numbers-and-particles
How To Travel 400,000 Miles On a Drop of Fuel
The current rage in space technology is building very small satellites, tiny little guys that can do big work/research while weighing anywhere from 1 to 10 kg. The thing is, unless they're carrying human beings and all of their attendant life-support...
At Fermilab, Imagining Neutrinos As Light-Speed Carrier Pigeons
It's safe to say that a whole lot more of the world knows what a neutrino is -- or at least that it exists -- than just a year ago.
The $8 Billion iPod: Rhapsody Founder Rob Reid on How Copyright Math Doesn't Add Up
The inevitable backlash over the online uprisings that foiled controversial pro-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA earlier this year is slowly rising to a boil. Last week, the content industries managed to strike a "backroom deal":https://www.eff.org...
Behold Ye! Einstein Declared the Winner of the Quantum Feud After 80 Years
Scientific history is a gem mine when it comes to feuds of the great minds: "Tesla and Edison":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents, "Oppenheimer and Teller":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/3/7/motherboard-tv-doctor-teller-s-strange-loves-from...
We May Soon Know Why Antimatter Lets the Universe Exist
It wouldn't take very much antimatter to do it. A collision of matter and antimatter is a perfect release of energy, while most of the things we do to release energy from matter are very far from perfect. That matter-antimatter annihilation should give...
Time Is an Arrow That Is Anarchy and Death (Video)
Time exists because things in the universe tend toward more disordered states, or increased entropy. That's the only reason it exists. Every law of physics works both ways through time, except this one, which is really just basic probability. The odds...
Those Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Measurements Were Probably Wrong, Again Proving Science's Awesomeness
First of all, there's really no way measurements "taken last year":http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/11/20/sorry-einstein-neutrinos-are-still-going-faster-than-light-at-opera--2 that appeared to show neutrinos going faster than light were right. Special...
Forget Wires, the Future of Electricity Is in 3D Shapes
_This month’s Learnin’ Corner, courtesy of Motherboard's granddad Vice, is an explanation of topological matter in optical lattices by University of Pittsburgh associate professor of physics W. Vincent Liu, whose paper “Topological Matter in Optical...
Is Our Universe Leaking Matter?
Maybe, though it's not doing it very fast and the chances of proving it are pretty slim. But it's fun to think about. The idea is that if you generate a strong enough magnetic potential in a region of space, matter might bolt to another universe...
The Quantum Supercomputers of the Future Will Be the Dumbest Computers Ever Created, and the Best
Right now, we can do quantum computations at a very small scale. We've been able to create entangled systems of up to eight qubits, which in the scale of practical computing is infinitesimal. But in the grand scheme, is pretty amazing. Remember that in...
A Very Simple Explanation of How to Catch a Higgs Boson, If It Actually Exists (Video)
In December, scientists at CERN moved "closer":http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16158374 to nabbing the Higgs, the particle that is thought to explain what gives everything mass. Or to not finding it at all. In his latest video update...
What Is Half An Electron?
Dunno! Electrons are supposed to be indivisible. An electron, that crucial particle the joins up with protons and neutrons into atoms and makes electricity, magnetism, and thermal conductivity possible, is basically a space of infinitely inward...