# Posts

### July 19, 2014

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Note: We’re pleased to feature a guest post by former Cocktail Party Physics co-blogger Ann (Lee) Kottner. Jennifer has graciously given me space to ask for some help from the science writing... -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

### July 18, 2014

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A quantum analysis shows a way to violate math’s pigeonhole principle, by allowing three particles in two boxes with no two in the same box.
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Subatomic particles violate a basic principle underlying the concept of numbers and counting ContextQuantum Physics by Tom Siegfried 5:17pm, July 18, 2014 The pigeonhole principle states that if you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes, at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole. A quantum analysis shows a way to violate the principle, by allowing three particles in […]
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$(n+1)^3 - n^3 \equiv 1 \mod 6$ Claudi Alsina,, Roger Nelsen,, & Hasan Unal (2014). Proof Without Words: The Difference of Consecutive Integer Cubes Is Congruent to 1 Modulo 6 The College Mathematics Journal, 45 (2), 135-135 DOI: 10.4169/college.math.j.45.2.135 (facebook)

Claudi Alsina,, Roger Nelsen, & Hasan Unal (2014). Proof Without Words: The Difference of Consecutive Integer Cubes Is Congruent to 1 Modulo 6, The College Mathematics Journal, 45 (2) 135-135. DOI: 10.4169/college.math.j.45.2.135

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That is the question that a colleague of mine posed in response to the horrific events unfolding in Ukraine, Iraq, and Gaza (not to mention Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Burma, and many other places that have been pushed out of the headlines in the hierarchy of bad news). In essence she was saying: “Time for some […]The post “How Can You Talk About Space Exploration at a Time Like This?” appeared first on Out There.
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Dark matter exists, but there is still a lot we don’t know about it. Presumably it’s some kind of particle, but we don’t know how massive it is, what forces it interacts with, or how it was produced. On the … Continue reading →
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Whether awake or asleep, people can only lie still for so long. Staying in one position for too long can lead to bed sores as well as circulation and breathing problems. Sleeping without moving enough can also be an indication that something is medically out of order.Various researchers have monitored turnover dynamics of sleeping people over the years, mostly by counting the number times and how far someone turns in a given period. But these two numbers are often not enough to distinguish […]
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Differently from other mechanical chucks, porous chucks use a pressure differential between the front and back side of the surface in order to hold the substrate: using this technique it is possible to work on extremely thin substrates without any risk of breakage.
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A new competition is set to give small and mediums-sized engineering and manufacturing businesses in the nanotechnology field the chance to win up to EUR 2.5m worth of R+D funding to develop innovative new products.
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Every now and then there’s a kerfuffle about people treating other people badly. These things need to be talked about, but I wish we could do a better job of it. You might guess that this is prompted by the recent Feynman posts and responses/comments, and you’d be right. Before that it was “not all [...]
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Dry Ice Gullies…On Mars! This image, captured by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, covers a location on The Red Plant which has been imaged a number of times. Changes seen in many gullies show a rapidly evolving landform. The timing of the changes is often in winter or early spring suggesting to […]
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Scientists have uncovered the secret to twisting light at will. It is the latest step in the development of photonics, the faster, more compact and less carbon-hungry successor to electronics.
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Of all the seven wonders of ancient times, only the pyramids of Egypt remain on their feet. The technical means Egyptians had that many […] Read more The post Moving pyramid stones on sand appeared first on Mapping Ignorance. Related posts:The tough aspects of walking on sand Getting the best grip: how ridged surfaces affect finger pad tribology Where should you place a business if one of your customers keeps moving?
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As noted last week, I went to SteelyKid’s day camp on Tuesday to talk about being a college professor. This was a little awkward, because I was scheduled to talk to kids ranging from not-quite-three to six-and-a-bit, and really, what do they care about the daily routine of physics faculty? So, I did a simple…
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Arm swinging reduces the metabolic cost of running Swinging the arms clearly saves energy for runners, and helps to minimise the amount that we rotate the body while swinging our legs, which led Arellano and Kram to wonder whether the metabolic benefits of arm swinging outweigh the cost of carrying the limbs.
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Billing its mission as a journey to the beginning of the Solar System, the NASA Dawn probe has revealed more information about the asteroid Vesta that has scientists both eager and cautious about what they have learned. The second largest…Read more ›
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Today is my 43rd birthday. When I was 34 years old, I walked along a narrow river through the city of Nanning in the south of China. I was lonely and depressed, no matter the PhD degree I had recently obtained, my freedom, the beauty all around, the women I could easily befriend wherever. I came to the conclusion that my life is not worth its suffering, and that it must either change, that I must change, or it is idiotic to go on living. I asked myself: read more
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There's an ongoing effort to save HAARP from the demolition block[4], and as it inevitably does in all matters HAARP, the topic of chemtrails came up.  Chemtrails are by and large considered to be an urban legend, but like all good legends, it turns out there's more than a trace of truth embedded in the story  Perhaps the chemtrail legend has propagated so well because the ham radio community at large was involved in the first experiment that might have blossomed into the chemtrail […]
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Image credit: Romano Corradi/(Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias). Text by the incomparable Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) where I recommend you go for links to further web material concerning the discovery. This nebula is very faint, but also very large in planet Earth’s sky. In the mosaic image, composed with narrowband data from the […]
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The U.S. Department of Energy selected a University of Alabama start-up company for an approximate \$1.5 million award to refine an alternative material to potentially extract uranium from the ocean.
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Over a 150 years since it was first described by Darwin, scientists are finally uncovering the secrets behind the super strength of barnacle glue.
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L’Ufficio di Scienza del Dipartimento di Energia (DOE) degli Stati Uniti e la National Science Foundation (NSF) hanno annunciato in questi giorni il finanziamento di tutta una serie di progetti allo scopo di cercare nuove tracce dell’enigmatica materia scura con una sensibilità molte volte superiore a quella che caratterizza gli attuali esperimenti. Denominati Generation 2 […]
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Anita Chowdry is an artist based in London. While many are exploring electronic media and computers, she’s going in the opposite direction, exploring craftsmanship and the hands-on manipulation of matter. I find this exciting, perhaps because I spend most of my days working on my laptop, becoming starved for richer sensations. She writes: Today, saturated […]

### July 17, 2014

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I've been following the weather with interest this week. First of all, I was very glad when the wind and rain disappeared late last weekend. We were at a wedding in Whakatane on Saturday afternoon/evening, and boy, did it rain. With the wedding in a garden in something that was a bit more substantial than a marquee (think marquee with hard walls and floor), with a portaloo outside,  and a four minute walk up a long, dark, mud and puddle infested driveway in a storm separating you from […]
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Nearly all electronics require devices called oscillators that create precise frequencies - frequencies used to keep time in wristwatches or to transmit reliable signals to radios. For nearly a century, these oscillators have relied upon quartz crystals to provide a frequency reference, much like a tuning fork is used as a reference to tune a piano. A new approach could ultimately replace the quartz crystal frequency reference - technology in use since the 1920s.
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Researchers have demonstrated that an array of novel gold, pillar-bowtie nanoantennas can be used like traditional photographic film to record light for distances that are much smaller than the wavelength of light. A standard optical microscope acts as a 'nanocamera' whereas the pillar-bowtie nanoantennas are the analogous film.
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Ultrafast X-ray laser research has provided scientists with a snapshot of a fundamental molecular phenomenon. The finding sheds new light on microscopic electron motion in molecules.
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Researchers have developed the first ab initio method for characterizing the properties of 'hot carriers' in semiconductors. This should help clear a major road block to the development of new, more efficient solar cells.
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E' interessante osservare come fino a una trentina di anni fa almeno l'industria automobilistica, almeno quella non italiana, aveva nella matematica una delle linee di ricerca fondamentali. In particolare ci sono due esempi cui sono incappato recentemente, le curve di Bézier e il metodo della continuazione.Iniziamo con le prime: le curve di Bézier sono delle particolari curve parametriche sviluppate dall'ingegnere Pierre Bézier per la Renault da utilizzare per il design […]
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Physicists have created a unique combination of computer models, based on the theory of quantum mechanics, and applied them to a previously well characterised protein found in muscle to develop a new picture of how biomolecules transport and store oxygen.