Star Stories explains the life and death of stars using a multimedia approach that incorporates images, animation, video and text. From the official website of the Nobel Foundation. Don't miss out on the other cool games .
posted on Sep 25, 2008 - View this thread

The ALICE Collaboration is building a dedicated heavy-ion detector to exploit the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus interactions at LHC energies. The aim is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where the formation of a new phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, is expected. This website aims both at introducing non-initiates to the field of physics covered by ALICE and at providing regular information on the evolution of the experiment, with detailed reports of its results and analysis.
posted on Sep 18, 2008 - View this thread

In a scant few hours, scientists will make the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider. Terrified of nothing, a few deeply misguided morons have sent death threats to the CERN team, probably because of Faith-Based Science.
posted on Sep 9, 2008 - View this thread

Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos (via Wired Science)
posted on Sep 8, 2008 - View this thread

Ghost Particles & Pyramids: How physicists and archaeologists “see” inside ancient monuments.
posted on Aug 21, 2008 - View this thread

Science Hack is a unique search engine for science videos focusing on Physics, Chemistry, and Space. For example, things to do with sulfur hexafluoride. Still growing, the editors are presently indexing other scientific fields of study including Geology, Psychology, Robotics and Computers. Ever wonder why things go bang?
posted on Aug 7, 2008 - View this thread

Anything but clear. It is well known that panes of stained glass in old European churches are thicker at the bottom because glass is a slow-moving liquid that flows downward over centuries. Well known, yes, but long known to be wrong. Scientists still disagree about the nature of glass, and researchers continue to try to understand its dual personality .
posted on Jul 29, 2008 - View this thread

Putting the Warp into Warp Drive.
posted on Jul 28, 2008 - View this thread

If you like those giant plush microbes but maybe they're a little too life-sciencey for ya, perhaps you would like The Particle Zoo instead.
posted on Jun 30, 2008 - View this thread

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?"
posted on Jun 4, 2008 - View this thread

Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium - "Underneath their sober lab coats and flannel shirts, scientists hide images of their scientific passions. Here they are revealed to all." From the science journalist and writer responsible for The Loom and numerous other published works.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

Gorgeous images, selected solely for their artistic appeal, from the pages of Physical Review B.
posted on Mar 22, 2008 - View this thread

Swinging from pendulums and facing down wrecking balls, MIT professor Walter Lewin shows students the zany beauty of science.
posted on Mar 14, 2008 - View this thread

Physical Review Letters' 50th anniversary retrospective promises to be an interesting survey of the physics landscape for the past half-century.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Feb 25, 2008 - View this thread

Let's have some physics phun!
posted on Feb 20, 2008 - View this thread

Richard P. Feynman { Information Junkie → PhD → Atomic Bomber → Professor/Lecturer on Physics + Mathematical Artist [DIY] + Nanotech Knowledgist → 33.3% Nobel laureate + QEDynamic Speaker + Tiny Machinist + Challenger of Conclusions + Best-Selling Writer –X– Busted [outside Tuva] → Star Trek TNG Shuttlecraft ↓ Pepsi Black/Blue ↑ U.S. Postage Stamp } ∞
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

Steve Ward's Singing Tesla Coil video. Previously.
posted on Jul 15, 2007 - View this thread

The Particle Adventure.
posted on Apr 21, 2007 - View this thread

"This is a story of how the impossible became possible. How, for centuries, scientists were absolutely sure that solids (as well as decorative patterns like tiling and quilts) could only have certain symmetries - such as square, hexagonal and triangular - and that most symmetries, including five-fold symmetry in the plane and icosahedral symmetry in three dimensions (the symmetry of a soccer ball), were strictly forbidden. Then, about twenty years ago, a new kind of pattern, known as a "quasicrystal," was envisaged that shatters the symmetry restrictions and allows for an infinite number of new patterns and structures that had never been seen before, suggesting a whole new class of materials...."

Physicist Paul J. Steinhardt delivers a fascinating lecture (WMV) on tilings and quasicrystals. However, it turns out science was beaten to the punch: a recent paper (PDF) suggests Islamic architecture developed similar tilings centuries earlier.
posted on Mar 18, 2007 - View this thread

Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

Belief and knowledge - a primer on science communication
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

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.)
posted on Feb 3, 2007 - View this thread

Dr. James B. Calvert, professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Denver, has an incredibly rich and deep personal webpage, which includes such gems as Latin for mountain men, the correct corn-hog ratio, travel by brachistochrone, anomalous sound propagation and the guns of Barisal, and about a billion other awesomely nerdy topics.
posted on Jan 28, 2007 - View this thread

Liquid Nitrogen bomb! A ship floating on invisible hexaflourid gas! Smoking can kill you and weld metal! Nuclear Chain reaction... with balls! Detonating gas in a can!! Water flowing uphill! 100,000,000 volts and a Faraday cage! And more from Physikshow at University of Bonn.
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

Free Science and Video Lectures Online A nice blog collecting science videos. The most recent post on Cognitive Computing, Consciousness, Science Philosophy and Mind Video Lectures has some hum-dingers.
posted on Dec 30, 2006 - View this thread

The Spark Museum John Jenkins' collection of vintage wireless, radio, scientific and electrical equipment, including Crookes and Geissler tubes, Barlow wheels and other early electric motors, loudspeakers and many more oddball electrical devices. [via TeamDroid]
posted on Nov 13, 2006 - View this thread

Physics for Future Presidents is a class taught at UC Berkeley by Physics professor Richard Muller. It's a class specifically for non-physics majors and teaches the real world results of the sometimes impenetrable math involved in university physics. After every lecture, you should come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know. I just sat through the entire hour and 13 minute nukes lecture and was riveted.
posted on Nov 7, 2006 - View this thread

Teleportation Breakthrough. Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second. But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter. A more technical explanation.
posted on Oct 5, 2006 - View this thread

Proofs and Pictures: The Role of Visualization in Mathematical and Scientific Reasoning [video] "The picture is a telescope for looking into Plato's heaven." -- James Brown [cached]
posted on Aug 20, 2006 - View this thread

Motion Mountain - "The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and ideas about unification are included."
posted on Aug 17, 2006 - View this thread

Good evidence that dark matter is for real.
posted on Aug 16, 2006 - View this thread

War in Spaaaaaaaacccccce! A practical discussion of weapons that would work in space and orbital combat.
posted on Jul 28, 2006 - View this thread

We need to get Stephen Hawking an AskMe membership. Stephen Hawking asks the Yahoo public how the human race is going to survive. Yahoo staff are excited. But the answers? Well, let's just say that there may be more utility in eating tweens after the nuclear apocalypse than listening to their ideas. To balance the stupid, Hawking has several of his lectures online. And there's great stuff on PBS's Stephen Hawking's Universe (though it's aimed at providing a basic understanding of astrophysics). Or, for a more animated view MC Hawking's (sometimes clumsy) "What We Need More of Is Science. (Previous mefi hawking here, here [where he seems to be answering his later question], here [where he presents another view on how humans will survive], and here.)
posted on Jul 7, 2006 - View this thread

i began cataloging the colors, and put the color list on the web. over time, the paint catalog turned into a web site.
posted on Jun 27, 2006 - View this thread

Science sites of all kinds for kids. Archeology. Entomology. Natural Symphony. Baseball in Space. Philosophy. Process or Content. Science songs. Physics songs, relativity. String theory. Science and Art.
posted on Jun 26, 2006 - View this thread

The dog's nuts of the periodic table.
posted on May 30, 2006 - View this thread

Is this guy an awesome teacher or just crazy? Or maybe it goes hand in hand. Think back to the days of high school and college science classes. For most people, it probably wasn't chalkboards full of endless physics equations that got them interested in the sciences, but rather the crazy, cooky and awe-inspiring professors who do dramatic and unique demonstrations to get students interested. What makes a good teacher or professor? Is this teacher really reckless or is it a legit demonstration that benefits students?
posted on May 25, 2006 - View this thread

The odd films of Neural Surfer. I've yet to watch them all but my fave so far is Little Things that Jiggle: Richard Feynman and Atomic Physics {google vid}, which is part of the Philosophy in less than five minutes (sometimes) series.
posted on May 10, 2006 - View this thread

Order from chaos! Fill a cylindrical bucket with water and make it so the bottom can spin. At certain speeds, stable regular polygonal shapes will spontaneously form at the turbulent surface of the water. See the video. [2.6MB avi] [via last week's PRL]
posted on May 10, 2006 - View this thread

The scientific tradition in Africa. An interview with Thebe Medupe, a South African astronomer.
posted on Apr 19, 2006 - View this thread

The pleasure of finding things out. If you only watch one documentary on the subject of science this year, let is be this one. The brilliant physicist Richard Feynman is interviewed about a host of issues, such as [more inside].
posted on Apr 17, 2006 - View this thread

Before the Big Bang - way, way out of my depth, but I thought this comment was intriguing: "The paper as published, along with a longer follow up paper, looks to my untrained eye a nearly complete quantum gravitation theory, which is an exciting prospect in itself. However, as with all physical theories, we will await for experimental support before popping the cork." Here's some more on loop quantum gravity, spin networks, the big bang and ekpyrosis.
posted on Apr 16, 2006 - View this thread

Function Follows Form in Quantum Mechanics and Astronomy. The need for a NEW Black Hole. A Weblog.
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - View this thread

The Z Machine
"At first, we were disbelieving," said project leader Chris Deeney. "We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result." Scientists set record for hottest ever temperature record - 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit, at one point the machine produced more energy than was put it. But they're not sure how, possibly fusion. High-res photo, higher-res photo, wikipedia, everything2.
posted on Mar 9, 2006 - View this thread

Sufficiently advanced quantum computer is indistinguishable from magic
posted on Feb 22, 2006 - View this thread

The sun is solid (this has beautiful images, btw). The earth is fixed, or maybe growing; relativity is wrong, and so is most of current thinking... For the intriguing as well as the insane, visit the fringes of science.
posted on Jan 5, 2006 - View this thread

Does God Play Dice?
posted on Dec 3, 2005 - View this thread

Beyond Einstein - "A 12-hour webcast on Einstein's Theory of Relativity... and beyond."
posted on Nov 30, 2005 - View this thread

If the universe is a hologram and the healthy human brain a valve of consciousness then where'd this mental infinity come from? Are we simply living the simulacrum? Or does Pi protect us all, forever, infinitely?
posted on Nov 22, 2005 - View this thread

The Works of natural philosopher Robert Boyle (1627 - 1697) at the Robert Boyle Project, based at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Widely regarded as the first modern chemist (his book The Sceptical Chymist is perhaps the founding text of chemistry as a science), he was also an alchemist and made significant contributions in physics (for example Boyle's law) and physiology.
The Robert Boyle homepage has as its centrepiece a large collection of images of Boyles' papers. Images and transcriptions of his marvellous work diaries are available at the AHRC Centre for Editing Lives and Letters.
posted on Nov 11, 2005 - View this thread

Nova Science Now recently ran a segment on lightning (quicktime, real, and windows video here). I figured that subject was over and done with shortly after Franklin flew a kite, but it turns out we don't really know exactly what causes a bolt to start. The coolest part of the segment was these researchers in Florida. Scientists know how hard it was to observe, monitor, and even find lightning bolts, so these guys built their own rig. High-powered model rockets attached to a couple thousand feet of wire, which is grounded to larger metal structures on the ground. The result? Shoot a rocket into a storm cloud and you get instant lightning you can count on, measure, and control.
posted on Oct 22, 2005 - View this thread

Longest lab experiment
posted on Oct 14, 2005 - View this thread

Visualization of particle physics [via]
posted on Oct 12, 2005 - View this thread

Does dark matter exist? Dark matter has been suggested as a solution to the galaxy rotation problem where individual stars don't seem to rotate the way Newton's laws would predict. Now, some scientists are saying that observations fit with Einstein's general relativity, without any dark matter needed. I just find it amazing that no one has tried this yet.
posted on Oct 10, 2005 - View this thread

e=mc^2*100 It has been a hundred years since the date that Einstein's famous equation was first published, the last of his four annus mirabilis papers of 1905. In celebration, you can hear Einstein explain his formula (or listen to any of 10 other famous physicists do the same), or read an interesting site in celebration of his life and works, or, if physics isn't your thing, peruse his views on religion, or his exchange with Freud about war, or take a look at hundreds of his original manuscripts.
posted on Sep 27, 2005 - View this thread

Jim Loy's Mathematics Page is (among other things) a collection of interesting theorems (like Napoleon's Triangle theorem), thoughtful discussions of both simple and complex math, and geometric constructions (my personal favorite); the latter of which contains surprisingly-complex discussions on the trisection of angles, or the drawing of regular pentagons.

Similarly enthralling are the pages on Billiards (and the physics of), Astronomy (and the savants of), and Physics (and the Phlogiston Theory of), all of which are rife with illustrations and diagrams. See the homepage for much more.

If you like your geometric constructions big, try Zef Damen's Crop Circle Reconstructions.
posted on Sep 14, 2005 - View this thread

Java applets to help visualize various concepts in math, physics, and engineering
posted on Sep 9, 2005 - View this thread

Know less than nothing!? What could negative knowledge possibly mean? In short, after I tell you negative information, you will know less... "In this week's issue of Nature, however, Michal Horodecki and colleagues present a fresh approach to understanding quantum phenomena that cannot be grasped simply by considering their classical counterparts." [via slashdot :]
posted on Aug 8, 2005 - View this thread

How should science be taught in school?
posted on Jul 14, 2005 - View this thread

Resonata - A Wave Machine [Java]
posted on Jun 21, 2005 - View this thread

The Logic of Diversity "A new book, The Wisdom of Crowds [..:] by The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which diversity can be beneficial in problem solving." (Three-Toed Sloth)
posted on Jun 20, 2005 - View this thread

Back to the FutureDrawing Board
posted on Jun 17, 2005 - View this thread

The Physics Evolution - a flash based history from the Institute of Physics in London. Clickable maps with timelines and short biographies of the main figures. It's a bit superficial, but a lot of fun.
posted on Jun 11, 2005 - View this thread

Machine by SymmetryLab: fixed points, spinners, pistons, elastics, and connectors. Dig the frictionless world.

SymmetryLab's other stuff is noteworthy as well.
posted on Apr 30, 2005 - View this thread

Putterman also suggests the crystals could be used as microthrusters for tiny spacecraft. By accelerating deuterium in one direction, the spacecraft would be propelled in the opposite direction.
Ok, so I know nothing about physics, apart from what I learned getting beat up in grade school, but this seems both legit and cool. Here's a MeFi discussion of the other kind of desktop fusion, you know, the kind with the bubbles. A picture of the bubble machine.
posted on Apr 28, 2005 - View this thread

Idealist and realist: What we can learn from Albert Einstein's free spirit. "Einstein was a Freigeist, and his self-appointed, conscious task was to be a liberator –- a Befreier. In this he continued a great German cultural tradition established by Kant, Goethe, and simultaneously with Einstein, by Ernst Cassirer." [via]
posted on Mar 11, 2005 - View this thread

Misconceptions about the Big Bang
posted on Feb 23, 2005 - View this thread

Quantum Diaries - follow physicists from around the world as they experience the World Year of Physics 2005.
posted on Feb 1, 2005 - View this thread

This year has been declared the World Year of Physics. Why 2005? To celebrate 100 years since Einstein published three papers that revolutionized physics. In the U.K. and Ireland it is being called Einstein Year, but there are many events planned around the globe.
posted on Jan 26, 2005 - View this thread

Symmetry magazine.
posted on Dec 13, 2004 - View this thread

String Theory Turns 20 - first posited in 1984 as an explanation for the strong force, String Theory turns 20 this year. While some physicists celebrate, others are concerned that string theory isn't coming close to being a theory of everything as many had hoped. While it does reconcile quantum mechanics with Special Relativity, there is currently no mathematical proof for String Theory. Even more troubling, rather than providing one solid explanation for the universe, the many dimensions of string theory offer 10^100 different possible results.
posted on Dec 7, 2004 - View this thread

Does relativity have any practical significance? In fact, relativity had to be taken into account by the designers of the Global Positioning System. The GPS satellites are affected both by special relativity (since the satellites are moving, clocks aboard them appear to run slower as seen from the ground), and by general relativity (since the satellites are farther away from the mass of the earth, clocks appear to run faster as seen from the ground). The net effect of both is that clocks aboard GPS satellites would gain 38 microseconds per day relative to the ground, if relativistic effects were not corrected for--a figure which can be confirmed by using Google calculator.
posted on Nov 30, 2004 - View this thread

Singularity, The. A black hole in the Extropian worldview whose gravity is so intense that no light can be shed on what lies beyond it. "Popular Science" talks about The Singularity, and asks "Is Science Fiction about to go blind?" Also, see previously, here and here.
posted on Sep 29, 2004 - View this thread

How to build yourself a Glow Discharge Panel. No, really. Woah, that's freakin' cool. UFO stuff, I think to myself. Heh. Oh.. Oh holy crap!
posted on Aug 30, 2004 - View this thread

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?
posted on Jul 29, 2004 - View this thread

Great television science presenters and their shows: Tim Hunkin "the Secret Life of Machines", Jacob Bronowski "The Ascent of Man", James Burke "Connections", David Attenborough "Trials of Life" "Blue Planet" etc., Marlin Perkins "Wild Kingdom", Don Herbert "Watch Mr. Wizard", Adam Hart-Davis "Science Shack" "Rough Science", Jack Horkheimer "Star Gazer". Does anyone else have any favorites, past or present?
posted on Jun 4, 2004 - View this thread

This cornstarch, it vibrates. (wmv 4MB)
posted on May 19, 2004 - View this thread

The Matthew effect "It was Merton who identified and named the tendency always to assign exclusive scientific credit to the most eminent among all the plausible candidates. At least I hope it was he, though I'm sure Merton, who invented many wonderful jokes himself, would have been delighted if the credit for it turned out to be misattributed to him." Or is this called the flypaper effect? The question remains: Who popularized the phrase 'Shut up and Calculate!'
posted on May 15, 2004 - View this thread

Time to replace your old Periodic Table. ...a joint American-Russian team has found two new elements—numbers 113 and 115 on the periodic table—hinting at an impending breakthrough in creating novel forms of matter that will test our understanding of atomic behavior.
posted on Mar 29, 2004 - View this thread

Interesting article on how science will change our understanding of time. [Via AlDaily]
posted on Jan 1, 2004 - View this thread

Jaron Lanier talks about philosophy, computer science and physics. Suppose poor old Shroedinger's Cat has survived all the quantum observation experiments but still has a taste for more brushes with death. We could oblige it by attaching the cat-killing box to our camera. So long as the camera can recognize an apple in front of it, the cat lives.
posted on Nov 20, 2003 - View this thread

U.S.S. Enterprise analyzed. "For StarTrek [sic] fans we tested the USS Enterprise in our super-orbital expansion tube... We perform similar tests on other models investigating dissociation and ionisation processes which occur during atmospheric re-entry."
posted on Oct 28, 2003 - View this thread

The cable clock. This clocks tells time, just like any other clock, but the movement of the hands is hypnotic and beautiful. To physicists, time is defined by quantum mechanics. A photon with energy h (Planck's constant) behaves as though it were oscillating once per second. For Philosphers, time is less concrete, and they love to talk about it. Western society lives by the clock - does it make a difference if this is the kind of clock that you live by? After all, everyone knows that time is money. If you have to be a clock watcher, does it help if the clock is as calming as the Cable Clock is?
posted on Sep 9, 2003 - View this thread

At Fermilab , one of about seventy high energy particle accelerators on the planet, scientists offer day-by-day, hour-by-hour reports of experimental progress and setbacks. Science in action looks tedious. This reads like a particle physics blog.
posted on Aug 8, 2003 - View this thread

Physicists have discovered a new class of subatomic particle that will provide unexpected insights into the fundamental building blocks of matter. The new particle is the so-called pentaquark - five quarks in formation.
posted on Jul 1, 2003 - View this thread

Cosmic Evolution -- Particulate, Galactic, Stellar, Planetary, Chemical, Biological, Cultural (Via the Exploratorium)
posted on May 13, 2003 - View this thread

The most important scientific discovery of our generation.
Okay, maybe not. But it is nice to know that a math degree can still have fun applications.
posted on Mar 6, 2003 - View this thread

What's the real story here? "An international team researching particle physics at Tohoku University has observed a new kind of neutrino." BZZT! Try again."Sun is ok, says latest neutrino experiment." BZZT. Wrong answer. The media sure made a hash out of this one. [more inside]
posted on Dec 9, 2002 - View this thread

"I was willing to bet that there was going to be a universe, and I hit the nail on the head." The other day we had Avram Davidson, which got me thinking of Calvino's Invisible Cities, but all the recent talk about black holes made me remember that Italo Calvino is at his most charming when he's playing with physics, math, and cosmology in Cosmicomics.
posted on Nov 20, 2002 - View this thread

Art from physics: it's a groovy gas. It's transonic flight. It's a pi-muon death cycle. It's a dark matter detector. It's a Super-Kamiokande with 9000 neutrino eyes. Dream on!
posted on Nov 15, 2002 - View this thread

Have a hankering for theoretical physics, but don't know where to get your fix? The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, funded by the NSF and the University of California, can help! I stumbled on it while looking up photon entanglement on google, and was delighted to find a section of the site with complete audio (and often slides as well) from over a hundred speakers at dozens of different conferences. If you need a place to start, I suggest Black Holes: Theory Confronts Reality, Three Years Later and the ITP Public Lecture Series.
posted on Oct 5, 2002 - View this thread

Fire up that warp drive. In this week's issue of Nature, physicists claim to have made 50,000 atoms of antihydrogen. Not only is this a lot more antihydrogen than has been produced before, the stuff is cold -- read slow-moving -- so it's possible that physicists will finally be able to trap it and study it. (Less technical news story here.)
posted on Sep 18, 2002 - View this thread

c not a constant! Over a period of billions of years of course. If this theory is true, then E=mc² might not apply to a large period of time.
posted on Aug 7, 2002 - View this thread

A computer aided simulation builds a spiral galaxy from its beginning. In all, 390,000 particles were placed in an arrangement similar to a newborn galaxy. The end result after three months is an event that is believed to take billions of years to occur. (animation)
posted on Aug 7, 2002 - View this thread

BBC presents: The Science of Superheroes! Ever wonder how Spider-Man climbs on walls? How do lie detectors such as Wonder Woman's lasso work? What was gravity like on planet Krypton? The BBC takes a scientific look at our favorite superheroes to teach the physics behind the fantasy.
posted on Jun 20, 2002 - View this thread

Stupid Movie Physics Tricks discusses bad physics in movies and even rates some movies (e.g., XP - physics not from this universe) based on their faithfulness to the laws of physics. Follow that up with bad astronomy and finish it off with bad science in general. (OK, so the last one is more about bad meteorology, but that sucks as a soundbite.)
posted on Jun 19, 2002 - View this thread

Teleportation finally? Not quite "beam me up scotty" yet, but a definite surge forward. The mechanics of it aren't quite sophisticated enough yet to handle humans, but this does make quantum computers close to reality.
posted on Jun 17, 2002 - View this thread

Instant Suntan. A supernova in our galactic backyard may be on the verge of exploding. In the (unlikely) event that it happens tomorrow, how would you spend your last day on earth?
posted on May 25, 2002 - View this thread

Stephen Wolfram has finished his book, "A New Kind of Science," which purpotedly is being espoused as a paradigm shift in many fields. But, I'm starting to see a very reductionistic attitude in many of the main theorists of complextity theory and emergent phenomena. Is the idea that the Universe is in lines of code a phallus-extension/masculine overdriven idea? Isn't math a man made mapping and can the Universe be reduced to an equation by a man? Still this book is going to be groundbreaking. Read the following exceperpt from the wired.com article: q: "I've got to ask you," I say. "How long do you envision this rule of the universe to be?"
w: "I'm guessing it's really very short."
q: "Like how long?"
w: "I don't know. In Mathematica, for example, perhaps three, four lines of code."
link via protofunk.org, old similar thread
posted on May 20, 2002 - View this thread

"Observing" other dimensions. The existence of tiny black holes, produced by cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere, if confirmed by the Auger cosmic ray observatory, might provide evidence for other dimensions beyond Space and Time.
Amazing how theories considered untestable by experiment a few years ago are turning into "real" science.
posted on Jan 15, 2002 - View this thread

So you think the expansion of the universe is accelerating? Think again! (Contains links to full paper in .pdf etc.)
posted on Dec 21, 2001 - View this thread

Science may be left totally unable to explain mass. "The most saught after oject particle in physics, the Higgs boson, may not even exist." As devistating as it sounds to science, I just couldn't help but laugh.
posted on Dec 11, 2001 - View this thread

qed is a new play about the nobel-winning physicist richard feynman. the idea is intriguing, and if anyone should get the one-man-show treatment it's feynman. but does the idea of alan alda playing feynman seem slightly off somehow?
posted on Nov 3, 2001 - View this thread

When NASA scientists watch Michael Bay films, comedy ensues. 'The technology is not at all far-fetched,' said Dr Greg Laughlin, of the Nasa Ames Research Center in California. 'It involves the same techniques that people now suggest could be used to deflect asteroids or comets heading towards Earth. We don't need raw power to move Earth, we just require delicacy of planning and manoeuvring.' Oh yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. I'm not being a Luddite here...I realize the scientists involved aren't going to be doing this any time soon, if ever. It still spooks me, though.
posted on Jun 11, 2001 - View this thread

I usually wouldn't post something that I found through the office "humor" mailing list, but this just seemed very MetaFilterable. Physics geeks especially take note.
posted on Feb 20, 2001 - View this thread

Reading through Physics Today (as I'm wont to do on occasion) I came across this absolutely enthralling article on Wolfgang Pauli of whom I've never heard. Truly an admirable specimen among Physicus Intellectus. Also, it behooves me to mention "A Remembrance of Pauli in 1950."
posted on Feb 10, 2001 - View this thread

"The Standard Model" of the universe takes a hit.
Score one for string theorists. Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory appear to have discovered a new type of subatomic particle that would disprove the currently accepted model for the nature of space and matter.
posted on Feb 9, 2001 - View this thread

How things work. Yes I know there's a plethora of physics-related 'how things work' websites out there, but I got absorbed in this one for a long time (run by physics prof Louis Bloomfield). Started with my wondering: "Why do colors fade in sunlight?" The first page though has an interesting bit (with video) about explosive superheated water. Don't try this at home.
posted on Feb 9, 2001 - View this thread

Speed of light broken. But it may be awhile before we can harness it for anything useful. Fascinating, nonetheless.
posted on Jul 20, 2000 - View this thread

Can the speed of light be broken? It's not 1 April, so this actually might be true. It'll be interesting to see the paper in Nature, if and when.
posted on Jun 5, 2000 - View this thread