Month: October 2008
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How to test the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that before a measurement is made, identical copies of the observer exist in parallel universes and that all possible results of a measurement actually take place in these universes. Until now there has been no way to distinguish between this and the Born interpretation. This holds that…
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The remarkable language of Vai
Vai is a language spoken by 150,000 people in western Africa, specifically in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The language is noteworthy because its uses a remarkable system of sounds. Speakers must be able to pronounce seven oral vowels, five nasal vowels and 31 consonants all of which come in various combinations. In its written form,…
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Earths ‘n’ Mars’
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv: Skull Flexure from Blast Waves: A New Mechanism for Brain Injury with Implications for Helmet Design Triangleland. II. Quantum Mechanics of Pure Shape Atom Interferometry Based on Light Pulses The Frontiers of Nuclear Science, A Long Range Plan A Statistical Approach to Modeling Indian Classical Music…
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How alien Earths will reveal their secrets
The European Space Agency has set itself an ambitious goal: to recognise the biomarkers on Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. The first step in such an endeavour is work out to look for, which the goal that Lisa Kaltenegger at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and Franck Selsis at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de…
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The first printed plastic magnetic field sensors
Conducting polymers just keep getting better. This week, Sayani Majumdar at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and pals say they’ve used using an inkjet printer to print a plastic circuit onto a plastic substrate that clearly shows magnetoresistance at room temperature. That means they can print plastic microchips capable of sensing magnetic fields. Cool,…
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The trouble with traffic at intersections
These rather beautiful graphs are space-time plots of vehicles approaching, entering and then leaving an intersection controlled by traffic lights. The plots were calculated using cellular automata to model the behavior of the vehicles. Here the upper plot shows the pattern of traffic at a traffic lights with a fixed schedule. The lower figures shows…