MetaFilter posts tagged with physics and quantummechanics

How Much

homunculus — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:55:56 -0800

Quantum of culture. Terminology from quantum theory shows up frequently in art, films, poetry and sculpture. Robert P. Crease gauges the impact of quantum mechanics on popular culture. [Via]

Reality

homunculus — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:40:09 -0800

The Reality Tests. "A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?"

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts

XMLicious — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:21:29 -0800

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts (pdf), a recently-updated paper on the Cornell arXiv peer-review site. By Hrvoje Nikolić of the Rudjer Bošković Institute in Croatia. Note: the presence of a paper on arXiv does not necessarily mean it has been reviewed and is not equivalent to having been published in a journal.

The Mechanical Universe on Demand

FuturisticDragon — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:52:08 -0800

The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond is a critically-acclaimed series of 52 thirty-minute videotape programs covering the basic topics of an introductory university physics course. This well produced and highly informative 52 episode series, hosted by David Goodstein of Caltech, is available as Video on Demand (Note: simple registration required to view videos). This series is an excellent combination of physics history, theoretical description, mathematical formulation using computer graphics and in class demonstrations.

Physics simulators. Lots of physics simulators.

loquacious — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:47:41 -0800

PhET - Physics Education Technology offers this astoundingly large library of online physics simulations. Play orbital billiards. Land on a cheesy moon. Experiment with sound. Or try more advanced quantum physics simulators. Still bored? Try the "cutting edge" catagory. Here's the complete index. (Warnings: Frames, Flash, Javascript, Java applets, graphics, sound, quantum timesuck.)

QuIET is the New Loud

terrapin — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:14:24 -0800

University of Arizona physicists have discovered how to turn single molecules into working transistors. The research could result in much smaller, more powerful computers and other devices with the ability to process many more channels of high-resolution audio and video than current products can manage. The abstract is available in PDF.

Don't give me any of that intelligent life crap, just give me something I can blow up

Smedleyman — Mon, 15 May 2006 14:45:20 -0800

For a star as big as our universe the calculated vacuum energy inside its shell matches the value of dark energy seen in the universe today. "It's like we are living inside a giant dark energy star" say two physicists and their collegues. Dark energy stars may do away with the concept of black holes. (also seen recently on )

Or did I just BLOW YOUR FUCKING MIND?!

jmhodges — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:09:40 -0800

We've talked about quantum computation a few times before, but how much do we really know? Metafilter, instruct thyself. Don't forget to learn some advanced probability and computational complexity (Scott Aaronson has more). Whoa, that's a lot o' learning, so let's so check out the much easier, and much cooler "sleeping puppy" experiment. I can only dream that will help break quantum mechanics' association with animal abuse. Then, there's the Free Will Theorem that just came out (some discussion on it) and another paper with a new look at an old problem. The latter describes another way of solving ye olde, super importanto Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox using the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (lots of discussion running around). Whew. We don't need the crackpot ramblings of What the #$*! Do We Know? when we've got real physics to keep us up at night. So, who wants to become a physicist? (t'Hooft has some thoughts for those who want to go theoretical.)

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:41:17 -0800

Sufficiently advanced quantum computer is indistinguishable from magic

Yowza

Pretty_Generic — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 06:36:48 -0800

The physicist Shariah Afshar has used a beautifully simple experiment, which no-one seems to have thought of before, to disprove Bohr's principle of complementarity, something which has been pretty much unchallenged for 80 years. He may also have gone some way towards showing that there is no such thing as a photon, and that Einstein's Nobel prize should be revoked. So, big stuff. What do you physicists think?