Physics and Astronomy

This area deals with the fundamental laws and building blocks of nature and how they interact, the properties and the behavior of matter, and research into space and time and their structures.

innovations-report provides in-depth reports and articles on subjects such as astrophysics, laser technologies, nuclear, quantum, particle and solid-state physics, nanotechnologies, planetary research and findings (Mars, Venus) and developments related to the Hubble Telescope.

Duke experiments validate relativity theory’s light speed limit

Addressing a controversy first raised around 1910, two physicists have performed experiments with the aid of an engineer that validate anew the special theory of relativity’s limitations on the speed of light.

In a paper published in the Oct. 16 issue of the research journal “Nature,” the three researchers — Daniel Gauthier and Michael Stenner of Duke University and Mark Neifeld of the University of Arizona -– reached their findings by applying information theory to experiments with la

Grid Technology helps Astronomers keep pace with the Universe

“Intelligent Agent” computer programs are roaming the Internet and watching the skies. It may sound like science fiction, but these programs, using Grid computing technology, will help astronomers detect some of the most dramatic events in the universe, such as massive supernova explosions. The Agents, created by the “eScience Telescopes for Astronomical Research” (eSTAR) project, have been deployed on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. The work is being announced at a conferenc

Only 15 minutes of life, no fame, for lone neutrons

Once freed from its home inside the nucleus of an atom, a neutron lives on average 886.8 seconds (about 14.8 minutes), plus or minus 3.4 seconds, according to recent measurements performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This result, published in the Oct. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters, is the most precise ever achieved using beams of neutrons and is the culmination of almost 10 years of work. The new neutron lifetime value is consistent with physicists’ cur

Researchers Find That Superman’s Teeth Can Superconduct

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that phosphorus, an element commonly found in teeth, can act as a “superconductor” – but you would have to have the strength of Superman to clench your teeth hard enough for it to work – as it happens at a pressure of around 2.5 megabars – some 30,000 times harder than an ordinary human can clench their teeth.

Physicists were aware that lower pressures of around 0.1 megabars could convert the electrically insulating phosphorus to a form whi

Not your father’s periodic table

Revised periodic table slanted toward astronomers

The periodic table isn’t what it used to be, thanks to innovations by a planetary chemist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., Washington University research associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, has evalutated data from numerous studies including her own and arranged the data into a periodic table slanted toward astronomers and cosmochemists. It’s the Cosmochemic

A finite dodecahedral Universe

A franco-american quintet of cosmologists conducted by Jean-Pierre Luminet, from Paris Observatory (LUTH), has proposed an original explanation to account for a surprising detail observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) recently mapped by the NASA satellite WMAP. According to the team, who published their study in the 9 october 2003 issue of “Nature”, an intriguing discrepancy in the background luminous texture of the Universe can indeed be explained by a very specific global shape of space

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