What Did The Experiment Show
The new Fermilab experiment called Muon g-2 watched how muons wobbled in a magnetic field in order to precisely measure their magnetic moment . The result: the experimental value of the magnetic moment was found to deviate from theory by a miniscule amount .
This is the most precise measurement of the muons magnetic moment yet, and even the tiny discrepancy has got physicists around the world teetering between excitement and caution because it could still be enough to shift the course of particle physics.
Heres why: muons arent the only particles out there. As they race around the Muon g-2 track, they interact with a sea of other subatomic particles that constantly pop in and out of existence, causing the muons precession to either slightly speed up or slow down. The Standard Models predictions correct for this buzz of other particles but only the ones it knows about. If there are additional particles or forces present that we havent yet discovered, they could affect the precession of the muons even further. The extent to which experimental values deviate from predictions can therefore indicate just how much we are yet to discover about the universe.
This quantity we measure reflects the interactions of the muon with everything else in the universe, explains Renee Fatemi, simulations manager for the Muon g-2 experiment and physicist at the University of Kentucky.
From Crystal To Time Crystal
We encounter normal crystals all the time in everyday life, from the ice in a cocktail to the diamonds in jewelry. While crystals are pretty, to a physicist they represent a breakdown of the normal symmetries of nature.
The laws of physics are symmetric through space. That means that the fundamental equations of gravity or electromagnetism or quantum mechanics apply equally throughout the entirety of the volume of the universe. They also work in any direction. So, a laboratory experiment that is rotated 90 degrees should produce the same results .
But in a crystal, this gorgeous symmetry gets broken. The molecules of a crystal arrange themselves in a preferred direction, creating a repeating spatial structure. In the jargon of physicists, a crystal is a perfect example of spontaneous symmetry breaking the fundamental laws of physics remain symmetric, but the arrangement of the molecules is not.
In 2012, physicist Frank Wilczek, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noticed that the laws of physics also have a time symmetry. That means any experiment repeated at a later time should produce the same result. Wilczek made an analogy to normal crystals, but in the dimension of time, dubbing this spontaneous symmetry breaking through time a time crystal. A few years later, physicists were able to finally build one.
Physicists Have Broken The Speed Of Light With Pulses Inside Hot Plasma
Sailing through the smooth waters of vacuum, a photon of light moves at around 300 thousand kilometers a second. This sets a firm limit on how quickly a whisper of information can travel anywhere in the Universe.
While this law isn’t likely to ever be broken, there are features of light which don’t play by the same rules. Manipulating them won’t hasten our ability to travel to the stars, but they could help us clear the way to a whole new class of laser technology.
Physicists have been playing hard and fast with the speed limit of light pulses for a while, speeding them up and even slowing them to a virtual stand-still using various materials like cold atomic gases, refractive crystals, and optical fibers.
This time, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the University of Rochester in New York have managed it inside hot swarms of charged particles, fine-tuning the speed of light waves within plasma to anywhere from around one-tenth of light’s usual vacuum speed to more than 30 percent faster.
This is both more and less impressive than it sounds.
To break the hearts of those hoping it’ll fly us to Proxima Centauri and back in time for tea, this superluminal travel is well within the laws of physics. Sorry.
From a theoretical standing, the experiment helps flesh out the physics of plasmas and put new constraints on the accuracy of current models.
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Physicists Might Have Found A Way To Break The Second Law Of Thermodynamics
The laws of thermodynamics are some of the most important principles in modern physics, because they define how three fundamental physical quantities – temperature, energy, and entropy – behave under various circumstances.
But now physicists say they’ve found a loophole in one of these laws, and it could create scenarios in which entropy – or disorder – actually decreases with time.
Thanks to modern physics, almost everything in the Universe can be explained according to two theories: general relativity for the big stuff like stars, galaxies, and the Universe itself and quantum mechanics, for behaviours on the atomic scale.
Within those two branches, we have the four laws of thermodynamics, which describe how heat is converted to and from different types of energy, and the effect that this can have on various forms of matter.
Basically, if you want to know how energy moves within a system – from an atom to a black hole – these are the laws you’ll need.
Of particular interest to us right now is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which deals with the transition of energy within a system from ‘usable’ to ‘unusable’.
As usable energy within a closed or isolated system decreases, and unusable energy increases, entropy also increases.
Entropy is a measure of the randomness or disorder within a closed or isolated system, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that as usable energy is lost, chaos increases – and that progression towards disorder can never be reversed.
Robots Movements In A Curved Space Break The Laws Of Physics
ATLANTA Robots have just thrown a curveball at the laws of physics. Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology say humans, animals, and machines typically need to push against something in order to move. However, their new study has just proven the exact opposite can be true in a curved space.
Their experiment proved that objects can in fact move without pushing against something, as long as the movement takes place in a curved space. Until recently, scientists believed all objects needed to push against something in the air, under water, or on the ground following the law of conservation of momentum.
Georgia Tech researchers created a robot, completely isolated from the environment and confined to a spherical surface so the machine would always encounter a curved surface.
We let our shape-changing object move on the simplest curved space, a sphere, to systematically study the motion in curved space, says Zeb Rocklin, an assistant professor in the School of Physics, in a media release. We learned that the predicted effect, which was so counter-intuitive it was dismissed by some physicists, indeed occurred: as the robot changed its shape, it inched forward around the sphere in a way that could not be attributed to environmental interactions.
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Could There Be Even More New Physics We Dont Know About
Absolutely. Just last month, a different but equally intriguing result came from observations made at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. Scientists analysed 10 years of data on B mesons unstable particles that rapidly decay and found that they break down into unexpected proportions of different particles. Instead of producing electrons and muons at the same rate, as the Standard Model predicts, electrons appear to be produced preferentially.
The result has a significance of 3.1 sigma , but if its confirmed it could also mean that something further needs to be added to the Standard Model, such as a new quantum force that prevents B mesons decaying into muons at the expected rate.
In the case of both results, physicists are remaining optimistic but cautious.
Fermilabs announcement has already prompted theorists to try and incorporate the new findings into their models. One group, publishing in Nature, suggests that the new magnetic moment estimate could be in line with the Standard Model and so may not actually require new physics to explain.
Either way, this result and the work that will follow will deepen our understanding of the underlying fundamental laws of the universe.
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Beyond The Science: Spiritual Implications Of Thermodynamic Laws
While obviously rooted in science and natural laws, thermodynamics has also spawned many academic and spiritual discussions and theses. Some have likened the second law to the ancient Hindu Shiva energy, both destructive and creative, is central to our spiritual development and to escape the entropic trap associated with complacency, spiritual materialism, depression, and anxiety. Others have equated the third law, the law of absolute zero, with spiritual enlightenment sought after, but elusive to attain.
However, recently there have been scientific experiments that claim to have broken the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, considered to be sacrosanct for the past one hundred and fifty years.
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Muon Beams And Magnetic Fields
The Muon g-2 experiment starts with a beam of muons, which scientists make by smashing pairs of protons together and then carefully filtering through the subatomic debris. This muon beam then enters a 14-ton magnetic ring that originally was used in the Brookhaven experiment, shipped by barge and truck from Long Island to Illinois in 2013.As the muons go round and round this storage ring, which has a uniform magnetic field, the wobbling muons decay into particles that smack into a set of 24 detectors along the tracks inner wall. By tracking how often these decay particles hit the detectors, researchers can figure out how quickly their parent muons were wobblinga bit like figuring out a distant lighthouses rotation speed by watching it dim and brighten.
Muon g-2 is trying to measure the muons anomalous magnetic moment to an accuracy of 140 parts per billion, four times better than the Brookhaven experiment. At the same time, scientists had to make the best Standard Model prediction possible. From 2017 to 2020, 132 theorists led by the University of Illinoiss Aida El-Khadra worked out the theorys prediction of muon wobble with unprecedented accuracyand it was still lower than the measured values.
We were all really ecstatic, excited, but also shockedbecause deep down, I think were all a little bit pessimistic, says Muon g-2 team member Jessica Esquivel, a postdoctoral researcher at Fermilab.
For One Tiny Instant Physicists May Have Broken A Law Of Nature
- Date:
- Yale University
- Summary:
- For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken. For the tiniest fraction of a second at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider , physicists created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity no longer existed.
For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken.
Action still resulted in an equal and opposite reaction, gravity kept the Earth circling the Sun, and conservation of energy remained intact. But for the tiniest fraction of a second at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider , physicists created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity no longer existed.
Parity was long thought to be a fundamental law of nature. It essentially states that the universe is neither right- nor left-handed — that the laws of physics remain unchanged when expressed in inverted coordinates. In the early 1950s it was found that the so-called weak force, which is responsible for nuclear radioactivity, breaks the parity law. However, the strong force, which holds together subatomic particles, was thought to adhere to the law of parity, at least under normal circumstances.
It was the equally gargantuan magnetic field produced by the plasma — the strongest ever created — that alerted the physicists that one of nature’s laws might have been broken.
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Pushing The Boundaries Of Thermodynamics
In 2002, a team of chemical physicists at the Australian National University in Canberra, demonstrated that this law, considered to be one of the most fundamental tenets of physics, doesnt hold true for microscopic systems.
Their experiment measured shifts that took place when latex beads, suspended and isolated in water, where trapped by a laser beam. The team observed the movement of the beads, as well as the level of entropy present, which demonstrated a case of nature running reverse. The experiment resulted in what could be likened to that morning cup of coffee getting hotter on its own and is considered to be in agreement with what is referred to as the fluctuation theorem, a decades-old theory that has important impacts on nanotechnology and makes us reconsider how life itself actually functions.
Further experiments in 2016 by the Argonne National Laboratory , a division of the United States Department of Energy, created a model in which the Second Law was also violated on a molecular level. The model is based on the H-theorem, which hypothesizes that if something hot is combined with something cold, the result will lie in the middle. The team at ANL applied quantum mechanics to the H-theorem in other words, they applied abstract principles to explore the limitations of physical laws.
Nitinol- titanium and nickel alloy, creates objects with muscle memory when exposed to heat, returning them to their original form.
Hydrophobic material
What Happens If You Break The Laws Of Physics
So if you successfully violated a scientific law and lived to tell the tale, it means that you found a mistake in how that law was recorded or got something wrong in one of your formulas and ended up with an utterly impossible solution to a theoretical problem. But I have to say that a physics jail does sound like an interesting idea.
Why does Superman Force air out of his body?
As he forces the air out of his body, according to Newtons Third Law, the expelled air must push back. And since Superman can survive in space, his lungs clearly arent needed for respirationmaybe theyre auxiliary air tanks. A classic superhero conundrum: Where do these people get the energy to perform their superhuman feats?
How much sleep does Supergirl need a night?
Supergirl requires 2 hours of sleep a night to function at peak mental efficiency, as well needing to dream at least half an hour a night, or experience the psychological effects of sleep deprivation as would any other person who missed a night of sleep.
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Breaking The Laws Of Physics: Steering Light To Places It Isnt Supposed To Go
Light that is sent into a photonic crystal, cant go deeper than the so-called Bragg length. Deeper inside the crystal, light of a certain color range can simply not exist. Still, researchers of the University of Twente, the University of Iowa and the University of Copenhagen managed to break this law. They steer light into a crystal, using a programmed pattern, and demonstrate that it will reach places far beyond the Bragg length. They publish their findings in Physical Review Letters.
This property can be used for creating perfect mirrors for certain wavelengths, but it also helps improving solar cells. Still, if there is a sign that says forbidden anywhere, then it is always tempting to go there. This is what the researchers did, they proved that light can penetrate the photonic crystal, much deeper than the Bragg length.
Bright spot at five times the Bragg length
They managed to do this by using light that was pre-programmed, and by using the small imperfections that always come with creating nanostructures. These imperfections cause light waves to be scattered randomly inside the crystal. The researchers program the light in such a way that every location inside the photonic crystal can be reached. They even demonstrate a bright spot at five times the Bragg length, where light is enhanced 100 times instead of decreased 100 to 1000 times.
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Laws Of Classical Mechanics
Principle of least action
Classical mechanics, including Newton’s laws, Lagrange’s equations, Hamilton’s equations, etc., can be derived from the following principle:
- δ = 0 }=\delta \int _}^}Ldt=0}
where is the action the integral of the Lagrangian
- L t ) ,\mathbf } ,t)=T-V}
of the physical system between two times t1 and t2. The kinetic energy of the system is T ” rel=”nofollow”> configuration of the system), and potential energy is V . The configuration of a system which has Ndegrees of freedom is defined by generalized coordinatesq = .
There are generalized momenta conjugate to these coordinates, p = , where:
- p i =}_}}}
The action and Lagrangian both contain the dynamics of the system for all times. The term “path” simply refers to a curve traced out by the system in terms of the generalized coordinates in the configuration space, i.e. the curve q, parameterized by time .
The action is a functional rather than a function, since it depends on the Lagrangian, and the Lagrangian depends on the path q, so the action depends on the entire “shape” of the path for all times . Between two instants of time, there are infinitely many paths, but one for which the action is stationary is the true path. The stationary value for the entire continuum of Lagrangian values corresponding to some path, not just one value of the Lagrangian, is required .
Notice L is not the total energy E of the system due to the difference, rather than the sum:
- E V
-
Laws of motion - q i } t}}\left=}}}
- H
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