I've been a fan of Brian Greene for many years.
He had a guest spot on a show Peter and I watch, The Big Bang Theory.
Brian was speaking, possibly signing books at a bookstore and Sheldon stood
and made a funny remark about how Brian puts physics on the bottom shelf
where all the crumb crunchers can get at it.
Then as he sits he says "no I kid, I'm a big fan".
Brian and Michio Kaku and noted Pluto 'hater' Neil deGrasse Tyson among
other (what I call) TV physicists are doing a good job of making the core
ideas available to us common folk.
We really enjoy these shows in our home, and yesterday Peter asked "What
has quantum physics done for us lately".
So I told him he should Google search the question.
Turns out there's quite a bit of the stuff we know and love to use that is
only possible because of this science.
Now they are doing some cool new science that may lead to even greater
cooler stuff that may become part of our daily lives in the future.
I read yesterday the people at CERN ran their experiment again and found
(apparently) faster than light particles for the second time.
I also read that some scientists put together an experiment that seems to
prove the uncertainty principal by coaxing photons out of a vacuum.
Each time they run it they produce a measurable pair of photons from
"nothing".
My feeble understanding of uncertainty is that atomic particles (and by
extension all matter) have a probability of existing in a specific place
and time.
Virtual particles were predicted back in 1970, those would be particles
that blip in and out of existence even in a perfect vacuum.
Because there is only a probability of anything existing at any specific
place there is also a probability of it existing anywhere else.
So fast forwarding to more recently, scientists have been able to observe
the virtual particles but unable to measure them, until now.
They created a special type of mirror, and by reflecting these virtual
photons actually forced them into existence in a vacuum.
They measured the microwave energy produced by the pair of photons and
there you have it.
What this might lead to? - who can tell.
Is it really cool? Absolutely!
Rick (nerdy but nice) Bastedo
From: Linda Grunthaner <grunthaner at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:03:54 -0500
Subject: [Spridgets] Not LBC......... Nova link to awesome Quantum Mechanics
List,
I saw this video last night on PBS channel 13 via Nova finally a
documentary on physics I can understand.....well I do have to see it
again being I had a phone call during my viewing.
Quantum Mechanics, something I need to re-read or see several times
before I get it as with most physics stuff : ) I really liked how they
made the information so easy to understand through graphics and simple
understanding using common examples.
Enjoy or delete ; )
Lin
http://video.pbs.org/video/2167398185/
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