It’s a well-known fact that light slows down in water or glass, or any other transparent medium. Even more interestingly, after leaving that medium, it goes back to its original speed. Yes, it speeds up! But, how could that happen? Why does light slow down in water or glass, and why and how does it increase its speed once it left the medium? Where does that extra energy come which speeds it up again?
In the history of science and physics, several scholars, theories, and equations have become household names. In terms of scientists, notable examples include Pythagoras, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Planck, and Hawking. In terms of theories, there’s Archimede’s “Eureka,” Newton’s Apple (Universal Gravitation), and Schrodinger’s Cat (quantum mechanics). But the most famous and renowned is arguably Albert Einstein, Relativity, and the famous equation, E=mc2. In fact, Relativity may be the best-known scientific concept that few people truly understand.
In this video, Carl Sagan rides a bicycle and talks about the speed of light. “Something funny happens at the speed of light”.
Quasicrystals are among the newest and most exciting discoveries in the wider field of materials physics – but to date, many aspects of their exotic physical properties remain entirely unexplored. Since soon after their initial discovery, Dr. Zbigniew Stadnik at the University of Ottawa has made important contributions to our understanding of quasicrystals, including their magnetic and electronic characteristics. Building on his decades of experience in the field, he now hopes to gain a complete understanding of the fundamental properties of these materials – potentially opening up a broad new range of real-world applications.
Scientists from the University of Bremen set a new low-temperature record. They cooled matter in a tower to an extremely low temperature: 38 trillionths of a degree warmer than absolute zero which is -273.15°C (-459.67°F). Nowhere in the universe can be any colder, so the coldest place in the Universe moves back on Earth again.
This short video titled “how orbits work” beautifully explains what is an orbit and what you should do to enter into a stable one around Earth, or any other celestial body.
Freeman Dyson, the English-born American theoretical physicist, and mathematician who imagined a hypothetical alien megastructure called “Dyson Sphere” died on February 28, 2020. Freeman was 96 years old.
A good rule of thumb: if you see a headline saying something “breaks the laws of physics” (i.e. the “Impossible Engine”) the headline is flat-out wrong.
What would happen if you stuck your body inside a particle accelerator? The scenario seems like the start of a bad Marvel comic, but it happens to shed light on our intuitions about radiation, the vulnerability of the human body, and the very nature of matter. Particle accelerators allow physicists to study subatomic particles by speeding them up in powerful magnetic fields and then tracing the interactions that result from collisions. By delving into the mysteries of the Universe, colliders have entered the Zeitgeist and tapped the wonders and fears of our age.
What if we fill a crater on the moon with water? Can we create a lake on the moon? Would the water stay in this artificial lake?