News tagged with physical review
Research sheds new light on neutron stars (w/ Video)
Nov 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Research by Michigan State University scientists has shed new light on the properties of neutron stars, galactic oddities that are formed when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses.
Flipping a photonic shock wave
Nov 02, 2009 |
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A team of physicists has directly observed a reverse shock wave of light in a specially tailored structure known as a left-handed metamaterial. Although it was first predicted over forty years ago, this is ...
Creating a six-qubit cluster state
Nov 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Many scientists believe that quantum entanglement is required in order for effective quantum computing. Entanglement takes place when there is a connection that exists between two objects - even when they ...
Superstring theory useful for experimental physics
Oct 30, 2009 |
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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 ...
Tailoring the optical dipole force for use on molecules
Oct 29, 2009 |
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(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 ...
Slipper-shaped blood cells
Oct 26, 2009 |
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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 solve decade-long mystery of nanopillar formations
Oct 22, 2009 |
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Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have uncovered the physical mechanism by which arrays of nanoscale pillars can be grown on polymer films with very high precision, in potentially limitless ...
Study Shows Time Traveling May Not Increase Computational Power
Oct 22, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- For more than 50 years, physicists have been intrigued by the concept of closed time-like curves (CTCs). Because a CTC returns to its starting point, it raises the possibility of traveling backward in time. ...
The Physics Of A Bump In A Rug
Oct 20, 2009 |
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Scientists often have to make sacrifices for their work. Physicist Dominic Vella chopped his bathroom rug into strips, and L. Mahadevan's coauthor ran off with his bookshelf. With these sacrifices, these two ...
Running electronics using light
Oct 19, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- "If you open up almost any electronic gadget, you will see various elements that operating using electric circuitries," Nader Engheta tells PhysOrg.com. "Many of them have different functi ...
Fish Sense Other Fish Via Ripples
Oct 15, 2009 |
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Although humans experience their world through vision, touch and the other senses, many creatures gather information about their surroundings through unique sensory mechanisms that humans don’t have.
Do lava lamps and actual lava share similar characteristics?
Oct 14, 2009 |
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When Imre Jánosi's teenage daughter asked him how her new lava lamp worked, she probably expected a quick explanation. But her innocent question sent Jánosi, a physicist at Loránd ...
How Perfect Can Graphene Be?
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Oct 13, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have investigated the purest graphene to date, and have found that the material possesses unprecedented high electronic quality. The discovery has raised the bar for this relatively ...
Atomtronic transistor and diode could advance quantum computing
Oct 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- What if atoms could be used to perform the functions currently the province of electronic devices? The goal of atomtronics is to do just that by creating analogues to the common items found in electronic ...
Quantum computing may actually be useful, after all
Oct 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In recent years, quantum computers have lost some of their luster. In the 1990s, it seemed that they might be able to solve a class of difficult but common problems — the so-called NP-complete ...
