Aaron O’Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object | Video on TED.com: “Physicists are used to the idea that subatomic particles behave according to the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, completely different to human-scale objects. In a breakthrough experiment, Aaron O’Connell has blurred that distinction by creating an object that is visible to the unaided eye, but provably in two places at the same time. In this talk he suggests an intriguing way of thinking about the result.”

My mind is blown.

WHAT shape is an electron? The standard model of particle physics predicts that electrons are egg-shaped, but that the amount of distortion from a perfect sphere is so tiny that no existing experiment could possibly detect it. However, a rival theory called supersymmetry predicts that this egg-shaped distortion should be large enough to be detectable.

Fascinating new data to ponder, especially in regards to supersymmetry… what do those things look like, anyway?

Heaviest Particle of Antimatter Found | Big Bang & Antihelium | LiveScience: “At the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) – a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory — the nuclei of gold atoms collide, head-on, at near the speed of light. This simulates the conditions just after the Big Bang, a time when scientists think the universe was swirling with equal amounts of antimatter and regular matter.

Out of almost 1 billion atomic smashups, researchers detected 18 examples of the unique signature of the antihelium-4 nucleus. These 18 signatures were among data for half a trillion charged particles emitted by nearly a billion collisions.”

Bring on the antilithium!

AAAS – AAAS News Release – “SCIENCE: The Breakthroughs of 2010 and Insights of the Decade”: “Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. Back in March, however, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics—the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. In recognition of the conceptual ground this experiment breaks, the ingenuity behind it, and its many potential applications, Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.”

Can’t wait!

Have a great break and enjoy the universe around you!

Fusion is a fascinating process that occurs all the time. The problem is that stars are very good at producing fusion reactions. Here on earth, however, we aren’t as good at making these reactions.

Why would we want to create fusion reactions? Simple: limitless (and virtually free) energy.

The Promise of Fusion: Energy Miracle or Mirage? by Alex Salkever: Yale Environment 360: “The NIF is home to the latest attempt to fuse two nuclei into one in a manner that does not result in a thermonuclear explosion. Inside this massive building, the world’s largest and highest-energy laser focuses the intense energy of 192 separate laser beams into an even more intense single beam aimed at a BB-sized target filled with hydrogen fuel, with the goal of creating a tiny star by replicating the process that powers the sun and similar celestial bodies.”

Yet again, the fusion problem is another reason we need you all to become scientists!

By the end of the unit, you should be able to confidently have a grasp on the following tasks…

History

Describe how atomic theory has changed from Ancient Greece to the 21st century by highlighting some of the leading scientists from the last two thousand five hundred years.

Parts of the Atom

Describe the parts of the atom (their relative size, charge, location) and the particles that make up the atom.

Qualities of the Atom

What is the difference between atomic number and atomic mass? Describe isotopes and how they form.

Experimenting with the Atom

Illustrate, narrate or describe the development of atomic science since the end of WWII up to the present.

The Incredible Shrinking Proton That Could Rattle the Physics World | 80beats | Discover Magazine: “But the big story this week in Nature is that we might have been wrong all along in estimating something very basic about the humble proton: its size.

A team from the Paul-Scherrer Institute in Switzerland that’s been tackling this for a decade says its arduous measurements of the proton show it is 4 percent smaller than the previous best estimate. For something as simple as the size of a proton, one of the basic measurements upon with the standard model of particle physics is built, 4 percent is a vast expanse that could shake up quantum electrodynamics if it’s true.”

Of course this has major ramifications for how we view the current model of the nucleus, atom and the quantum world.

As we continue to learn more and more about the quantum world (using the LHC and other particle accelerators), we’ll continue to run into problems like this… which is why we need you all to hurry up and become scientists.

YouTube – Neil DeGrasse Tyson – Death By Black Hole

Slashdot Science Story | Chameleon-Like Behavior of Neutrino Confirmed: “While closing a chapter on understanding the nature of neutrinos, the observation of neutrino oscillations is strong evidence for new physics. The Standard Model of fundamental particles posits no mass for the neutrino. For them to be able to oscillate, however, they must have mass.”

We’re depending on you all to help us figure this out!

Cosmonaut Sergi Avdeyev: By the time his stint in space was over, he had experienced 0.2 seconds less than the rest of the world did. This made him 0.2 seconds younger than he would have been if he had never gone into space. To put it in another way, he traveled 0.02 seconds into the future.