Magnetricity & Magnetic Monopoles become reality

Paul Dirac's prediction of the existence of magnetricity and magnetic monopoles today became a reality with reports emerging of the first confirmed observation of magnetic electricity.

The Times note that:
"Scientists have generated a magnetic version of electricity, which they have called magnetricity. The discovery marks an important advance in theoretical physics. The existence of magnetic “charges” has been predicted for nearly 70 years but has never been observed in practice. The study was led by Professor Steve Bramwell, of the London Centre for Nanotechnology."

Bramwell said: "Magnetic monopoles were first predicted to exist in 1931, but despite many searches, they have never yet been observed as freely roaming elementary particles. These monopoles do at least exist within the spin ice sample, but not outside. It is not often in the field of physics you get the chance to ask 'How do you measure something?' and then go on to prove a theory unequivocally. This is a very important step to establish that magnetic charge can flow like electric charge. It is in the early stages, but who knows what the applications of magnetricity could be in 100 years time."

Source: http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=19302 & http://www.timesonline.co.uk

Dark matter detector? Or amber spyglass?

Science Daily reports that a team of researchers from the University of Zaragoza and IAS, in France has developed a device that can be used in efforts to detect the dark matter of the universe.  The device titled '"scintillating bolometer" uses a crystal so pure it can conduct the energy ostensibly generated when a particle of dark matter strikes the nucleus of one of its atoms.

It is currently being used at the Orsay University Centre in France, where the team is working to optimise the device's light gathering potential. Eduardo García Abancéns notes:

"One of the biggest challenges in physics today is to discover the true nature of dark matter, which cannot be directly observed – even though it seems to make up one-quarter of the matter of the Universe. So we have to attempt to detect it using prototypes such as the one we have developed"

One can't help being reminded of another device created to detect invisible matter.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090925092650.htm

Does the Wave of Expansion Theory spell the end for dark energy?

The controversial 'wave of expansion' theory, gets rid of dark energy, but violates the Copernican Principle in the process. 

Multiple journals reported on this new theory this week, with Seed providing a useful synopsis of the debates:

The crux of the debate is that mathematicians Blake Temple and Joel Smoller have found a theoretical way to explain the observations that led researchers to propose the concept of dark energy. If their solution, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, fits the data, it could provide a way out of the unpalatable notion of a dark-energy-dominated universe.

However, the the largest objection voiced is that this model would require Earth to be at the center of the universe. In other words, it would violate the Copernican principle, which states that the Earth does not have a special, favored place and that the universe is essentially homogeneous.  Lawrence Krauss leads the critics, saying: “I think that these mathematicians might have chosen the beautiful over the true.” 

Source: http://is.gd/4dIJw

Gell-Mann on Endangered Superstring Theorists

"I was a sort of patron of string theory — as a conservationist I set up a nature reserve for endangered superstring theorists at Caltech, and from 1972 to 1984"

A wonderfully insightful and illuminating interview with physics Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann appeared today on the Science website. Just shy of his 80th birthday on September 15, the ever fascinating Gell-Mann spoke about his views on the current situation in particle physics and the interests he continues to pursue in other realms of science.

Source: http://tr.im/yTlA

Quantum manipulation of the flu virus

The New Scientist reports that, "Quantum weirdness could soon invade the living world, if a scheme to give a flu virus a strange double life comes off."

In short, in quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This is called "superposition". The largest objects that have been superposed so far are molecules.  But Oriol Romero-Isart of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and his colleagues hope to prove the concept with the flu virus. By impinging on the virus, it forces it into a superposition of both its ground state and next vibrational energy state. Now the virus should be doing two different things at once.

Interesting. & likely to provide endless fodder for eschatologists and extinction fantasists everywhere.

Source: http://tr.im/yT0Q

Strangelet Danger Diminished. Apparently.

In one of theoretical physics' more baffling logical deductions, Science reports this week that strangelets do not appear to exist on the Moon.  This therefore apparently provides persuasive evidence that they might not in fact exist at all. What an extraordinary deduction. This is a great blow to those who also believe in green cheese which has also been conclusively proven to also not exist on the Moon.

Why on earth were scientists looking for exotic matter in such a domestic place in the first place? It seems a bit like mining for gold in the New Jersey landfill, inevitably not finding it, and then concluding that there is no gold left. Aren't neutron stars a more logical home for strangelets?

Anyway, here's the link to the Science article:

Sources: 

http://www.sciencemag.org

http://is.gd/fWEZ4

Phonon laser: the weirding module of our age?

In a nice example of science-fiction becoming science fact, the "weirding module" described by Frank Herbert in Dune appears to be becoming reality.  The first-ever phonon laser - which uses amplified sound - has been created.

The laser uses phonons - the smallest quantized unit of vibrational energy - and was been created by German and U.S. scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Garching, Germany) and the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California, U.S.A.)

Source: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/full/nphys1367.html & http://tr.im/ynNA

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours is an alliance of songwriters united to write and record catchy pop songs about scientific discoveries. Nearly every day, a new discovery is revealed. Every week, new science art.  Their website not only collects together precious flotsam and jetsam jettisoned from assorted science blogs and RSS feeds, but also acts as a repository for the musical tributes, which obviously, vary dramatically in quality.

Source: guildofscientifictroubadours.com

Sound Black Hole

Israeli physicists have created a unique phenomena - an acoustic black hole. Instead of trapping light in the form of photons (particles of light), the Technion laboratory in Haifa have created an artificial black hole which traps particles of sound - phonons.

The sound black hole was generated in attempt to detect Hawking radiation, the as yet hypothetical radiation proposed by Stephen Hawking more than 30 years ago, which causes black holes to evaporate over time.

Andrew Zimmerman Jones notes that "quantum physics indicates that pairs of "virtual phonons" are constantly being created and destroyed. If one of these pairs forms near the event horizon of the sound black hole, one of the phonons may end up getting pulled into the black hole while the other escapes." This may be the best proof yet that Hawking radiation exists.

Source: http://physicsworld.com
&
http://physics.about.com

Human ear inspires universal radio chip

The IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits report that MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals. 

Devices such as cellphones or FM radios are generally tuned to only a narrow frequency band. The new device is inspired by the network of hairs in the inner ear, which can pick up a wide range of sound frequencies.

One can't help but be reminded of Douglas Kahn's observation in his 2006 paper, Radio was discovered before it was invented (bringing amber to Riga):

"Since we humanoids have pressure-sensitive eardrums rather than electro-sensitive antennae, we must resort to technology. Perhaps it would be different if we had our 16,000-20,000 cochlear hairs growing on the surface of our heads like sideburns, instead of them being immersed in the two ocean shells in our heads, we would have our body's electrical apparatus at a more immediate disposal and be able to hear the electromagnetic class of waves."

Source: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org

Source: http://www.newscientist.com