Physics

Birds might actually be using quantum mechanics to find their way through the skies

Finally a story about birds that doesn’t involve them falling out of the sky. We know that robins, like many other animals, uses the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, but we don’t know how. The answer could be quantum mechanics. Although birds are probably the most famous magnetic navigators, the technique of sensing subtle variations…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jan 9

Because Watching These Ball Shaped Objects Bounce and Break Is Beautiful

GE is trying to explain the breakthrough of capturing lost energy and something called dynamic braking. I would care, but watching an egg, christmas ornament, water balloon, and watermelon fall in succession (and slow motion!) has me mesmerized. It’s…beautiful. Watch it. Okay, now that my mind is off balls (did you see that water balloon…

Physics & Chemistry Casey Chan Jan 7

Scientists may have found a new state of matter

After seven years of work, scientists have created an “equilibrium gel.” Soon, it could be in everything from nanotech to medicinal drugs. It doesn’t matter if we’re born into high society or into humble circumstances. It doesn’t matter if we’re good or evil. It doesn’t matter what we do, or where we go. At some…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 5

The thermodynamics of rubber bands

Heating generally expands a substance. Yet if you heat up rubber bands, they shrink — and when they’re stretched they get hotter. What’s going on? When things are heated, they spread out. Whether it’s water, turning to steam and spreading through the atmosphere, gas heating and pushing against the sides of its container, or a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 5

How does a homemade Rorschach mask change color?

You’ve seen the video of how to make a Rorschach mask. (If you haven’t, it’s under the cut.) How does the paint change color? There’s a youtube video going around showing a gentleman, who heavily namedrops a site selling thermochromic paint, showing its watchers how to use that thermochromic paint to make a real Rorschach…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 4

How mood rings work

Mood rings famously are meant to change color to reflect the mood of the wearer. Some are cheap and ugly. Some are expensive and set in precious metal. All work using the same mechanics. Mood rings first became a fad in the seventies. The rings consisted of circular ‘stones’ set on metal bands. The stones…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 3

This really could be the year we find the elusive Higgs Boson

“If nature is kind to us, we will find it next year.” That’s one physicist’s bold prediction for when the Large Hadron Collider will detect the long-awaited Higgs Boson, the missing particle of the standard model of physics. According to CERN physicist Christoph Rembser, 2011 might actually be the year that we discover the Higgs…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jan 2

A sober call for scientific accountability

A recent post on pubmed has stirred my ire, and forced me to confront today’s approach to science. No longer can we sit back, hiding behind computer models. It’s time for experimentation. Today, hard work and elbow grease don’t get you very far. Not when you have to come up against flashy tech and untestable…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 31

Why aren’t galaxies evenly distributed throughout the universe?

Monday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was this beautiful shot of the nearest 1.5 million (or so) galaxies, as mapped by the 2-Micron All-Sky Survey, with ours shaded in blue. How did the galaxies end up clustered together like that? If you’re an astrophysicist, you might look at the above image and ask yourself how…

io9 Ethan Siegel - Starts With A Bang Dec 31

Blast-Proof Glass Brings Us One Step Closer to Transparisteel

A construction material that’s stronger than steel but perfectly transparent is a classic sci-fi invention, and a research team at the University of Missouri is bringing it a little closer to reality with their blast-resistant glass. We already have blast-resistant glass, but it has a serious design flaw – it has to be made extremely…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Dec 29

How can I be a more awesome crackpot?

Have you resolved this New Year to reveal your Theory of Everything to the scientific world, but aren’t sure how to do it in a maximally off-putting and confusing way? In this week’s “Ask a Physicist,” we’ll find out how. Top image: Vlue, via Shutterstock. Let me begin by saying that the vast, vast majority…

io9 Dr. Dave Goldberg Dec 29

A Guide to Bad Space Science In Movies

Sorry to ruin your enjoyment of Mission to Mars—or, fine, Aliens and Star Wars—but it joins a host of sci-fi movies that just can’t quite get their space science right. Here are the most common offenses and offenders. You’ll note that The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, the two movies that are based on actual…

Space & Spaceflight Brian Barrett Dec 28

Take a Journey Through Time and Space in 3D

Einstein. Worm holes. Black holes. Galaxies. Gas giants. This is precisely the stuff I want to see in 3D. The fact that it’s set to some thumping Benny Benassi remix certainly doesn’t hurt matters either. [YouTube]

Space & Spaceflight Kyle VanHemert Dec 22

Science reveals how many items you can pack into a single stocking

In experiments with M&Ms and D&D dice, our intrepid researchers push the barriers of densely-packed packages. And fail. But at least they discover the ideal shape for packing the maximum number of objects into a stocking. Every Christmas, parents are not only driven batty trying to hunt down intentionally rare toys and figure out which…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 21

Non-Newtonian fluids: For when you want a liquid that’s also a solid

The harder they’re hit, the stronger they are. They stop bullets and let people walk on custard. They’re non-newtonian fluids. Here’s a tip for obsessive lovers, smothering parents, and over-friendly friends; If anyone tells you that if you love something you should set it free, show them a non-newtonian fluid. Hold it lightly, and it…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 20

Loop quantum gravity could unite physics and take us back to the Big Bang

General relativity and quantum mechanics are the twin foundations of modern physics, but there’s a problem: they’re mutually exclusive, at least according to our current understanding. A new model using loop quantum gravity might have the beginnings of a solution. Relativity holds that reality is uniquely determined and always measurable, whereas quantum mechanics tells us…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 19

Does our universe show “bruises” where it collided with other universes?

The eternal inflation model says that there’s an infinite number of universes, with new universes constantly popping into existence and expanding outwards. Every so often, these new universes might collide. Our universe has four “bruises” possibly caused by these collisions. We’ve already found possible evidence of a universe before the Big Bang in the cosmic…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 17

How to take a molecule’s temperature

Although they can’t stick the thermometer any of the usual places, researchers have found a way to take the temperature of a single molecule. How? A ray of light. Heat is a simple concept and a different measurement. When we measure heat, we measure a particular part of an object’s energy. Specifically we measure the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 17

String theory fails first major experimental test

String theory is one of the more popular candidates to combine quantum mechanics and relativity into a grand unified theory. But it had remained completely untestable until recent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. The early results don’t look good. A few years ago, a group of physicists came up with an ingenious way to…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 16

What the hell is spin?

In this week’s “Ask a Physicist” we get a little salty and explore the ins and outs of quantum spin. Also, why your intuition will betray you at the slightest provocation and why it’s awesome to be made of fermions. This week’s question was put to me by Peder Norrby (who has sent a lot…

io9 Dr. Dave Goldberg Dec 16

Birds might actually be using quantum mechanics to find their way through the skies

Because Watching These Ball Shaped Objects Bounce and Break Is Beautiful

Scientists may have found a new state of matter

The thermodynamics of rubber bands

How does a homemade Rorschach mask change color?

How mood rings work

This really could be the year we find the elusive Higgs Boson

A sober call for scientific accountability

Why aren’t galaxies evenly distributed throughout the universe?

Blast-Proof Glass Brings Us One Step Closer to Transparisteel

How can I be a more awesome crackpot?

A Guide to Bad Space Science In Movies

Take a Journey Through Time and Space in 3D

Science reveals how many items you can pack into a single stocking

Non-Newtonian fluids: For when you want a liquid that’s also a solid

Loop quantum gravity could unite physics and take us back to the Big Bang

Does our universe show “bruises” where it collided with other universes?

How to take a molecule’s temperature

String theory fails first major experimental test

What the hell is spin?

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