The Physics arXiv Blog
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Jewels ‘n’ nuggets
The best of the rest from the physcis arXiv: The Gravitational Bohr Radius WiFly: Experimenting with Wireless Sensor Networks and Virtual coordinates A Perfect Metamaterial Absorber Danger Theory: The Link between AIS and IDS Econophysics: Historical Perspectives Cometary Activity at 25.7 AU: Hale–Bopp 11 Years after Perihelion
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Are primordial quark nuggets hiding among the asteroids?
Jorge Horvath from the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil seems to think so and believes that our current search for near Earth asteroids may uncover them. Here is his thinkin’. About 20 years ago, a number of physicists investigated the possibility that a quark gluon plasma–a state of matter that should only have existed…
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Winning and the marathon of life
Look at the finishers in a typical marathon and a simple pattern immediately emerges. After the race winner, there is a trickle of fast finishers that gradually turns into a steady flow as the finish time approaches 3 hours. The main pack arrives in the range of 3–6 hours, with a decreasing stream of progressively…
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Proof that a minority of streets handle the majority of traffic
In recent years, physicists have turned their penetrating gaze towards the structure of towns and cities. What they tend to do is measure the “connectedness” of a town by looking at how many roads each street is connected to. It turns out, that cities follow an 80/20 rule, that 80 percent of the streets have…
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Avoiding heat death at the end of the Universe
The second law of thermodynamics is a bummer. It says that the entropy of an isolated system will increase with time. It’s the reason why teacups break when they fall, why smashing eggs is easier than mending them and why teenagers’ bedrooms inevitably become messier. That’s all rather annoying but when applied to the Universe,…
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Can data overload protect our privacy?
If you were chatting on MSN messenger in June 2006, your conversation was being recorded and the details (but not the content) passed to Eric Horvitz and Jure Leskovec at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington. Using this data, these scientists have created “the largest social network constructed and analyzed to date”. They’ve now published their…
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In case ya missed ’em…
…this week’s peaches from the arxivblog: When humans become entangled Food for thought Holographic quantum computing First observation of Hawking radiation? Goal difference, not points, the best way to rank soccer clubs
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Goals ‘n’ posts
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv: Mental Arithmetic and Regulation of Centre of Foot Pressure The Cosmic Microwave Background for Pedestrians Is the CMB Cold Spot a Gate to Extra Dimensions? Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations The SuperNova Early Warning System
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Goal difference, not points, the best way to rank soccer clubs
I know ya’ll been wonderin’ which soccer team is best. Traditionally, them Europeans rank their teams by points accured during the season: 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and zilch for a loss. Now a group of German physicists says this ain’t the best way to do it. After analysing all the…
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First observation of Hawking radiation?
In 1974, Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes would emit radiation. So-called Hawking radiation is produced when pairs of virtual particles pop into existence near the event horizon of a black hole (as they do all over the universe). Usually these pairs simply annihilate each other and disappear. But Hawking predicted that in some cases,…