https://www.europesays.com/us/65945/ Optimizing Diamond as a Quantum Sensor #Physics #Science #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US
#physics
68 posts40 participants0 posts today
Continued thread
#PhysicsFactlet
An improvement over the bisection method is the so-called "false position" method, where instead of dividing the bracket region in two, you cut at the point where the line through the two bracket extremes crosses zero.
A Denver dino museum makes a find deep under own parking lot. Like 'a hole in one from the moon.'
La Grande Dune du Pilat
Southwest of Bordeaux in France stands Europe’s tallest sand dune, La Grande Dune du Pilat. Some 2.7 kilometers long and over 100 meters high, this dune took shape here over thousands of years. It moves inland a few meters every year as winds blowing from the Atlantic push sand up its shallow seaward side to the dune’s crest. There, sand will avalanche down the steeper leeward side, advancing the dune little by little. The dune’s accumulation has not been steady; during cooler and drier times, sand has collected there, but it took warmer and wetter climes to grow the forests that have helped stabilize the soil and build the dune higher. Humanity has played a role as well, at times introducing new tree species to stabilize the dune. (Image credit: W. Liang; via NASA Earth Observatory)
https://www.europesays.com/uk/263889/ Alpha males are rare among our fellow primates: scientists #Materials #Nanotech #Physics #PhysicsNews #Science #ScienceNews #Technology #TechnologyNews #UK #UnitedKingdom #wildlife
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Arp 87: Merging Galaxies from Hubble
* Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://esa.int/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/
* Processing: Harshwardhan Pathak
https://skiesandscopes.com/harshwardhan-pathak/
Explanation:
This dance is to the death. As these two large galaxies duel, a cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust currently stretches over 75,000 light-years and joins them. The bridge itself is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging the galaxies and surrounded by a curious polar ring. Together, the system is known as Arp 87. While such interactions are drawn out over billions of years, repeated close passages will ultimately create one merged galaxy.
Although this scenario does look unusual, galactic mergers are thought to be common, with Arp 87 representing a stage in this inevitable process. The Arp 87 dancing pair are about 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The prominent edge-on spiral galaxy at the far left appears to be a more distant background galaxy and not involved in the on-going merger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arp_87
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/dancing-with-the-stars-takes-on-a-whole-new-twist/
https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/MergeSeq/mergeseq.html
https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/MergeSeq/1996AJv111p655.pdf
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140715.html
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061111.html
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972ApJ...178..623T/abstract
I am almost missing the good old days in which retired engineers or new undercover Einsteins used to sent me their theories of everything (without equations, or with un-intelligible scribbles etc).
Now instead, they send me "their interesting conversations with Grok/ChatGPT" and I just want to cry in despair.
The #AI bubble has even managed to ruin the fun in #retired_engineers, and I cannot forgive the AI hype for this (besides other things).
Continued thread
2025 July 14
NGC 2685: The Helix Galaxy
* Image Credit & Copyright: Stefan Thrun
https://app.astrobin.com/u/Stefan-Harry-Thrun#gallery
Explanation:
What is going on with this galaxy? NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating helix structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the Helix galaxy, the strange, perpendicular rings are easy to trace as they pass in front of the galactic disk, along with other disturbed outer structures. NGC 2685 is about 50,000 light-years across and 40 million light-years away in the constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major).
https://app.astrobin.com/i/3a3kzg?r=B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2685
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009A%26A...494..489J/abstract
https://science.nasa.gov/universe/galaxies/types/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190325.html
https://mathinsight.org/applet/parametrized_helix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major
TOPIC> Polar Ring Galaxies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A polar-ring galaxy is a type of galaxy with an outer ring of gas and stars that rotates over the poles of the galaxy. These polar rings are thought to form when two galaxies gravitationally interact with each other. One possibility is that a material is tidally stripped from a passing galaxy to produce the polar ring. The other possibility is that a smaller galaxy collides orthogonally with the plane of rotation of the larger galaxy, with the smaller galaxy effectively forming the polar-ring structure.
The best-known polar-ring galaxies are S0s (lenticular galaxies), but from the physical point of view they are part of a wider category of galaxies, including several ellipticals.
The first four S0 galaxies that were identified as polar-ring galaxies were NGC 2685, NGC 4650A, A 0136 -0801, and ESO 415 -G26. While these galaxies have been extensively studied, many other polar-ring galaxies have since been identified. Polar-ring S0 galaxies may be found around 0.5% of all nearby lenticular galaxies, and it is possible that 5% of lenticular galaxies may have had polar rings at some point during their lifetimes.
The first polar-ring elliptical galaxies were identified in 1978. They were NGC 5128, NGC 5363, NGC 1947 and Cygnus A, while the polar-ring S0 galaxies NGC 2685 and NGC 4650A were at that time indicated as resulting from similar formation processes. Only some years later, when the first observations of the stellar and gas motion of polar-ring elliptical and S0 galaxies were possible with a better spectroscopic technology, the external origin of the gaseous rings was clarified. In addition to the best-known example, NGC 5128 (Cen A), a very regular polar ring elliptical, is NGC 5266.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_660_Polar_Galaxy_Gemini_Observatory.jpg
A Century of Quantum Mechanics
https://home.cern/news/news/physics/century-quantum-mechanics
CERNA century of quantum mechanicsJust 100 years ago, on 9 July 1925, Werner Heisenberg wrote a letter to his friend, colleague and fiercest critic, Wolfgang Pauli. A few weeks earlier, Heisenberg had returned from the North Sea outpost of Helgoland, where he had laid the foundations of modern quantum mechanics and changed our understanding of the atomic world. The letter, preserved in the Wolfgang Pauli Archive at CERN, reveals Heisenberg’s efforts to liberate physics from the semi-classical picture of atoms as planetary systems, with electrons in orbit around the nucleus. “All of my pitiful efforts are directed at completely killing off the concept of orbits – which, after all, cannot be observed – and replacing it with something more suitable,” he explains in his letter to Pauli. By sweeping away the old interpretation, Heisenberg could focus on building a more coherent model, based purely on what the experiments were observing. Attached to the letter was the draft of Heisenberg’s famous Umdeutung paper, which was received for publication a few weeks later, and which is often considered as the birth certificate of modern quantum theory. In the following months, Max Born, Pascual Jordan and Wolfgang Pauli himself helped turn Heisenberg’s work into matrix mechanics, the first mature formulation of quantum theory. Today, those early reflections underlie the most precise framework in the history of science: the Standard Model of particle physics. Experiments at CERN keep pushing it to extreme regimes, and time and again, it proves astonishingly accurate. To celebrate 100 years of quantum mechanics, the CERN Courier looks back at the impact of this theory and examines how it keeps delivering new puzzles, experimental ideas and technologies. For instance, quantum sensors may soon extend their reach from low- to high-energy applications, while quantum simulations could help overcome the limits of classical computing in describing extreme environments and complex systems. Theoretical and philosophical considerations, too, are far from exhausted. Despite its empirical power, there is still no consensus about quantum theory’s true meaning. What guides the emergence of our classical world? Is the wavefunction a real entity, a representation of the observer’s knowledge or an artifact we should abandon altogether? Should we think of measurement apparatus and observers as quantum objects? Heisenberg himself was cautious yet hopeful, writing to Pauli: “Perhaps people who can do more, will be able to make sense of it.” A century on, physicists are still working to fulfil that dream. Whatever the last word may be, one thing is certain: the conversation sparked on Helgoland is far from over. Read the new issue of the CERN Courier magazine and its special report on 100 years of quantum physics. Explore the Wolfgang Pauli Archive. Lieber Pauli... Read the translation of the letter sent by Werner Heisenberg to Wolfgang Pauli on 9 July 1925. The original letter is preserved in CERN’s Wolfgang Pauli Archive. Dear Pauli, If you believe that I read your letter laughing mockingly, then you are gravely mistaken; quite the contrary – since Helgoland, my views on mechanics have become more radical with each passing day, and it is my firm conviction that Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom, in its present form, is no better than Landé’s theory of the Zeeman effect. However, on certain points we do not agree. (Your argument against mechanical orbits in H on account of the sum rules was already known to me; we discussed it with you once in Copenhagen, if I am not mistaken. And I fully agree, should you wish to deduce from it that m must take half-integer values.) But I do not know what you mean by orbits “falling into the nucleus.” Surely we are agreed that even the kinematics of quantum theory is wholly different from that of classical mechanics (the hν relation!). I therefore see no geometrically intelligible or controllable meaning in the notion of “falling into the nucleus.” It is, in fact, my sincere conviction that any interpretation of the Rydberg formula in terms of circular or elliptical orbits within classical geometry possesses not the slightest physical significance, and my entire pitiful effort is directed at exterminating the concept of orbits – after all, they cannot be observed – and replacing them with something more appropriate. For this reason, I take the liberty of simply sending you the manuscript of my work. I believe that at least the critical, that is to say, the negative portion contains real physics. I do feel terribly guilty, however, for having to ask you to return the manuscript within two or three days, as I should like either to complete it during the last days of my stay here – or to burn it. As for my own opinion of this scribbling, with which I am not at all satisfied: I am firmly persuaded of the value of the negative and critical part, but I regard the positive part as rather formal and poor. Still, perhaps those more capable than I may yet make something sensible of it. So I would ask that you concentrate primarily on the introduction as you read. Regarding the final point of your letter: I did not mean to say that the intensity of the 2536 line is 1/30 – that value has, after all, been measured. What I meant was rather this: the 2p² → 2s transition, which is almost solely responsible for the splitting of the 2p² level, when one attempts to interpret the Hanle splitting, appears to amount to roughly 1/30, which to my mind does not seem in agreement with the spectrum. Now then, I beg you once more for sharp criticism and the swift return of the paper! Many greetings to the entire Institute! W. Heisenberg
https://www.europesays.com/uk/263074/ Scientists Say Earth May Be Trapped Inside a Huge, Strange Void #Physics #Science #UK #UnitedKingdom
Whatever would Hugh Everett think?
Debunk yourself
Debunk yourself
If you don't debunk yourself, nobody gonna give a good cahoot na na na na
Debunk yourself
I did, and I'm now a triathlete! 
https://www.europesays.com/uk/262085/ Elephants gesture with an intention to communicate their desires, study finds #Materials #Nanotech #Physics #PhysicsNews #Science #ScienceNews #Technology #TechnologyNews #UK #UnitedKingdom #wildlife
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2025 July 13
Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula
* Image Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Sahai (JPL) et al., Hubble Heritage Team
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://www.esa.int/https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Sahai/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
Explanation:
Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.
https://esahubble.org/news/heic0101/
https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/the-ant-nebula-menzel-3-fiery-lobes-protrude-from-dying-sun-like-star/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mz_3
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AJ....128.1694G/abstract
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap971106.html
TIL about the super cool phenomenon of supercooled freeze pop popsicles when my son took one out of the freezer in a still liquid form and we watched it crystalize after he squeezed it. Physics is amazing!
Lithuania bids to save Baltic seals as ice sheets recede https://www.byteseu.com/1188958/ #Lithuania #Materials #Nanotech #Physics #PhysicsNews #Science #ScienceNews #Technology #TechnologyNews
It's "bullshit."
This is what you miss out on by not taking college courses. Cursing lecturers. Also, ones who write inordinately long proofs and then get lost in them, so they dismiss the class to try to figure out where life went wrong for them. This actually happened in a community college algebra class for a very simple concept, which the lecturer had a very long and inelegant proof of.
https://www.europesays.com/us/60576/ Elephants gesture with an intention to communicate their desires, study finds #Materials #Nanotech #Physics #PhysicsNews #Science #ScienceNews #Technology #TechnologyNews #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US #Wildlife
Happy Space Science Saturday! Did you know that today Saturn begins its retrograde motion? Normally, Saturn moves eastward against the background of stars, but during retrograde it appears to pivot and move westward through the constellations. This apparent backward motion isn’t because Saturn actually reverses its orbit, but rather because of Earth’s own motion around the Sun. As Earth passes Saturn in its orbit, our changing perspective makes Saturn appear to move backward in the night sky.
#Orbit #Retrograde #Saturn #SpaceExploration #Space #Astronomer #Astronomy #SpaceScienceSaturday #YorkU #Observatory #AllanICarswellObservatory #Stargazing #YorkUniverse #Telescope #Planets #Stars #Science #Physics #Toronto #YorkUObservatory #AICO #Cosmos #LearnAstronomy #SpaceFacts
#Orbit #Retrograde #Saturn #SpaceExploration #Space #Astronomer #Astronomy #SpaceScienceSaturday #YorkU #Observatory #AllanICarswellObservatory #Stargazing #YorkUniverse #Telescope #Planets #Stars #Science #Physics #Toronto #YorkUObservatory #AICO #Cosmos #LearnAstronomy #SpaceFacts