General Physics news

Tiny Music Player Made from Wire Bridge (w/ Video)

Physics / General Physics

Nov 04, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (13) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 2008, scientists built a loudspeaker made of carbon nanotubes that produced sound and music based on the thermoacoustic effect. Now, a different team of scientists has built a loudspeaker ...

Capturing those in-between moments: Researchers solves timing problem in molecular modeling

Physics / General Physics

Nov 04, 2009 | 5 / 5 (4) | 0

A theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a method for calculating the motions and forces of thousands of atoms simultaneously over a wider range of time scales ...

Stars Fueled by Dark Matter Could Hold Secrets to the Universe

Physics / General Physics

Nov 03, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (45) | 40

(PhysOrg.com) -- The first stars in the universe may have been very different from the stars we see today, yet they may hold clues to understanding some of the mysterious features of the universe. These "dark ...

Powerful laser sheds light on fast ignition and high energy density physics

Physics / General Physics

Nov 02, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (3) | 0

A new generation of high-energy (>kJ) petawatt (HEPW) lasers is being constructed worldwide to study high intensity laser matter interactions, including fast ignition. Fast ignition is a laser-based technique ...

Superstring theory useful for experimental physics

Physics / General Physics

Oct 30, 2009 | 3.8 / 5 (24) | 9

Superstring theory aims to explain the laws of physics from extremely small strings in various states. Theoretical superstring theory is therefore normally not considered to be particularly relevant for practical ...

Scientists Build First 'Frequency Comb' To Display Visible 'Teeth'

Physics / General Physics

Oct 29, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (15) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Finally, an optical frequency comb that visibly lives up to its name. Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. ...

Tailoring the optical dipole force for use on molecules

Physics / General Physics

Oct 29, 2009 | 3.4 / 5 (5) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- "Scientists have been working with dipole fields for quite some time," Peter Barker tells PhysOrg.com. "However, most of the work is focused on very small particles, like atoms, or on larger particles, such a ...

New technology may cool the laptop, prof says (w/ Video)

Physics / General Physics

Oct 29, 2009 | 3.7 / 5 (6) | 5

Does your laptop sometimes get so hot that it can almost be used to fry eggs? New technology may help cool it and give information technology a unique twist, says Jairo Sinova, a Texas A&M University physics professor.

Dark matter sleuths to design world's largest WIMP catcher

Physics / General Physics

Oct 29, 2009 | 4 / 5 (6) | 0

A team of researchers led by a Case Western Reserve University physicist is planning the world's largest, most sensitive experiment to catch the stuff of dark matter, stuff that's proved way beyond invisible.

Gamma-ray photon race ends in dead heat; Einstein wins this round

Physics / General Physics

Oct 28, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (34) | 61

Racing across the universe for the last 7.3 billion years, two gamma-ray photons arrived at NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope within nine-tenths of a second of one another. The dead-heat finish ...

Harvesting Energy from Natural Motion: Magnets, Cantilever Capture Wide Range of Frequencies

Physics / General Physics

Oct 28, 2009 | 4.1 / 5 (11) | 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- By taking advantage of the vagaries of the natural world, Duke University engineers have developed a novel approach that they believe can more efficiently harvest electricity from the motions ...

Magnetic mixing creates quite a stir (w/ Video)

Physics / General Physics

Oct 27, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (6) | 2

Sandia researchers have developed a process that can mix tiny volumes of liquid, even in complicated spaces.

Students demonstrate flux pinning in low gravity

Physics / General Physics

Oct 27, 2009 | 5 / 5 (7) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Cornell researchers recently tested their work on the mysterious physical phenomenon of flux pinning aboard a near-zero gravity aircraft.

Particles are back in the LHC

Physics / General Physics

Oct 26, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (30) | 3

During the last weekend (23-25 October) particles have once again entered the LHC after the one-year break that followed the incident of September 2008.

Slipper-shaped blood cells

Physics / General Physics

Oct 26, 2009 | 4 / 5 (2) | 0

Red blood cells, which make up 45 percent of blood, normally take the shape of circular cushions with a dimple on either side. But they can sometimes deform into an asymmetrical slipper shape. A team of physicists ...

Scientists use world's fastest supercomputer to model origins of the unseen universe

Physics / General Physics

Oct 26, 2009 | 3.8 / 5 (9) | 5

Understanding dark energy is the number one issue in explaining the universe, according to Salman Habib, of the Laboratory's Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group.

First hyperlens for sound waves created

Physics / General Physics

Oct 25, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (18) | 4

Ultrasound and underwater sonar devices could "see" a big improvement thanks to development of the world's first acoustic hyperlens. Created by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley ...

Highlight: Capturing quasiparticles

Physics / General Physics

Oct 23, 2009 | 4 / 5 (2) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A physics research team from the University of St Andrews and Cornell University in the USA has managed to 'photograph' the traces left by orbiting electrons in a special oxide material, and their observations ...