Science Updates

[Super Nova]

Aussie does good. We should recognise them more.

Dark matter pioneer wins PM's science prize
DESPITE it being invisible, dark matter has been placed on the galactic map by astronomer Ken Freeman — in the process placing him among international astronomy's brightest stars.

Professor Freeman's work established there is substantially more to galaxies than can be seen by the human eye. In fact, the stars, gasses and dust are just a fraction of what is out there. The bulk is invisible, dark matter.

First outlined in a paper in 1970, Professor Freeman's research was not without its critics. "I don't think any of the papers of that period were received with total enthusiasm but that's kind of how it should be," he said.

Professor Ken Freeman at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra on Tuesday.

"It was overturning the existing paradigm and it really took most of that decade for it to happen."

Already regarded internationally as Australia's most renowned astronomer, Perth-born Professor Freeman, from the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory, was awarded the $300,000 Prime Minister's Prize for Science on Wednesday for introducing the concept of dark matter, a finding that changed the course of astronomy.

Dark matter accounts for the vast majority of the universe, but scarcely anything is known about it. Yet dark matter really does matter: it plays a crucial role in holding the universe together, given its almost magnetic powers.

"The reason we should know about dark matter is because it was so important in the formation of the universe as we know it now," Professor Freeman, 72, said. "If it wasn't for dark matter, we may well not have galaxies at all because things may not have condensed to form the Milky Way, for example."

Professor Freeman's award, presented in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra, also recognises his contribution as co-founder of one of the hottest fields in astronomy: galactic archaeology.

It's a field he and colleague Joss Bland-Hawthorn had been pondering since 1988, but it wasn't until 2002 that the pair published a paper on the subject, which looks at how galaxies are constructed by analysing their chemical composition.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/dark- ... z2AtY0oHvH

[Super Nova]

Two of the 4 in this article are Aussie innovations. Both look like great ideas to me.

Solar paint

Imagine if every outdoor surface of a building could generate electricity. That could soon be a reality thanks to a team at the University of Newcastle, which has invented a solar paint. The water-based lacquer contains tiny plastic particles that absorb sunlight to produce electricity. The project leader, Paul Dastoor, says the ultimate goal is a paint that can be applied directly to a roof or wall, but early versions will paint the material on plastic sheets containing wires to transmit the electricity.

Microbiogen

A new strain of yeast could revolutionise global fuel production. Two Australian brothers, Geoff and Phil Bell, have developed a yeast that can convert waste biomass, such as sugarcane by-products, into ethanol. The pair hope to turn the first sod at a Microbiogen plant within two to three years.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci ... z2Ati1NC5L

[Super Nova]

Hey, there is a chance now for us dummies (as Aussie would call us) have the maths skills to understand and decribe the universe.

Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity

A framework that relies on college-level mathematics could describe what happens to particles in so-called space-time rips, gravity fluctuations such as those that occur during the birth of a black hole

Could an analysis based on relatively simple calculations point the way to reconciling the two most successful — and stubbornly distinct — branches of modern theoretical physics? Frank Wilczek and his collaborators hope so.

The task of aligning quantum mechanics, which deals with the behaviour of fundamental particles, with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes gravity in terms of curved space-time, has proved an enormous challenge. One of the difficulties is that neither is adequate to describe what happens to particles when the space-time they occupy undergoes drastic changes — such as those thought to occur at the birth of a black hole. But in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server on 15 October (A. D. Shapere et al. http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.3545;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 2012), three theoretical physicists present a straightforward way for quantum particles to move smoothly from one kind of ‘topological space’ to a very different one.

The analysis does not model gravity explicitly, and so is not an attempt to formulate a theory of ‘quantum gravity’ that brings general relativity and quantum mechanics under one umbrella. Instead, the authors, including Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, suggest that their work might provide a simplified framework for understanding the effects of gravity on quantum particles, as well as describing other situations in which the spaces that quantum particles move in can radically alter, such as in condensed-matter-physics experiments. “I’m pretty excited,” says Wilczek, “We have to see how far we can push it.”

The idea is attracting attention not only because of the scope of its possible applications, but because it is based on undergraduate-level mathematics. “Their paper starts with the most elementary framework,” says Brian Greene, a string theorist at Columbia University in New York. “It’s inspiring how far they can go with no fancy machinery.”

Wilczek and his co-authors set up a hypothetical system with a single quantum particle moving along a wire that abruptly splits into two. The stripped-down scenario is effectively the one-dimensional version of an encounter with ripped space-time, which occurs when the topology of a space changes radically. The theorists concentrate on what happens at the endpoints of the wire — setting the ‘boundary conditions’ for the before and after states of the quantum wave associated with the particle. They then show that the wave can evolve continuously without facing any disruptions as the boundary conditions shift from one geometry to the other, incompatible one. “You can smoothly follow this process,” says Al Shapere at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, a co-author on the paper, adding that, like a magician’s rings, the transformation is impossible to visualize, but does make mathematical sense.

The desire to escape the mathematical headaches caused by such transformations is one motivation for string theory, which allows smooth changes in the topology of space-time, says Greene. He suggests that the approach developed by Wilczek, Shapere and MIT undergraduate student Zhaoxi Xiong could be applied within string theory too.

Although Wilczek originally believed that the result was new, a 1995 paper by Aiyalam Balachandran of Syracuse University in New York proposed a similar strategy for describing changes in topology in quantum mechanics (A. P. Balachandran et al. Nucl. Phys. B 446, 299–314; 1995). Balachandran acknowledges that his work hasn’t hit the mainstream and says that he hopes Wilczek’s paper will prompt others to take a closer look. “Conventional approaches to this problem don’t get very far,” he says. “This opens up a new technique.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... relativity

[Rorschach]

Speaking of Quantum Theory, I figure it's not April 1st...

Scientists offer quantum theory of soul's existence

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/quantu ... 6507452687" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Super Nova]

Mate, this is rubbish.

"Let's say the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, the microtubules lose their quantum state," Dr Hameroff said.

"The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can't be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large.

'If the patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says "I had a near death experience".'

In the event of the patient's death, it was "possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body indefinitely - as a soul".

Link to Mircotubule definition

I think that quantum states do have an effect on our thinking and who we are. The may represent the random generator that is the foundation for why we are unique and any given time and unique to the second before. You know, that random thought that comes from nowhere.

This basis for a soul that lives forever outside the body is just laughable.

I have an open mind... but I cannot see this going anywhere except to excite those that want to believe in souls, god and an afterlife and want to use science to proof such things. The battle continues.

I give the same credibility as these guys. At least they had the excuse of not having our advancements in knowledge and science.... at the time.

[Rorschach]

Never said I believed it SN... but some scientists supposedly do.
It is part of a scientific study.

I suggest you refute them or argue with them... I just posted the article. I have no prejudice that allows me to dismiss or accept unequivocally.

[Super Nova]

Never said I believed it SN... but some scientists supposedly do.
It is part of a scientific study.

I suggest you refute them or argue with them... I just posted the article. I have no prejudice that allows me to dismiss or accept unequivocally.

No attack on you. Interesting.

My comments were directed at this issue not you. (at least I thought so)

Keep providing these great insights when you find them.

i find them facinating. Like the....

Perptual motion machines.

[Rorschach]

You said and I quote... "Mate this is rubbish"

I merely stated... Never said I believed in it.
No mention of attack. Interesting.

Happy to keep posting.

I find some people with an aversion to religion and faith etc, tend to show their prejudices in many ways. I try not to let my "spiritual" beliefs interfere with my science.

I merely posted it because some scientists were trying to explain some aspects of the "spiritual" in scientific terms.
Your reaction was "interesting".

[Super Nova]

I have explored faith in some detail and have concluded I am nothing but an electro-chemical reaction that is insignificant in time and space. My sole function for being is to proporgate my genes.

So that may colour my views.... a little.

[Rorschach]