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Throwing a baguette in the works
Nov 6, 2009
Crusty problems for the LHC
By Michael Banks
Oh crumbs.
After talk of the Higgs boson travelling back in time and sabotaging the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN particle-physics lab, a more mundane object temporarily stopped the machine from operating on Tuesday night.
According to a note posted today on the CERN users’ pages, a piece of baguette placed in a cooling station caused a sector in the LHC to heat up by a few degrees to the bemusement of engineers.
The 27 km circumference LHC has eight sectors, each 3.3 km long. Each sector has a cooling station, or “cryoplant”, which helps the machine get down to the chilly temperature of 4.2 K.
The crusty piece of bread was found in one of the cryoplants and happened to be lying on a busbar — an electrical connection made of copper that are generally wide and flat to allow heat to dissipate more easily.
The well placed baguette then caused a short circuit in the cryogenic equipment that heated one of the sectors to around 10 K.
“The best guess is that it was dropped by a bird, either that or it was thrown out of a passing aeroplane,” a spokeswoman from CERN told the Times.
But it seems the best guess was right after all. The note on the CERN users page said that the culprit was a “bird carrying a baguette bread” and that the “bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread”.
The statement read: “The standard failsafe systems came into operation and after the cause was identified, re-cooling of the machine began and the sectors were back at operating temperature last night. The incident was similar in effect to a standard power cut, for which the machine protection systems are very well prepared.”
At least the note didn’t say that it was a bird travelling back in time with a piece of bread hellbent on sabotaging the LHC from finding the Higgs.
Physicist and monster hunter dies at 87
Nov 5, 2009
By Hamish Johnston
There’s a fascinating obituary in the Daily Telegraph of Robert Rines — the American physicist, lawyer, inventor, award-winning composer and hunter of the Loch Ness monster.
The Boston-born polymath studied physics at MIT and worked on radar imaging technology at the institute’s famous radiation laboratory. This technology has since been used in a wide range of applications from missile guidance to medical imaging — and monster hunting.
Rines then went on to become a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and spent much of his working life in this profession.
But Rines did find time to write several Broadway productions — winning an Emmy award along the way — and dedicated much of his spare time to searching for the Loch Ness Monster.
His interest in the mythical — or perhaps elusive! — creature began in 1972, and his sonar and photographic images of objects resembling Nessie were the subject of great scientific debate.
It’s hard to believe today, but some images were even published in a 1975 news story in Nature.
The article is entitled Nessiteras skeptyx, perhaps a “scientific” name for the monster! Amazingly it wasn’t the 1 April issue of the journal!
I tried to read the article online but I could seem to access it via my subscription, maybe you will have better luck.
Rines died on 1 November at the age of 87.
Darwin’s pit bull not so aggressive in real life
Nov 4, 2009
Double-act Richard Dawkins and his wife give life to the evolutionist’s new book
By James Dacey
We are like detectives who have arrived on the scene after the crime has been committed; we find traces of evidence everywhere including DNA footprints.
A good scientific theory is one that is vulnerable to being proven wrong but has not yet been disproved.
Historically, religion has attempted to dispel confusion but science does this too and it does it better!
These were just three sound bites that stuck in my mind after going along to see Richard Dawkins as he delivered another dogged defence of the theory of evolution in Bristol yesterday.
Speaking at the city’s Festival of Ideas, Dawkins was accompanied on stage by his wife Lalla Ward, an English actress best known for appearing in the BBC science fiction series Dr Who where she played the part of Romana in the late 1970s.
According to Dawkins, the couple have been giving talks as a double act for the past few years — ever since Lalla stepped in when Dawkins lost his voice on a tour of the US.
The couple used the first section of the event to read extracts from Dawkins’ new book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. “This is not another anti-religious book - I’ve done that and got the T-shirt. Evolution is now a fact and this book will finally lay out all the evidence,” he said.
The thing that immediately struck me was that, despite all the sharp put-downs, Dawkins is actually incredibly mild-mannered in person. After reading his last book The God Delusion, I had assumed that the man they call “Darwin’s pit bull” had by now fully-militarised his atheist campaign and would appear slavering at the mouth.
Indeed, one of Physics World’s correspondents had his own recent brush with Dawkins when the evolutionary biologist refused to get involved with his research project. Dawkins’ reason being that the project was funded by the Templeton Foundation - an organization that purports to fuse the ideals of science and religion but which Dawkins views as a “subversion of science”.
But the way Dawkins delivered his readings, equipped with a few funny voices, was more like a polished actor bringing to life a children’s book.
And according to Dawkins, he is not actually an atheist but agnostic. However, this is only because “technically we all have to be” as there is no such thing as an immutable fact. He said that a Christian God is “no more likely than Yahweh, leprechauns, or the flying spaghetti monster”.
Hmm, clearly he’s has not lost his sense of mischief.
Ringo Starr spotted in bouncing water droplet
Nov 3, 2009
The Starkey Effect Ringo keeps psychedelia alive
By James Dacey
Apologies.
I realize this is supposed to be a hard-hitting news site reporting physics breakthroughs, but I just couldn’t resist flagging this up.
It was whilst writing a story this afternoon about water-repellency in lotus leaves that I noticed something very strange. Bizarrely, everybody’s favourite mop-topped Liverpudlian seems to reveal himself in the high-speed photo images of water-droplets being ejected from the leaf surface.
Well, it made me laugh anyway…
Vitaly Ginzburg: an interview
Nov 3, 2009
Vitaly Ginzburg in Stockholm in 2003
By Matin Durrani
Vitaly Ginzburg, who turned 93 last month, is without doubt one of the leading Russian theorists of the 20th century, who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics with Alexei Abrikosov and Tony Leggett for their work on the theory of superconductors and superfluids.
He’s a long-standing admirer of Physics World magazine — having first written for us back in 1997 — and when the opportunity arose to interview him, I jumped at the chance.
Ginzburg gave answers to our questions in Russian, which were then translated into English by Vitaly Kisin, a former colleauge of mine here at Institute of Physics Publishing. I must also thank Maria Aksenteva, who is the managing editor of the journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, which Ginzburg has edited for the last 11 years. She is very much his “eyes and ears”.
In the interview, which you can read by following this link, Ginzburg talks about how his interest in physics developed, why he distrusts the Church’s growing role in Russian society, and how his role in developing a hydrogen bomb for the Soviet Union was what saved his life.:
The interview is in the opinion section of physicsworld.com’s In-depth channel which currently contains a couple other great articles worth checking out.
In How to publish a scientific comment Rick Trebino relives the time he tried - and failed - to have a comment published in a scientific journal. You couldn’t make the story up.
Then as Imperial College London counts down to a debate on the pros and cons of human space flight on 12 November, the two panellists write exclusively for us, presenting their arguments for and against manned or robotic space missions in the article Human spaceflight: science or spectacle? Championing robotic missions is David Clements, a lecturer in astrophysics from Imperial. Making the case for human space flight is Ian Crawford, a reader in planetary science and astrobiology from Birkbeck College, London.
Finally, Robert P Crease probes arguments made by US energy secretary Steven Chu that the next generation of synchrotron sources are an essential tool for meeting the energy challenge — check out his article “The Lure of Synchrotrons” by following this link
Renewables revolution needs clear scientific advice
Oct 30, 2009
Cutting through turbulence on the way to Copenhagen
By James Dacey
European leaders have been in Brussels over the past couple of days and there has been an lot of talk about climate change. The latest reports suggest they are reaching some sort of agreement over how to help the world’s poorer nations to commit to restricting greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU summit in Brussels represents one of the last opportunities for European nations to iron-out disagreements ahead of December’s UN conference in Copenhagen, which is could result in a global treaty on climate change.
So assuming that the world’s politicians can wrangle their way to solid, legally binding targets in the Danish capital, we will then be faced with the next big set of choices - how to achieve the targets.
Whatever way the green revolution is played out over the next few decades, it will be necessary for the developed world to quickly get over its addiction to fossil fuels, and to deploy a whole raft of renewable energy solutions. More than ever, governments will need clear scientific advice about the different options ahead of them.
Despite currently lagging many of its European neighbours over renewables, the UK now at least has a clear-thinking scientific advisor in the form of David Mackay.
If you’re not already familiar with Mackay, he is author of the book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air. Despite being available for free on-line, the book has been something of a publishing phenomenon and was described by the Guardian as “this year’s must-read book”.
You can also read Physics World’s review of the book here.
When I saw Mackay on Wednesday giving a talk at the Institute of Physics in London, he was quick to establish his philosophy. He says we need are in need of a “grassroots arithmetic movement” in which members of the public should lobby/educate their local MPs with the figures of renewables.
To a packed-out lecture room, Mackay explained why he prefers to express energy consumption in terms of kilowatt hours per day per person. His reason being, that these figures mostly fall in the range 1-100, and results can easily be translated into personal forms. “I am pro arithmetic, not any specific energy policy,” he said.
Naming the exoplanets
Oct 28, 2009
Artist’s Concept — “Hot Jupiter” Around the Star HD 209458 Credit: NASA
By James Dacey
When the European Space Agency (ESA) recently announced the discovery of 32 new exoplanets, it struck me how quickly we can become numbed to the wonders of scientific discovery.
In 1995, astronomers generated a surge of excitement when they discovered the first planet to be orbiting a star other than our Sun. Over the past 14 years, astronomy has entered a dramatic new era with more than 400 of these exoplanets now officially catalogued. The recent launch of NASA’s Kepler mission and with ESA considering its ambitious PLATO project means that we may well have detected thousands of exoplanets within the next few years.
But as the discoveries now come thick and fast, have we becoming a bit blasé about exoplanets?
Well, one researcher in Germany has come up with an idea that could re-inject some of the initial excitement. Wladimir Lyra of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy is proposing that we give names to the exoplanets based on Roman-Greek mythology thus ditching the dry cataloguing that has led to planet names like MOA-2008-BLG-310-L b.
Of course, the reason why the International Astronomical Union came up with their scientific naming system is because the heavens may well be awash with exoplanets and it would soon become impractical to name every single one of them.
But as Lyra points out, every other class of astronomical body discovered to date has been given a name including the 15, 000 asteroids and minor planets.
“Our place in the cosmos is not special in any way, so there is no reason why only the planetary objects in the solar system should be named,” writes Lyra citing the Copernican Principle.
Lyra’s proposed system would assign names based on the mythological stories of the constellations. For example, the planets in Andromeda will be named after Andromeda’s myth and the planets in Hercules after Hercules’ myth. Inevitably, there are a few caveats to the system, which Lyra explains in his paper on the arXiv preprint server.
Rolling rucks in a rug
Oct 27, 2009
A short-lived experiment…
By Hamish Johnston
Here’s a question for you — what is the easiest way to move a large rug?
The answer, according to carpet fitters — as well as two papers in Physical Review Letters — is to create a “ruck” and then push in along the rug (see photo above).
The reason, apparently, is that the ruck is quasi-static, which means that it can be moved easily by a series of gentle pushes that don’t take it very far out of equilibrium
I thought I would try it for myself, but the only rugs I could find were in the main entrance to Dirac House and there was too much foot traffic to do the experiment safely!
If you want to read more about rucks, check out Statics and Inertial Dynamics of a Ruck in a Rug by Dominic Vella, Arezki Boudaoud Mokhtar Adda-Bedia as well Shape and Motion of a Ruck in a Rug by John M. Kolinski, Pascale Aussillous and L. Mahadevan.
The first paper begins with an investigation of the conditions needed for a static ruck to persist — rather than flatten out — once it’s been created. The team derived an equation describing the transition and tested it experimentally using several “rug” and “floor” materials, incluing a real rug on a wooden floor.
The equation, which had to be solved numerically, did a pretty good job of predicting which rucks survive and which collapse.
Ruck on a roll
The second paper looks at rucks “rolling” downhill by placing a thin latex rug on an inclined plane. The team found that a static ruck will begin to roll when the plane is tilted above a critical angle. It will continue to roll until the angle is reduced to a second critical angle — which is smaller than the first angle.
From this, the team concluded that the coefficient of static rolling friction is greater that the coefficient of dynamic rolling friction.
You’re probably wondering what they mean by a rolling ruck?
To show that the ruck was rolling — rather than sliding — the team followed the paths of points on the rug as the ruck moved through and found that they move on a cycloidal tragectory. In other words, the points moved as if they were on the rim of a rolling wheel.
You’re probably also wondering why PRL has published two papers on rugs?
According to the first paper rug rucks have “long proved to be a useful analogy
in explaining a range of important physical phenomena”. These include dislocations in crystalline materials as well as wrinkle-drive motion, which has been observed in living organisms including inchworms.
Particles are back in the LHC!
Oct 27, 2009
Back in business:The first ion beam entering point 2 of the LHC, just before the ALICE detector
By Hamish Johnston
Physicsts at CERN passed an important milestone (again!) last weekend by injecting the first beam of ions into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since the disastrous shutdown of September, 2008.
According to a CERN press release, lead ions were placed in the clockwise beam pipe on Friday 23 October and guided past the Alice detector before being dumped.
Later that day the first beam of protons followed the same route — and then on Saturday protons were sent through the LHCb detector.
CERN said “All settings and parameters showed a perfect functioning of the machine, which is preparing for its first circulating beam in the coming weeks”.
Matin Durrani recently spoke to CERN boss Rolf-Dieter Heuer about the switch-on of the LHC — you can watch the interview here or below, along with two other videos made at CERN.
Television series tackles ‘science’s last taboo’
Oct 26, 2009
Did it matter that Einstein was of northern European descent?
By James Dacey
This thought-provoking image forms part of the advertising campaign for a new UK television series that will look at the controversial history of science and scientists addressing the issue of race.
Race: science’s last taboo has been created by Channel 4 and will be focused around five documentaries, each one engaging in a different aspect of the debate.
The season kicks-off tonight with a programme about race and intelligence, which includes the controversy surrounding James Watson’s cancelled UK lecture tour of 2007.
In case you missed it at the time, the Nobel Laureate — who co-discovered the double-helical structure of DNA — was quoted as saying that there is scientific evidence to suggest that black people are less intelligent than people of other races. People were so incensed that Watson was forced to abandon his tour and leave the UK early.
For more details about the new series, check out the related website. Amongst other features, you can offer your own definition of race — though bear in mind you’ve only got 140 characters!