Andrew's Physics Blog May 2008 Archive

Two new studies might shed light on magnetars, one of the most mysterious types of objects in our universe. Created when giant stars explode, magnetars are short-lived objects with ... Read More

A research team at MIT has developed a possible means of using nanofibers to clean up oil spills, according to a New Scientist article. Though it's not necessarily heard about ... Read More

May 27, 1897 - British physicist John Cockcroft is born. He was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work studying the atomic nucleus by using accelerated particles, ... Read More

In honor of tonight's episode of CBS's The Big Bang Theory, I'd like to highlight our new feature on the topic of the Schroedinger's cat thought experiment, which played a ... Read More

May 24, 1686 - German physicist and engineer Gabriel Fahrenheit is born. Fahrenheit developed precise thermometers, including those made with mercury. The temperature scale that he created, named the Fahrenheit ... Read More

With all of the focus on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) coming on-line this fall, it bears some comment that the logistical complexities of the situation go far beyond the ... Read More

I'm a big fan of the television show Lost and, apparently, so are the editors of Popular Mechanics, who have devoted a great deal of time to analyzing the science ... Read More

I write in a variety of genres, and one thing that I've never turned my attention to was the stage. I've long contemplated writing a science based play, perhaps ... Read More

May 15, 1618 - Johannes Kepler confirms his third law of planetary motion. Kepler had initially made the discovery a week earlier, but the initial calculations had caused him to ... Read More

An interesting article in New Scientist (Astronomers begin search for 'vanishing' stars) discusses a theory among some astronomers and astrophysicists that some stars, instead of dying in massive supernovae or ... Read More

In July 1958, the journal Physics Review Letters was founded, when editor Sam Goudsmit decided to begin collecting the Letters to the Editor of Physics Review into their own journal. ... Read More

May 11, 1918 - American physicist Richard Phillips Feynman is born. May 9, 1927 - German biophysicist Manfred Eigen is born. Eigen recieved the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his ... Read More

A curious question which science has never adequately answered is how migratory birds are able to navigate their annual passages. In fact, research in this unlikely area abound and ... Read More

In a new article, Popular Science addresses the The Science of Sci-Fi by asking what science fiction films can teach us about space travel. This is just one example ... Read More