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Stories about: quantum mechanics


Time Cannot Be Derived from Standard Physics

The nature of time has remained something that has fascinated humans since the dawn of time, and the first division of a day into smaller intervals. Many have wondered about how to split it as accurately as possible, whereas others have been wondering if the concept is derived from physical laws or not. Over the last...

3 November 2009
17:01 GMT

New Attempt for a 'Unified Theory of Everything'

When it comes to explaining the world around us, there are two ways you can go about it. You can either explain how large bodies interact, as in everything from apples and humans to planets and galaxies, or determine the behavior of extremely small, elementary particles, such as photons and electrons. General relativ...

29 October 2009
02:42 GMT

'Common' Technology for Quantum Processors

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors that fit on an average microprocessor will double in size every couple of years, and that the trend will at one point reach a limit that will no longer allow it to continue. Engineers are painfully aware of the fact that semiconductors such as silicon will eventu...

17 October 2009
04:59 GMT

Number of Universes in the Multiverse Calculated

Over recent years, a growing number of astronomers has come to believe that the Big Bang did not create just a single Universe, as in the one we inhabit, but many different ones, which only appear locally uniform. The Multiverse theory is catching wings fast, and physicists have recently taken another step for bringi...

16 October 2009
03:20 GMT

Cesium Atoms Tie Quantum Entanglement to Chaos Theory

According to a new series of scientific experiments, it may be that quantum entanglement, one of the hottest topics in physics today, is connected to the chaos theory. Physicists came to this conclusion after a series of research studies, in which they analyzed the properties and behavior of cesium atoms, under vario...

8 October 2009
01:45 GMT

Quantum Entanglement Proved at the Macroscale

Scientists at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB) have recently managed to demonstrate that the quantum entanglement effect – one of the basic ones in quantum physics – can be observed at a large scale as well, and that it is not necessarily confined to the elementary-particle level. The ...

29 September 2009
06:58 GMT

Macroscopic Electrical Circuit Can Be Quantum System

According to a scientific paper appearing in this issue of the respected scientific journal Nature, experts at the university of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB) have recently managed a remarkable breakthrough in the field of quantum mechanics. They have succeeded in detecting the quantum correlations in the result...

24 September 2009
06:33 GMT

Black Holes Shouldn't Exist

Black holes and space-time singularities have played a hugely important role in explaining some of astronomy's greatest mysteries, but also in popular science-fiction entertainment shows and books. However, the newest model of the Universe, developed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, has no room at all for thi...

22 September 2009
08:53 GMT

New Advancements in Quantum Mechanical Devices

Experts from the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB) have recently announced that they managed to create a new type of circuit that behaves in a quantum mechanic manner. They say that the innovative device does not have the regular two levels of energy, but that it boasts a full five of them. Details of ...

12 August 2009
19:31 GMT

Universal Theory of the Universe in the Works

The General Theory of Relativity, developed by the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein, has been at the forefront of modern physics, describing the way gravity, space and time interact. However, it does not account for the movement of elementary particle. The theory of quantum mechanics was devised around 1920, and e...

10 August 2009
06:46 GMT

Quantum Gods by Victor J. Stenger - Book Review

It was only last night that I finished reading Victor J. Stenger's new book, “Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness,” and, boy, I can tell you for sure that my understanding of quantum physics was a bit off before. In fact, it was not necessarily wrong, as it was featu...

25 July 2009
03:03 GMT

High-Temperature Superconductivity Explained with String Theory

Over the past two decades, string theory has been touted as the best chance physics have of combining quantum mechanics with general relativity. This would essentially set the basis for the long-sought-after Unified Theory of Everything (UTE), which would include all the four essential forces in the Universe – ...

20 July 2009
03:38 GMT

New Tool Finds Quantum Effects in Ordinary Objects

Quantum mechanics and effects were a subject of controversy when they were first proposed, a few decades ago. Now, most scientists agree with the theory, or at least acknowledge it to some extent. However, it's very difficult to prove that atoms exist in two states at the same time, seeing how one of the main de...

23 June 2009
06:01 GMT

'Entanglement' Filter Prepares Photons for Quantum Applications

Bristol University researchers, working in collaboration with colleagues from Japan, have managed to create an 'entanglement' filter so efficient that it can analyze two particles of light (called photons), and determine if they have the same polarization. If they do, they are allowed to go through, because...

23 January 2009
09:47 GMT

Quantum Mechanics Can Levitate Objects

Applied physicists at Harvard University in Massachusetts, led by Federico Capasso, managed to set the groundwork for a new class of tiny electronic devices that will incorporate nanomechanics, to be applied in various areas of next-generation technological development. Basically, the team managed to figure out how t...

8 January 2009
08:26 GMT

Electrons Behave like Photons in Bismuth

Electrons are subatomic elementary particles bearing the negative electric charge inside the atom. In empty space, the motion of the electrons is largely dependent on the presence of electrical and magnetic fields, but inside matter, the way they move is directly related to the atomic arrangement of the crystal, mean...

28 July 2008
06:53 GMT

Cars Could Get a Boost from Thermoelectric Materials

Researchers recently invented a new type of compounds, called thermoelectric materials, which could make internal combustion engines and other devices that lose most of the energy they produce through heat more efficient by directly converting the extra amount of thermal energy into electricity. Thermoelectric materi...

25 July 2008
06:03 GMT

Millimeter-Sized 'Bohr Atom' Is a First

In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed for the first time a model describing the atom as a system inside which the electrons revolve around a central bundle of matter called nucleus, similarly to the way planets in the solar system move around the Sun. Nearly a decade later, Bohr would receive the Nobel Prize ...

1 July 2008
04:43 GMT

Quantum-Entangled Images Created at NIST

Researchers from the Joint Quantum Institute of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology have created quantum images for the first time by making use of a convenient and flexible method of creating twin laser beams. Quantum images are entangled visual patterns capable of storing v...

13 June 2008
04:56 GMT

Casimir Effect Forces Could Levitate People

By harnessing a force that generally makes matter stick together, a team of researchers from the University of St. Andrews that had previously demonstrated that invisibility cloaks could one day be feasible, showed that they can levitate objects by reversing the effects of the Casimir force. The same phenomenon is sa...

5 June 2008
05:48 GMT

Entangled State in Nitrogen Used to Localize Electrons

Atoms are formed of a positively charged nucleus - containing protons and neutrons - and an outer shell of electrons spinning around the nucleus. Now, we know that the nucleus is found in the center of the atom, but individual electrons spinning at high speeds around the nucleus are rather hard to localize, which is ...

16 May 2008
05:07 GMT

"Science without Religion Is Lame, Religion without Science Is Blind"

This is what Albert Einstein wrote in his letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, in response to his receiving the book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt". The letter was written on January 3, 1954, in German, and explains Einstein's personal beliefs regarding religion and the Jewish people; it was put on sa...

14 May 2008
03:52 GMT

The Beginning of the End for Code Breakers

We could say that code breakers saved a lot of lives during World War II by cracking the code of the German military Enigma machine. However, with the arrival of the personal computer and the invention of the Internet, code breaking became mostly a headache as it is mostly used by malevolent individuals in order to s...

30 April 2008
05:10 GMT

Ghostly Images

Although this imaging technique has been around for some time, researchers have yet to find a practical application for it. Now, a new study into the generation of such images may open ways towards applying the technique in satellite imaging through clouds or even smoke. Yanhua Shih from the University of Maryland, a...

24 April 2008
06:27 GMT

Next Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors to Use Squeezed Light

There are quite a few large laser interferometers in the world today, including the two LIGO detectors in the US, specially constructed to test the existence of gravitational waves, distortions in the fabric of space-time determined by gravitational interactions between very massive cosmic bodies, such as the merging...

14 April 2008
04:00 GMT

Entanglement Encodes More Information in Single-Photons

You can't transfer much information with a photon, we've learned that from our experience with today's existing optic communication devices. If a single photon of light is manipulated in a classical way, then photons are not too different from electrons in the matter of information transfer, except may...

24 March 2008
06:15 GMT

NIST Clarifies 'Spooky Action at a Distance'

Entangled photons are basically particles of light with interlinked properties, meaning that the properties of one photon depend on those of a second photon. The study of the interactions that take place between entangled properties may eventually reveal the fundamental concepts of quantum physics. The National Insti...

19 March 2008
07:14 GMT

How Elementary Particles Lose Their Quantum Properties

We live in a highly dynamic universe, no surprise here because, if it wasn't, we probably wouldn't be here at all. However, what is weird is that while at large scale things appear pretty natural to us, at a quantum level interactions between particles look more like stories taken out of a science fiction b...

17 March 2008
07:10 GMT

Faster than Light?

Quantum tunneling represents a quantum mechanics phenomenon, which allows a given particle to violate certain classical mechanics principles. For example, in order to extract an electron from the atom, one must contribute with an input of energy equal to or higher than that of the respective electron. However, quantu...

26 January 2008
06:35 GMT

What to Do with World's Most Accurate Laser?

Most of the problems related to lasers nowadays is the so-called photon noise, which determines fluctuations in the laser beam intensity, due to random quantum mechanics interactions, that ultimately reduces the sensitivity of the device. Physicists from the Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (known as the Al...

26 January 2008
05:23 GMT

Action Doesn't Always Produce Reaction

Newton's third law of motion postulates that any force acting upon a body will produce an opposing force of the same strength acting against the first one. This seems not to be entirely true, as quantum mechanics presents an interesting phenomenon called the Aharonov-Bohm effect.Also known as the Ehrenberg-Siday...

5 December 2007
06:30 GMT

New Technique to Measure Nanoscale Distances

By manipulating a few photons, a team of scientists from Griffith University Center for Quantum Dynamics, has managed to measure a difference in length less than one ten thousandth of a width of a human hair. The principle consists of sending a single photon through the sample which needs to be measured, which will a...

28 November 2007
10:45 GMT


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