"Quantum" sums up Science in 2008.
Udut, Kenneth -- on Dec. 29 2008, from Golden Gate Estates, Naples, FLFounder of this Naples site of NeighborHelp Referrals.
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It's a Quantum Year in Physics for 2008! New discoveries that put us in a different place than we were in 2007.
By Marshall, Michael as found in the New Scientist.
If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as radioactivity and antimatter, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles behave on small scales.
The quantum world is now one of the most closely scrutinised areas of science, and throughout 2008 new discoveries have poured in.
New Science in 2008
Four radical routes to a theory of everything Einstein's theory of relativity does an equally good job at large scales. Quantum mechanics does a fantastic job of explaining the world of the very small. Until recently, physicists hadn't made much progress in finding ways to reconcile the two - but now they're spoilt for choice.
The great antimatter mystery In the beginning there was the big bang, which produced the universe - but how? If the big bang made equal quantities of matter and antimatter, it should all have mutually annihilated. So why is there something rather than nothing?
Anyons: The breakthrough quantum computing needs? A new class of particles that exists in only two dimensions could encode information in quantum computers. "Anyons" started out as little more than a theoretical fancy, but are now becoming a very real.
Do birds see with quantum eyes? Migrating birds seem to be able to navigate by the Earth's magnetic field, but nobody really understands how. A phenomenon called the "quantum Zeno effect" might provide the answer. It's still theoretical, but we might finally be homing in on an explanation for birds' remarkable wayfinding ability.
What makes the universe tick? Time may seem like a common-sense concept, but it's one of the hardest things for physicists to account for - so much so that some have argued that it doesn't actually exist at all. Now a growing group of scientists are fighting to bring time back into the equation.
It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations If you thought you were made of something solid and substantial, think again. New calculations show that protons and neutrons, two of the major building blocks of all matter, are mostly made up of virtual particles.
Atomic logic: In search of shape-shifting circuits Forget pressing a button and waiting for your hard drive to whirr into action. If one man's idea works out, your computer's circuits will materialise in front of you out of beams of light and a puff of gas - and you'll be able to transform its parts into any electronic circuitry you like.
The hunt for the Un-universe There may be an entirely new type of particle out there, waiting to be discovered. These so-called "unparticles" are slippery customers: they can shift their identities, masquerade as fractions of particles, and even exude their own "ungravity" force.
Quantum effects may explain water's weirdness We take water for granted, but it is actually one of the strangest substances known to exist, with a habit of ignoring rules about how materials are "supposed" to behave. Now it seems that the famous "uncertainty principle" could help explain why water is such an oddball.
2008: Does time travel start here? As it turned out, the answer to the question in our headline was "no" - because the Large Hadron Collider had barely started up before it broke down. But when it's up and running again, will it create loops in time? Two Russian mathematicians think it might.
If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as radioactivity and antimatter, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles behave on small scales.
The quantum world is now one of the most closely scrutinised areas of science, and throughout 2008 new discoveries have poured in.
New Science in 2008
Four radical routes to a theory of everything Einstein's theory of relativity does an equally good job at large scales. Quantum mechanics does a fantastic job of explaining the world of the very small. Until recently, physicists hadn't made much progress in finding ways to reconcile the two - but now they're spoilt for choice.
The great antimatter mystery In the beginning there was the big bang, which produced the universe - but how? If the big bang made equal quantities of matter and antimatter, it should all have mutually annihilated. So why is there something rather than nothing?
Anyons: The breakthrough quantum computing needs? A new class of particles that exists in only two dimensions could encode information in quantum computers. "Anyons" started out as little more than a theoretical fancy, but are now becoming a very real.
Do birds see with quantum eyes? Migrating birds seem to be able to navigate by the Earth's magnetic field, but nobody really understands how. A phenomenon called the "quantum Zeno effect" might provide the answer. It's still theoretical, but we might finally be homing in on an explanation for birds' remarkable wayfinding ability.
What makes the universe tick? Time may seem like a common-sense concept, but it's one of the hardest things for physicists to account for - so much so that some have argued that it doesn't actually exist at all. Now a growing group of scientists are fighting to bring time back into the equation.
It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations If you thought you were made of something solid and substantial, think again. New calculations show that protons and neutrons, two of the major building blocks of all matter, are mostly made up of virtual particles.
Atomic logic: In search of shape-shifting circuits Forget pressing a button and waiting for your hard drive to whirr into action. If one man's idea works out, your computer's circuits will materialise in front of you out of beams of light and a puff of gas - and you'll be able to transform its parts into any electronic circuitry you like.
The hunt for the Un-universe There may be an entirely new type of particle out there, waiting to be discovered. These so-called "unparticles" are slippery customers: they can shift their identities, masquerade as fractions of particles, and even exude their own "ungravity" force.
Quantum effects may explain water's weirdness We take water for granted, but it is actually one of the strangest substances known to exist, with a habit of ignoring rules about how materials are "supposed" to behave. Now it seems that the famous "uncertainty principle" could help explain why water is such an oddball.
2008: Does time travel start here? As it turned out, the answer to the question in our headline was "no" - because the Large Hadron Collider had barely started up before it broke down. But when it's up and running again, will it create loops in time? Two Russian mathematicians think it might.
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