear about the physicist who was reading a great book on anti-gravity?He couldn't put it down.
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A helium atom walks into a bar.
The barman says: "Sorry, we don't serve noble gas."
The helium atom doesn't react.
Trozuns Report
Do you know why physicists are bad at sex?
Because they cant find the position when they have momentum and when they find a position, they lose the momentum.
justforfunreddit Report
How many general-relativity theoretists does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to hold the bulb and one to rotate space.
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What did the Nuclear Physicist have for lunch?
Fission Chips.
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Schrodinger and Heisenberg were out driving together when they were pulled over by a policeman.The cop walks up to the window and asks, Sir, do you know how fast you were going?Heisenberg replies, No, but I know exactly where I was.The cop is unamused and orders the physicists to open their trunk. He looks in and sees a dead cat.Do you know there is a dead cat in your trunk?Schrodinger replies, Well, I do now!
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Why does a burger have less energy than a steak?
Because its in its ground state.
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Why cant you trust an atom?
They make up everything.
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A neutron walks into a bar and asks, How much for a whiskey? The bartender smiles and says, For you, no charge.
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"I have a new theory on inertia, but it doesnt seem to be gaining momentum."
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What did one electron say to the other electron?
Dont get excited. Youll only get into a state!
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Where does bad light end up?
In prism.
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Why is quantum mechanics the original "original hipster"?
It described the universe before it was cool.
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Why is electricity an ideal citizen?
Because it conducts itself so well.
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A man at a bar tells the bartender, "I'll have some H2O"
The man next to him says, "I'll have some H2O too"
He dies.
pepeGLITCH Report
What do you call 1 kilogram of falling figs?1 Fig Newton.
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A string theorist gets caught cheating on his wife and says, "Wait, I can explain everything."
maxxmotionless Report
Physics is the science where it takes long, complicated equations to explain why round balls roll.
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Old physicists dont die; their wavefunctions go to zero as time goes to infinity.
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Two atoms were walking down the street. One turns to the other and says,Oh, no! I think I lost an electron!
The other responds, Are you sure?!?
Yes, Im positive!
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What did the male magnet say to the female magnet?
"From your backside, I thought you were repulsive. However, after seeing you from the front, I find you rather attractive."
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Whats the difference between an auto mechanic and a quantum mechanic?
The quantum mechanic can get the car inside the garage without opening the door.
Report
How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
Eleven. One to do it and ten to co-author the paper.
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How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
None, astronomers prefer the dark.
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The facts about electricity might shock you.
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Did you hear about the bi-curious physicist?
She performed a double-slit experiment.
Ralphie_V Report
If sound cannot travel in a vacuum, why are vacuums so noisy?
Report
Definition of a tachyon: A gluon that hasnt dried completely.
Alternate definition: A subatomic particle devoid of taste.
Report
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96 Physics Jokes That Might Give You A Massive Case Of Laughs - Bored Panda
CONSTELLATIONS, Second Generation at Shea’s Smith, draws the audience in and holds on to hearts and minds for the full 90 minutes. – Buffalo Rising
THE BASICS: CONSTELLATIONS, a play by Nick Payne, directed by Michael Wachowiak, starring Kristin Bentley as Marianne and Chris Avery as Roland, presented by Second Generation Theatre at Sheas Smith Theatre, opened on March 11 and runs through March 26, Thursdays Fridays at 7:30, Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2.secondgenerationtheatre.com (716) 508-7480 Neither proof of vaccination nor masks required, but are encouraged. Runtime: 90 minutes, no intermission. The full-servicebar opens before and after.
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Roland, a bee-keeper, and Marianne, a physicist, meet randomly at a barbeque and commence an on-again-off-again relationship. Roland likes bees because their lives are rigidly ordered: theres a queen, her drones, and the workers. Each bee knows its job and its lifespan is short. Marianne likes talking about Big Bang Theory topics including quantum mechanics, string theory, and the fact that there are multiple universes where the same action can produce myriad results. In this play, various scenes are repeated and then go in wildly different directions. Towards the end, Roland bargains for more time, but Marianne tells him that: The basic laws of physics dont have a past and a present. Time is irrelevant at the level of atoms and molecules. Its symmetrical. We have all the time weve always had.
THE PLAYERS, THE PLAY, AND THE PRODUCTION: We are in a golden period of post-lockdown theater where local production companies are refreshed and well-rehearsed. I first saw CONSTELLATIONS as a reading offered by Second Generation Theatre back in April of 2019, three years ago, at the time directed by Michael Wachowiak with Kristin Bentley and Ben Michael Moran. In the intervening three years, Chris Avery has come on board while Moran, seen recently on stage at the Irish Classical Theatre, is currently in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE at The Kavinoky Theatre. I admire Moran and Avery both equally. SGT has what in sports is called a deep bench of spectacular talent.
What has changed over the three years? For the most part, its more intense, amplified by the stunning 1-2-3 punches of set, lighting, and sound designed by Chris Cavanagh. The entire play is a series of scenes, getting longer as the play develops, separated by blackouts, and often with otherworldly noises in between. The humor is still there but the anguish of the couple is much more palpable with all the theatrical magic in play.
I was very impressed by the directing of Michael Wachowiak who, as an actor, has been getting stronger by leaps and bounds, but here as the director proves himself equally talented. This play has to be a bear to direct because so many of the scenes seem to repeat themselves before changing direction. Within a few seconds, Wachowiak has to communicate same only different and then do that over and over and over. When you go, look at the faces of both Avery and Bentley. For 90 minutes they may repeat phrases as called for in the script, but they never repeat facial expressions or body language.
I was very impressed by the directing of Michael Wachowiak who, as an actor, has been getting stronger by leaps and bounds, but here as the director proves himself equally talented.
And kids, dont believe everything that you read on the internet. His direction of CONSTELLATIONS is very impressive, but this was NOT (as I saw on one post) his directorial debut! Back in October 2019, he directed the hilarious DISENCHANTED at MusicalFare which I reviewed here.
Fans of the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory or PBSs Nova or any show with Neil DeGrasse Tyson will enjoy this play. There is no mention of Schrodingers Cat, the hypothetical animal which may be simultaneously both aliveanddead as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that mayor may notoccur. However, there are discussions of quantum mechanics, relativity, and then string theory thatattempts to reconcile the previous two. Its heady stuff. There will be a post-show panel following the March 19 performance, but whether you attend that or not, you might want to read the paragraph about String Theory and The Multiverse by UB Physicist Dr. William H. Kinney on page 10 of the CONSTELLATIONS program which is accessible at the theater via QR code or you can see the entire program here.
Dont get me wrong. This is not a science lecture. Its a play. With a dramatic arc and all that good stuff. And, fortunately for us English majors, the play is also about a couple, and love, and anger, and anguish, and all sorts of messy human things.
I would make a real effort to attend.
*HERD OF BUFFALO (Notes on the Rating System)
ONE BUFFALO: This means trouble. A dreadful play, a highly flawed production, or both. Unless there is some really compelling reason for you to attend (i.e. you are the parent of someone who is in it), give this show a wide berth.
TWO BUFFALOS: Passable, but no great shakes. Either the production is pretty far off base, or the play itself is problematic. Unless you are the sort of person whos happy just going to the theater, you might look around for something else.
THREE BUFFALOS: I still have my issues, but this is a pretty darn good night at the theater. If you dont go in with huge expectations, you will probably be pleased.
FOUR BUFFALOS: Both the production and the play are of high caliber. If the genre/content are up your alley, I would make a real effort to attend.
FIVE BUFFALOS: Truly superba rare rating. Comedies that leave you weak with laughter, dramas that really touch the heart. Provided that this is the kind of show you like, youd be a fool to miss it!
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