Rupert's Drop - Fascinating object made from glass

 Here is a cool video about Rupert's Drop, a certain shape one can get when molten glass is rapidly cooled in a container of cold water. The way in which it EXPLODES...not shatter, but truly explodes...is way cool!! Check it out in this well-done high-speed video analysis. 

Diversity amongst professional STEM workers

 When one sees photos or pictures of the scientists who made discoveries years ago, they are overwhelmingly white men. Many believe this is still the case among professional STEM workers, but consider that things have been changing over the past ten years in particular. Here are some links to show how STEM is becoming more diverse - slowly at times, but many feel this is a really positive step! 

500 Queer Scientists (https://500queerscientists.com/) 

500 Women Scientists (https://500womenscientists.org/)

1,000 inspiring Black scientists in America (https://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/1000-inspiring-black-scientists-in-america)

100 inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America (https://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/100-inspiring-hispanic-latinx-scientists-in-america)

Does the Fermilab result from last week wreck Physics as we know it?!?!?

 Some people have been asking me if the recent results published at Fermilab (outside of Chicago) about a certain property of a particle called a muon wrecks physics! This result made it to the mainstream press because of the fact that the measured magnetic properties of muons is a little bit different than what a theory called the Standard Model predicts. The difference is significantly different from the theoretical prediction, meaning the difference is statistically strong enough to qualify as a 'discovery' in the science world. 

If this difference really is true, then it likely is an indication of 'new physics.' The most likely candidate would be some type of new particle never thought of and outside of the Standard Model (which is well tested since the 1960s). 

However, like most things in science when there is potentially a major discovery, everyone should be skeptical and try to pick apart this experiment (to be sure they did things correctly), as well as the theoretical calculations the experiment is being compared to. Some recent work by theorists have suggested that the calculation may need to be refined - and that after this revision, perhaps the difference will go away and theory and experiment may be consistent with each other once again! 

This is hard stuff!! Some of the hardest math around is used in the theory, and the values being worked at are so precise (basically meaning there's so many decimal points) that tiny differences in a calculation may move some of those decimal values a tiny bit, but push it within the error bars of the experiment). Like most things in science, we must be patient and let the process proceed over the coming months. 

Evidence Vaping has Health Risks...DON'T SMOKE, DON'T VAPE

 The American Heart Association has issued statements this month on research of the terrible health risks that result from Vaping. The strange conclusion so many have, particularly teens, that vaping is "healthy" is false. It may not be as bad as cigarettes, but not by much. 

This is relevant and alarming since vaping has gained so many young users over the past five years, and it is on par with the negative and addictive characteristics of smoking cigarettes. 

Bottom line is: DON'T SMOKE AND DON'T VAPE! You are simply putting poisons into your body over time, and on average you are taking years off your life. Photo from Roseburg Community Cancer Center.

SEL in Schools

 My students know I am really into the inclusion of helping humanity into our physics classes, and also promoting the skills we ALL need and use every day of our lives, Social-Emotional Learning skills (SEL). It is to the point where ETHS, and most districts around the country, are promoting and including SEL into their district plans and goals. This is good news for everyone, and now the challenge is to all learn what SEL is (and is NOT), why we need it for our students, evidence that it works (otherwise it would be a waste of time and resources), and finally how it can be embedded within content courses. 

If interested, I have created a SEL in Schools series of slide decks and accompanying videos, as well as hundreds of examples of lesson ideas in all subject areas/departments for middle schools and high schools, in order to train teachers and staff, as well as build up 'buy in' among teachers when they see how possible and valuable it is to include SEL in lessons on a fairly regular and consistent basis. 

If you happen to view it and find it useful, please share with other teachers, administrators, schools, etc. 

Plumpy Nut - Helping feed the hungry around the world

 If you are now aware of Plump Nut, here's an introduction. This is a simple mix of peanut butter, milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals, that is in the form of a paste. It can be stored at room temperature and has a good taste, especially to children. Groups like Doctors Without Borders use plumpy nut in places of extreme poverty and hunger in order to quickly build up the nutrition of their diets. This has been highly effective for a number of years with severely hungry and malnourished children, where a couple weeks of plumpy nut can revitalize their health and energy levels. 

I have always loved this example as one where it is sometimes the 'simplest' solution that can solve real problems. Can you come up with simple, creative ways of solving an important problem? It is so tempting to overthink problems, and assume one needs fancy equipment, technologies or mathematics to reach a solution - and often it just take some common sense and trial and error to develop a simple solution. It reminds me of early in the space race, when the US spent all sorts of money to build pens that could write in space, whereas the Soviets used pencils. Einstein was a fan of thinking conceptually about a problem in as simple a way as possible, and then add in the math after a simple physical model was in his head. 

Good example of how scientists need to step away from 'the textbooks' & group-think every so often

 In theoretical physics for the past 50 or so years, thousands of the world's best physics minds have dedicated themselves to looking for the quantum theory of gravity. Since Einstein, the dream has been to unify gravity with the other three forces of nature into a single theory - no one has done it, despite the HUGE effort given to this problem for decades. And on the experimental side, nothing has been found that suggests gravity comes in 'bundles' just like something like light comes in bundles of energy we call a photon.                  

Despite the lack of any substantial breakthrough, everyone keeps plugging away, assuming gravity MUST be quantized since the other forces are. In science, putting blinders on while looking to answer the unknown is dangerous. Part of the process of science is to be skeptical, even of things we do know! Check out this article and video about physicist Jonathan Oppenheim from University College of London, who has made the assumption that maybe gravity is not quantized as we all have been thinking - what if it is how Einstein describes it in General Relativity, where it is not a true force but rather just the consequence of curved space-time? 

Prof. Oppenheim and his students are developing a theory, as well as suggestions for experiments, that could test whether gravity is simply different and is a 'classical' force rather than a quantum force. When I teach gravity and Einstein's model, and we get into the modern thinking about quantum gravity, we have over the years asked the question if gravity might not be quantized, and that's why it is so different from the other three forces of nature and why no one has found the unified theory. It is good to see this possibility getting some attention and those isolated few who question the textbooks and group think that can happen in science...scientists are still humans, and fall into the same patterns and traps as everyone else! 

I look forward to seeing where this work goes, as all that matters is we make progress in understanding the true nature of Nature, regardless of whether it fits into our assumptions and expectations or not! 

Quasar clocks - another test of Einstein's GR

 Over 100 years later, and we continuously seem to be testing Einstein's ideas about space, time and gravity over and over, in numerous different contexts. The latest is a test of how the passage of time has changed as the universe has expanded! 

In Einstein's general theory of relativity (GR), he predicts the 'strength' of what we call gravity, which is really the consequence of the warping of space AND time, can change how quickly time passes. For someone living near a black hole, time would be passing very slowly compared to those of us living on earth, simply due to the gravity being MUCH stronger near a black hole compared to earth's gravity. 

Well, when the universe began the mass-energy density (which was really entirely energy until the universe expanded and cooled a bit so that matter could form) was large, and we might expect that time passed more slowly then when compared to the passage of time now, after the universe has expanded for 13.7 billion years and the densities have decreased tremendously. Because quasars are very far away, they 'lived' 12, 13 billion or more years ago, when the universe was young and time should have been running more slowly. By observing and measuring the light emitted from quasars so long ago, scientists have analysis techniques where they can compute how much that light was affected by the early universe compared to now, and the result is time had been running 5 times slower than time today!! These measurements once again are in line with Einstein's predictions from his GR field equations. Remarkable!!

Scientists detect collision of two supermassive black holes

 Astrophysicists and astronomers have detected the strange vibrations in space-time itself, caused by the collision of two supermassive black holes! These are the black holes at the centers of galaxies, with large masses from millions to billions of times more than the Sun. Gravitational wave detectors like LIGO have been sensing these since 2015, but now new techniques were used for the latest discovery. By looking at minute changes in the timing of a sample of pulsars, which are fast-spinning neutron stars that emit periodic, clock-like bursts of radio waves, the distortions of those precise bursts are measured by radio wave detectors, and are consistent with what Einstein's theory of general relativity predict. Amazing, and this constant 'churning' of the space-time sea is now being studied for all sorts of different events and signals! 

Quantum Computing - Want to learn about it? Here's a book and course anyone can take

 Quantum computing is already here in prototype form, and is rapidly evolving into a next generation computing technology, the consequences of which we do not fully understand. But let's also recognize that many companies, universities, national labs, the military, finance and business sectors, medical research and most other fields you can think of, will be in great need of workers who know what this is and how to use it. And the day is also coming where quantum computing and AI become mixed. 

If you are curious about this field and technology, here is an online textbook that is setup as a course in quantum computing. Use it and go at your own pace. Have fun!