In 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: "Has man's conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?" ...
Space Exploration
Dec 5, 2023
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1
I'm sure many readers of Universe Today are, like me, fans of the science fiction genre. From the light sabers of "Star Wars" to the neuralyzer of "Men in Black," science fiction has crazy inventions aplenty and once science ...
Space Exploration
Nov 28, 2023
5
14
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, Germany, have shown that a previously demonstrated ability to turn on superconductivity with a laser beam can be integrated ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 13, 2023
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75
The theory of relativity is at once simple and elegant but also maddeningly nonintuitive. There's no need to get into the full guts and glory of that theory here, but there is one feature of Einstein's work that takes center ...
General Physics
Nov 10, 2023
45
117
This week, researchers proved empirically that life isn't fair. Also, you'll notice that, in a superhuman display of restraint, I managed to write a paragraph about the simulated universe hypothesis without once referencing ...
NASA has succeeded in re-establishing full contact with Voyager 2 by using its highest-power transmitter to send an "interstellar shout" that righted the distant probe's antenna orientation, the space agency said Friday.
Space Exploration
Aug 4, 2023
2
5275
A counterintuitive facet of the physics of photon interference has been uncovered by three researchers of Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. In an article published this month in Nature Photonics, they have proposed ...
Optics & Photonics
Jun 15, 2023
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227
The theory of relativity works well when you want to explain cosmic-scale phenomena—such as the gravitational waves created when black holes collide. Quantum theory works well when describing particle-scale phenomena—such ...
Quantum Physics
May 17, 2023
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1077
Whenever SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's linear accelerator is on, packs of around a billion electrons each travel together at nearly the speed of light through metal piping. These electron bunches form the accelerator's ...
General Physics
May 1, 2023
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65
Photonic chips have revolutionized data-heavy technologies. On their own or in concert with traditional electronic circuits, these laser-powered devices send and process information at the speed of light, making them a promising ...
Optics & Photonics
May 1, 2023
0
228
