The Physics arXiv Blog
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Flashback: Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun?
Over the holiday period, the arXivblog is running a selection of the most popular posts from 2008 29 August 2008: Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun? Here’s an interesting conundrum involving nuclear decay rates. We think that the decay rates of elements are constant regardless of the ambient conditions (except…
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Flashback: Feline ballistics
Over the holiday period, the arXivblog is running a selection of the most popular posts from 2008 1 February 2008: Feline ballistics Here’s a straightforward question in ballistics: What velocity do you need to launch a 350 pound object over a 12.5 foot barrier that is 33 feet away? Read on…
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Flashback: First superheavy element found in nature
Over the holiday period, the arXivblog is running a selection of the most popular posts from 2008 28 April 2008: First superheavy element found in nature The hunt for superheavy elements has focused banging various heavy nuclei together and hoping they’ll stick. In this way, physicists have extended the periodic table by manufacturing elements 111,…
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Flashback: Rubik’s cube proof cut to 25 moves
Over the holiday period, the arXivblog is running a selection of the most popular posts from 2008 26 March 2008: Rubik’s cube proof cut to 25 moves Last year, a couple of fellas at Northeastern University with a bit of spare time on their hands proved that any configuration of a Rubik’s cube could be…
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How chaos could improve speech recognition
If you’ve ever used speech recognition software, you’ll know how often it fails to work well. Recognition rates are nowhere near what is needed for anything but the simplest applications. So a new approach for analysing speech by Yuri Andreyev and Maxim Koroteev at the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of…
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How chaos could improve speech recognition
If you’ve ever used speech recognition software, you’ll know how often it fails to work well. Recognition rates are nowhere near what is needed for anything but the simplest applications. So a new approach for analysing speech by Yuri Andreyev and Maxim Koroteev at the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of…
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Entangled atoms could “sense” quantum gravity
The notion of quantum gravity has mystified many physicists, not least because there has never been a prospect of measuring the fabric of the universe on this scale. That looks set to change. A few years back, a number of physicists suggested that atom interferometry might do the trick. The thinking was that two atoms…
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The strange right hand of the universe
Is the Universe right handed? If Michael Longo at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is to be believed, the answer is yes; and the evidence comes from the right or left-handed shape of spiral galaxies. Astronomers have images of many thousands of spiral galaxies. But classifying them as left or right handed is…
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Hot ‘n’ quick
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv this week: Probing the Membrane Potential of Living Cells by Dielectric Spectroscopy Selective Optical Charge Generation, Storage and Readout in a Single Self Assembled Quantum Dot Quantum Vacuum Experiments Using High Intensity Lasers The Hydrodynamics of Swimming Microorganisms Similar is Better: Speed Variability Reduces Traffic Flow
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Astronomers find hottest and fastest exoplanet
As astronomers discover greater numbers of planets orbiting other stars, they are able to revise their theorie sof planet formation accordingly. Exotic planets are particularly prized because they push the boundaries of theoretical understanding to its limits. Today, Leslie Hebb at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and colleagues announce the discovery of one…