Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s Health of Australian Science report, launched today at the National Press Club, starts on an optimistic note. Australian science is generally in good health: school students…
The global push to detect gravitational waves could provide an enormous return for science.
Wikimedia Commons
Albert Einstein made an executive decision to revolutionise our understanding of gravity in a paper published in 1916. Nearly 100 years on, a key prediction of Einstein’s theory has eluded direct detection…
The ghost-like image of Tupac captured the imagination of concert-goers … imagine if they'd seen a real hologram.
Last week the world watched on as a supposed hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California.
But was it a hologram?
The term “hologram”, (“holos” meaning…
Pepper's Ghost is an amazing technique, but holograms, done right, are so much cooler.
kisokiso
Last week rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California – a notable feat given he was shot dead
in 1996.
Tupac’s glowing image appeared on stage, rapping, dancing and interacting…
The multi-million dollar facility provides cutting-edge tools for scientists.
Nancy Mills, Australian Synchrotron.
Science is like high-performance racing: today’s Formula One machine is all too soon the jalopy of tomorrow. The Australian Synchrotron, opened in 2007 and located in Melbourne, is currently at the F1…
Iran is constructing nuclear power stations; that much is clear.
AAP
There is much concern that Iran is in the process of developing nuclear weapons. Such a development, we’re told, could induce Israel to launch a unilateral military strike with all types of unpredictable…
More fossil fuel is out there, but if policy doesn't stop us, physics will.
EvolveLove/Flickr
In his recent Quarterly Essay, Man-made world: choosing between progress and planet, economist Andrew Charlton presents technological innovation as the solution to climate change and the route to unbounded…
Photosynthesis converts low-energy photons into usable energy; it may teach us how to do the same.
papalars
As the great spectre of climate change continues to loom large over the future, the search for viable, renewable energy sources is becoming ever more important.
Solar power has long been seen as a vital…
If the signs are right, fundamental equations of cosmology may need altering.
waljoris
A radical discovery by my colleagues and I – reported this week in Physical Review Letters – could help explain why it was possible for life (at least as we know it) to develop on Earth, but not in other…
The GPS on your phone couldn’t work without General Relativity.
Jym Dyer
It’s the year 2100. You wake up alone in a small, windowless room. The only other thing in the room is a small ball. Maybe the room is located in your city, but maybe it’s inside that new spaceship everyone…
Our understanding of the universe has been changed for ever.
A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA)/NASA
Occasionally, very occasionally, a discovery comes along that reshapes our view of the universe.
Some discoveries teach us about ourselves; some teach us how to better interact with the world around us;…
Confusion and the elusive Higgs boson seem to go hand in hand.
Salvatore di Nolfi/AFP
A recent announcement by the research director of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) indicated the Higgs boson – often referred to as the “God particle” – has been excluded at 95% confidence…
We know they're out there, and now we're closer than ever to finding gravity waves.
NASA
Detecting gravity waves is a major goal for astrophysicists.
We know they should be there, but we haven’t found them yet. But today we are one step closer.
By literally squeezing light on a quantum level…
A universe composed differently could still support complex life.
Susan NYC
Welcome to Peer Review, a series in which we ask leading academics to review books written by people working in the same field.
Here Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney…
Graphene may have humble beginnings, but it's becoming a major draw.
qwertyuiop
It inspired the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
It’s the best thermal conductor we know of.
It’s a crystal stiffer than diamond, but able to stretch by 20% of its length, and can carry a current density…
How long's a piece of string? You may want to sit down for a minute.
Gnu2000
String theory entered the public arena in 1988 when a BBC radio series Desperately Seeking Superstrings was broadcast.
Thanks to good marketing and its inherently curious name and features, it’s now part…
Theoretical physics strives towards a (beautiful) description of everything.
Jinx!
The “traditional” beauty of theoretical physics is its equations. If we want to describe something, or the way something behaves, we can write down a relation between some properties we think that thing…
We know how to solve some big problems in physics, we just don't have the power.
elvissa
Welcome to If I had a blank cheque … a series in which leading researchers reveal what they could (and would) do in their discipline if money were no object.
Today we hear from Dr Jonathan Carroll, Postdoctoral…
You wouldn't believe what modern telescopes can do.
Professor Fumolatro/Flickr
Last week, scientists set a new distance record, seeing a burst of gamma-rays from a star that exploded when the universe was only 520 million years old. The light from this distant source has been travelling…
Would you behave differently if you knew when the crash was coming?
Dave Hunt/AAP
Economists and physicists may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but then opposites often attract. Their union has recently produced a peculiar baby, a field of research known as “econophysics”.
Physicists…
Could this kitty be both dead and alive? Well, erm, you decide …
ihasb33r/Flickr
Quantum teleportation has been in the news before but last week Japanese and Australian scientists went one better, managing to teleport every physicist’s favourite feline: Schrödinger’s cat.
Before you…
Quantum mechanics (the theory of atoms, quarks and photons) is definitely weird and, thanks to the work I’m doing, it might be getting weirder.
Allow me to throw a quantum spanner in the works.
In the…
As yet we can only guess what the Higgs boson might look like.
DESY Zeuthen
Theoretical physics is full of mysteries and unknowns. In the case of some particles, we can predict their existence even if we can’t find them.
Such is the status of the Higgs boson. And yet detecting…
Nanoparticles, as used in sunscreen, are readily absorbed by the body
Tony Bartlett/AAP
For the public, the jury is still out on nanotechnology – the media simultaneously extols its promise and warns of the potential calamity facing humanity.
But what is it? How does it work? Is it dangerous…
Is the "Z-prime" lurking within a "jungle" of particles at the LHC?
Argonne National Laboratory
There’s nothing like an unexpected result to get physicists excited.
So in 2008, when some strange behaviour was detected from a rarely-produced particle known as the “top quark”, there was much interest…
Time travel has long been a staple of science fiction but the LHC might make it a reality.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can be called a time machine in one sense: it enables us to examine conditions as they were during the universe’s early stages.
But is the 27km-long particle…
Could neutrinos be responsible for the shape of the universe?
The Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Detector, Japan
Of all the known particles in our universe, neutrinos are perhaps the most elusive; their origins are mysterious, their purpose unknown and they are notoriously difficult to detect.
You’ll already know…
