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What's new in physics (split from is Nobel suffocating science)


Chriss

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I haven't heard some interesting new discoveries lately.

Most things don't make the news. What are you interested in? I am sure you can find some new results at least monthly. Not all of these will be important or necessarily very exciting, but none the less new.

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Most things don't make the news. What are you interested in? I am sure you can find some new results at least monthly. Not all of these will be important or necessarily very exciting, but none the less new.

I can't keep up with the discoveries; everyday something new popping up. People generally only notice the stuff that has commercial application or seeks to answer the 'big questions'.

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With the LHC warming up right now we might be on the run that starts to find supersymetrical particles, dark matter particles, particles that are outside standard model ...

 

More data might allow cosmologists to get significant readings amongst the noise in the search for direct evidence of gravitational waves, see through the dust with bicep2 and find polarisations in the CMB which provide observation evidence prior to the era of last scattering, and the ever increasing fidelity, precision, and depth of our observations from radio through to xrays might trigger a realisation of epic proportions.

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What do your unreasonable expectations have to do with the Nobel prize?

Nothing.

I think Roetgen was the best of scientists that was awarded Nobel prize. Everybody knows x-rays.

Edited by Chriss
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Nothing.

I think Roetgen was the best of scientists that was awarded Nobel prize. Everybody knows x-rays.

 

Although X-rays a very useful technology, in medicine and industry, they have not had anywhere like the impact on science that others have. The 2009, 2010 and 2014 Nobel Prizes (among others) are for work that might turn out to have just as great, or greater, practical applications.

 

The Curies' work was more important in understanding the nature of matter; Einstein's Nobel prize was for work that completely changed the nature of physics. And so on.

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Although X-rays a very useful technology, in medicine and industry, they have not had anywhere like the impact on science that others have. The 2009, 2010 and 2014 Nobel Prizes (among others) are for work that might turn out to have just as great, or greater, practical applications.

 

The Curies' work was more important in understanding the nature of matter; Einstein's Nobel prize was for work that completely changed the nature of physics. And so on.

I agree, but some things are done by the logical progress of science like you mentioned, and very few are unexpected like x-rays that couldn't be made by someone else. That is the difference. Also Roetgen discovery was an inspiration to Marie Curie and Antoine Becquerel with radioactivity. I think all his peers envied him.

Edited by Chriss
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I haven't heard some interesting new discoveries lately.

 

 

Read more.

 

Just a few weeks ago we discussed a paper in our journal club on mirrors made using metamaterials. at one wavelength it could act like a parabolic dish even though it's flat, and be transparent at another wavelength range. You could make your solar panel and radio dish use the same real estate on a satellite, for example. I think that's pretty interesting.

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How metamaterials are made ?

 

In this case it's a matter of embedding small wires and loops of various shapes and sizes in a dielectric, to allow control of the phase of the reflected light, and the response of the material.

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Does anybody tried to speculate about human mind (intelligence, imagination etc.) or to emit some hypothesis of what could be ? particles or something else ... ? What are the perspectives in that direction ?

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I know that at the basis of everything ( biology, neurology etc) it's physics.

Ultimately you are right, everything should come down to physics eventually. However, the questions you have asked about the mind are not what physicists today usually think about. There maybe some crossover here with medical physics and biophysics, but still the questions you have asked maybe better off in the biology or medicine sections.

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That would be neurology or possibly philosophy, not physics.

Yes, it's an emergent property of an ensemble of neural signals; Physics is too fundamental and low level to describe stuff like the mind. Like trying to describe flower arranging with maths; can be done but unecessarily tedious and long-winded. :)

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I know that at the basis of everything ( biology, neurology etc) it's physics.

 

At the basis of computers is semiconductor physics and the movement of charge carriers. But you don't need to worry about this when writing software.

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At the basis of computers is semiconductor physics and the movement of charge carriers. But you don't need to worry about this when writing software.

I understand. I created a topic in neuroscience forum.

Edited by Chriss
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