Physical Review X Does Research on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics Fit into PRX’s Scope? October 24, 2014 The editors and Bill Poirier from Texas Tech University spotlight an original, thought-provoking paper by Hall, Deckert, and Wiseman on foundations of quantum mechanics, Phys. Rev. X, 4, 041013 (2014). PRX Takes on a New Role October 9, 2014 APS Editor in Chief Gene Sprouse discusses the new role of Physical Review X as APS's highly selective and broadly accessible journal, that publishes a small number of key papers from all areas of physics in APS's nonprofit, science-first publishing tradition. Wedding Registries Reveal Migration Paths October 16, 2014 The long-term movement of Korean migrants, as recorded in genealogy books, follows a statistical pattern that combines aspects of both diffusive and convective flows. Synopsis on: Sang Hoon Lee (이상훈) et al. More from Physics
Simple rebuttals to denier talking points — with links to the full climate science « Climate Progress By Joe Romm on December 28, 2010 at 7:15 am "Simple rebuttals to denier talking points — with links to the full climate science" Progressives should know the most commonly used arguments by the disinformers and doubters “” and how to answer them. You should know as much of the science behind those rebuttals as possible, and a great place to start is SkepticalScience.com. BUT most of the time your best response is to give the pithiest response possible, and then refer people to a specific website that has a more detailed scientific explanation with links to the original science. Physicist John Cook has done us a great service by posting good one-line responses, which I repost with links below. Cook explains the origin of these one-liners in his post, “Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line.” Ideas for improvement are very welcome. I forgot to mention, I welcome suggested improvements to any of the one line answers. Note: This is an update of an 8/9/10 CP post.
Fermilab | Newsroom | Press Releases | August 26, 2014: Do we live in a 2-D hologram? Press Release August 26, 2014 Do we live in a 2-D hologram? New Fermilab experiment will test the nature of the universe A unique experiment at the U.S. Much like characters on a television show would not know that their seemingly 3-D world exists only on a 2-D screen, we could be clueless that our 3-D space is just an illusion. Get close enough to your TV screen and you’ll see pixels, small points of data that make a seamless image if you stand back. “We want to find out whether space-time is a quantum system just like matter is,” said Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics and the developer of the holographic noise theory. Quantum theory suggests that it is impossible to know both the exact location and the exact speed of subatomic particles. Essentially, the experiment probes the limits of the universe’s ability to store information. Now operating at full power, the Holometer uses a pair of interferometers placed close to one another. Media contact:
Skeptical Science: Examining Global Warming Skepticism The Feynman Lectures on Physics Breathingearth - CO2, birth & death rates by country, simulated real-time What is this thing called science? | Method As a scientist, Evelyn Fox Keller hated experiments. Today a professor emerita in the History of Science at MIT, she started out her scientific career in theoretical physics before jumping to molecular biology. What got her was the trivial volatility inherent in experimentation. The methods of theoretical physics better suited her. Both theoretical physics and molecular biology are scientific disciplines, but what does it mean that their routes to knowledge can be so different? While the scientific method is routinely described as a linear path from observation to hypothesis to experiment to discovery, the everyday of scientific labor is much less ordered. These ideals also constrain how we define, understand, and talk about science. In creating Method Quarterly, we wanted to bring together scientists, scholars, artists, and writers across the many fractured boundaries of science, to explore the rough edges and fuzzy uncertainties of scientific methods.
Crazy storms highlight the crazy climate mess we’re in A hard snow’s a-gonna fall.Photo: 350.orgIf you were in the space shuttle looking down yesterday, you would have seen a pair of truly awesome, even fearful, sights. Much of North America was obscured by a 2,000-mile storm dumping vast quantities of snow from Texas to Maine — between the wind and snow, forecasters described it as “probably the worst snowstorm ever to affect” Chicago, and said waves as high as 25 feet were rocking buoys on Lake Michigan. Meanwhile, along the shore of Queensland in Australia, the vast cyclone Yasi was sweeping ashore; though the storm hit at low tide, the country’s weather service warned that “the impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations,” especially since its torrential rains are now falling on ground already flooded from earlier storms. We know that the long hours ahead of you are going to be the hardest that you face. You don’t need a Ph.D. to understand what’s happening.
Einstein Papers Project at Caltech FLI - Future of Life Institute Centauri Dreams — Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration Weird things start to happen when you stare into someone's eyes for 10 minutes Giovanni Caputo recruited 20 young adults (15 women) to form pairs. Each pair sat in chairs opposite each other, one metre apart, in a large, dimly lit room. Specifically, the lighting level was 0.8 lx, which Caputo says "allowed detailed perception of the fine face traits but attenuated colour perception." The participants' task was simply to stare into each other's eyes for 10 minutes, all the while maintaining a neutral facial expression. When the 10 minutes were over the participants filled out three questionnaires: the first was an 18-item test of dissociative states; the other two asked questions about their experience of the other person's face (or their own face if they were in the control group). The participants in the eye-staring group said they'd had a compelling experience unlike anything they'd felt before. Caputo thinks the facial hallucinations are a kind of rebound effect, as the participants in the eye-staring group returned to "reality" after dissociating.
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