The radiocarbon 14C dating method has been used for decades to accurately determine the age of a wide range of artefacts. But our relentless use of fossil fuels has pumped a type of carbon into the atmosphere that is starting to confuse the dating technique. By 2050, scientists warn, new fabrics could have the same radiocarbon date as items 1,000 years old!
First predicted in the 1960s, like the Higgs boson before it, the pentaquark eluded science for decades until its recent detection at CERN’s LHCb collaboration. The discovery amounts to finding a new form of matter…
Taking a radically different experimental approach, EPFL scientists were able to take the first ever snapshot of light behaving simultaneously both as a wave AND as a stream of particles. You need light to take a photograph. But how do you take a photograph of light?
Continue reading Seeing the Light Fantastic – Particles, Waves and All
1/60 minute. 1/3,600 hour. 1/86,400 day. 1/1 hertz. The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of a 133 55Cs caesium isotope corresponds to one second. But what does it look like? And where might you find a second?
Continue reading Just a Second…
Deep down, in huge subterranean caverns… Underneath the Franco-Swiss border… 300 feet underground… lies a beast of unprecedented power… and mystery. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that man summons to explore the uncharted corners of the sub-atomic realm… After two years of a deep slumber, the mighty beast has awoken…
Continue reading Physics at 13 TeV – Cranking Up the LHC
The Standard Model of Particle Physics describes the fundamental particles and their interactions via the strong, electromagnetic and weak forces, providing precise predictions for measurable quantities that can be tested experimentally. Here’s the latest!! It’s hot!!! It’s exciting!!! At least, if you’re a particle physicist…
Continue reading Rare Beauty Decays at CERN
One of the all-time most interesting elements in the Periodic Table, nitrogen is a colourless, odourless, inert diatomic gas that makes up to 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere. We breathe it everyday, although an atmosphere of pure nitrogen is nefarious to animal and human life. It is vital to life and plants simply strive on it. Nitrogen compounds are explosive, and nations have gone to war over it. It can feed… or kill.
Continue reading Nitrogen – Nature’s Explosive Building Blocks
This is the Jasper Project. Over 325,000 photovoltaic panels capable of producing 180,000 MWh of clean energy every year and support the needs of almost 80,000 households. More and more solar farms are being built across Africa. Solar energy is on the rise.
Continue reading Sunrise over an African Power Revolution
A ground-breaking one-year space mission involving twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly should help doctors, scientists and mission planners better understand the physical and psychological impacts of a long-duration spaceflight.
Continue reading The Real-Life Space Twin Paradox
On 20th March 2015, the Moon will pass in front of the Sun and exactly block out most of its light. It will be the first total solar eclipse of the 21st century that is visible from the northernmost regions of Europe…
Continue reading Celestial Rendez-Vous – An Equinoctial Total Eclipse of the Sun