And here is Pluto!!

Particle physicists find a Pentaquark particle

Back in the day, when I was at Fermilab, there had been a number of people who continued to speculate and predict the existence of a strange sort of particle, that could be formed from 5 quarks. Now, I use the word strange because in our lives, we only see two types of particles formed from combinations of quarks.

All particle made of quarks are referred to as hadrons. But there are then two main types of hadrons: mesons and baryons. Mesons are combinations of two quarks (a quark-anitquark pair), and baryons are made form three quarks. The quarks are held together by the strong nuclear force. You are made from electrons and baryons, better known as the proton (two up quarks and one down quark) and the neutron (two down quarks and one up quark), for instance.

No one has ever had confirmation of different combinations of quarks, until now. Check out the actual article published from CERN. Keep in mind that pentaquark particles are allowed and have been predicted for decades from the Standard Model, the main theory explaining all we know about particles and the forces between particles.

Check Out Some Real Astrophysics

Prof. Shane Larson is working with some Chem-Phys students on their research, and check out his notes from a Northwestern astrophysics class. The math is something we can do with first-year calculus, and he does a really good job of explaining and deriving some of the important results astrophysicists use! Nice job, professor!

Links for Summer Class

Check out Powers of Ten.

Check out ActivPhysics.

Update on ITER (Thermonuclear fusion reactor)

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is under construction in France. Here is an article updating how a reorganization of its leadership is refocusing its efforts to determine if the ultimate fantasy in energy production - harnessing the energy process of the Sun for human use - is technologically possible in a reactor. This was supposed to have been built in the U.S. originally, but funding was cut under the Bush administration. I personally am hoping there is a big U.S. scientific presence with this international collaboration, because of its importance in the long-term of our energy hungry civilization. This one is worth keeping an eye on the next few years...

Girls with Toys at UIUC Engineering

The Girls With Toys movement is alive and well at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Check out their site here. This has been a wonderful attempt to get more women involved in STEM, with an emphasis on the 'E' for engineering. Keep in mind that UIUC Engineering has 15 top 5 programs, and this is a launching pad for engineering students into top positions and careers. I am always happy to plug my alma mater.   :-)

Neil Tyson on a Deep Thought About Our Intelligence

I found this particular set of thoughts from Neil deGrasse Tyson really interesting and thought provoking. Think about this notion of if humans are only 1-2% different genetically different from chimps, and what this means in terms of how much more advanced we are from them, then what if there is some organism out there that is some very small percentage different from humans, in the direction of increased intelligence...then we humans would be their chimps! They would be SO far ahead of us, it is difficult to comprehend how much more advanced those beings would be. I have never thought about this, but what a truly intriguing thought!

Read about Emmy Noether, a Great Mathematician and Forgotten Hero of Relativity - largely because she was a Woman

A wonderful summary of how Emmy Noether helped other great mathematicians get a handle on Einstein's General Relativity back in the first quarter of the 20th century can be found here.  Many of her contemporaries, including Einstein, suggested she is the most important woman in the history of mathematics. What is now known as Noether's theorem is at the heart of all physical theories, which states if there is a conservation law, then there must be a quantity that is invariant, and vice versa. For GR, she basically showed energy is still conserved, but it is much more challenging to see it, compared to classical systems and theories, because of the warping of spacetime by mass-energy densities.

Putting the 'A' in STEM to get STEAM

Former Chem-Phys student Sarah Posner is in the U. of Michigan's Stamps School of Art and Design, and has some wonderful work posted on her Tumblr site. Check out many of the pieces that have a science and symmetry influence. The notion of design, especially in engineering, is a big deal, as well as some of the naturally beautiful patterns and objects scientists study - this is the push behind changing STEM to STEAM. Regardless of what to call it, just enjoy some wonderful art from a talented young lady!

Check Out Neil deGrasse Tyson on Bill Maher's Show

I had the pleasure to be at teh dinner at President Schapiro's house at Northwestern last wek, which was in honor of the evening's lecturer, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. It was a wonderful time, of course, and Dr. Tyson gave a wonderful 2.5 hour popular talk about science, the media and how it reports science, modern issues in the U.S. and the world, and so on. Here is the link to the Maher interview.