Lifeboat Foundation

Measurements of the magnetic moment of the electron have achieved unprecedented accuracy, showing great potential for the search for physics beyond the standard model.

Despite its remarkable successes, the standard model of particle physics clearly isn’t complete—dark matter, dark energy, and the matter–antimatter asymmetry of the Universe are some of its most flagrant deficiencies. Experimenters thus eagerly search for anomalies that could provide hints on a theory that could complete or replace the standard model. The electron is a key player in this quest: its magnetic moment is both the most precisely measured elementary-particle property and the most accurately verified standard model prediction to date. New measurements by Gerald Gabrielse’s group at Northwestern University in Illinois [1] have determined the value of the electron’s magnetic moment 2.2 times more accurately than the previous best estimate, which was obtained in 2008 [2].

That’s exactly what researchers in Germany set out to do, making use of “acoustic holograms” to form distinct 3D shapes out of particles suspended in water — all in “one shot,” said study lead author Kai Melde, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute, in a press release.

According to a study on the work, published last week in the journal Science Advances, the researchers were able to create a helix and a figure 8 out of silica gel beads, assembled biological cells into spherical clumps, and even provided a compelling concept for forming the shape of a dove in future experiments.

These acoustic holograms work by cleverly manipulating the pressure exerted by high frequency ultrasonic waves via the inexpensive use of a conventionally 3D-printed plate.

Quantum mechanics is simultaneously beautiful and frustrating.

Its explanatory power is unmatched. Armed with the machinery of quantum theory, we have unlocked the secrets of atomic power, divined the inner workings of chemistry, built sophisticated electronics, discovered the power of entanglement, and so much more. According to some estimates, roughly a quarter of our world’s GDP relies on quantum mechanics.

Yet despite its overwhelming success as a framework for understanding what nature does, quantum mechanics tells us very little about how nature works. Quantum mechanics provides a powerful set of tools for successfully making predictions about what subatomic particles will do, but the theory itself is relatively silent about how those subatomic particles actually go about their lives.

QuEra Computing, maker of the world’s first and only publicly accessible neutral-atom quantum computer—Aquila—today announces its research team has uncovered a method to perform a wider set of optimization calculations than previously known to be possible using neutral-atom machines.

The findings are the work of QuEra researchers and collaborators from Harvard and Innsbruck Universities: Minh-Thi Nguyen, Jin-Guo Liu, Jonathan Wurtz, Mikhail D. Lukin, Sheng-Tao Wang, and Hannes Pichler.

“There is no question that today’s news helps QuEra deliver value to more partners, sooner. It helps bring us closer to our objectives, and marks an important milestone for the industry as well,” said Alex Keesling, CEO at QuEra Computing. “This opens the door to working with more corporate partners who may have needs in logistics, from transport and retail to robotics and other high-tech sectors, and we are very excited about cultivating those opportunities.”

In this video students of the Maastricht Science Program NanoBiology Course 2020, show their explanation of the SARS-CoV-2 viral budding. Using CellPAINT, UCFS Chimera and their creativity they explain the nanobiology of how the SARS-CoV-2 virion can bud and leave the cell.

Viruses are not living things. They are just complicated assemblies of molecules, in particular macromolecules such as proteins, oligonucleotides, combined with lipids and carbohydrates. A virus cannot function or reproduce by itself. It needs a host cell.

Continue reading “Viral Budding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — NanoBiology Course 2020 — Tuesday Group” »

Research in fundamental science has revealed the existence of quark-gluon plasma (QGP)—a newly identified state of matter—as the constituent of the early universe. Known to have existed a microsecond after the Big Bang, the QGP, essentially a soup of quarks and gluons, cooled down with time to form hadrons like protons and neutrons—the building blocks of all matter.

One way to reproduce the extreme conditions prevailing when QGP existed is through relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In this regard, particle accelerator facilities like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have furthered our understanding of QGP with experimental data pertaining to such collisions.

Meanwhile, theoretical physicists have employed multistage relativistic hydrodynamic models to explain the data, since the QGP behaves very much like a perfect fluid. However, there has been a serious lingering disagreement between these models and data in the region of low transverse momentum, where both the conventional and hybrid models have failed to explain the particle yields observed in the experiments.

Quantum Mechanics is the science behind nuclear energy, smart phones, and particle collisions. Yet, almost a century after its discovery, there is still controversy over what the theory actually means. The problem is that its key element, the quantum-mechanical wave function describing atoms and subatomic particles, isn’t observable. As physics is an experimental science, physicists continue to argue over whether the wave function can be taken as real, or whether it is just a tool to make predictions about what can be measured—typically large, “classical” everyday objects.

The view of the antirealists, advocated by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and an overwhelming majority of physicists, has become the orthodox mainstream interpretation. For Bohr especially, reality was like a movie shown without a film or projector creating it: “There is no quantum world,” Bohr reportedly affirmed, suggesting an imaginary border between the realms of microscopic, “unreal” quantum physics and “real,” macroscopic objects—a boundary that has received serious blows by experiments ever since. Albert Einstein was a fierce critic of this airy philosophy, although he didn’t come up with an alternative theory himself.

For many years only a small number of outcasts, including Erwin Schrödinger and Hugh Everett populated the camp of the realists. This renegade view, however, is getting increasingly popular—and of course triggers the question of what this quantum reality really is. This is a question that has occupied me for many years, until I arrived at the conclusion that quantum reality, deep down at the most fundamental level, is an all-encompassing, unified whole: “The One.”

One of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity’s most fascinating predictions is the possibility of black holes, which are created after a massive star reaches the end of its life and collapses. Supermassive black holes as big as 100,000 or ten billion times the Sun are commonly found at the center of most galaxies.

Those are the biggest form of black holes, but it is also thought that primordial black holes (PBHs) also exist. Unlike the big ones, these tiny black holes emerged in the early cosmos through the gravitational collapse of extraordinarily dense areas.

face_with_colon_three year 2017 This is essentially a light based battery 🔋 😳

Device running on atoms, not electrons, could power atom-based circuits.