Physics, Pixelated
The Airy Disk and the Diffraction Limit: Why Ev...
A perfect lens still cannot focus light to a point. Waves spread out after passing through any opening, so every star becomes a tiny bright disk with faint rings, the...
The Airy Disk and the Diffraction Limit: Why Ev...
A perfect lens still cannot focus light to a point. Waves spread out after passing through any opening, so every star becomes a tiny bright disk with faint rings, the...
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the Discovery of Pulsars
In late 1967 Jocelyn Bell, a PhD student at Cambridge, noticed a strange signal among miles of chart paper. It turned out to be a pulsar, a spinning neutron star....
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the Discovery of Pulsars
In late 1967 Jocelyn Bell, a PhD student at Cambridge, noticed a strange signal among miles of chart paper. It turned out to be a pulsar, a spinning neutron star....
The Cosmological Lithium Problem: Big Bang’s Mi...
The Big Bang’s first minutes forged hydrogen, helium and a trace of lithium, and the theory matches deuterium and helium beautifully. Lithium-7 is the odd one out: the oldest stars...
The Cosmological Lithium Problem: Big Bang’s Mi...
The Big Bang’s first minutes forged hydrogen, helium and a trace of lithium, and the theory matches deuterium and helium beautifully. Lithium-7 is the odd one out: the oldest stars...
Where Does the Proton’s Mass Come From? (Hint: ...
A proton weighs 938 MeV/c², but its two up quarks and one down quark add up to only about 9 MeV/c², roughly 1%. The rest is energy: the motion of...
Where Does the Proton’s Mass Come From? (Hint: ...
A proton weighs 938 MeV/c², but its two up quarks and one down quark add up to only about 9 MeV/c², roughly 1%. The rest is energy: the motion of...
What Is a Superfluid, and Why Does Helium Climb...
Cool liquid helium below 2.17 kelvin and it turns into a superfluid: it pours through gaps too fine for ordinary liquids, creeps up the walls of its container and can...
What Is a Superfluid, and Why Does Helium Climb...
Cool liquid helium below 2.17 kelvin and it turns into a superfluid: it pours through gaps too fine for ordinary liquids, creeps up the walls of its container and can...
Why Do Charged Particles Spiral in a Magnetic F...
A magnetic field pushes a moving charge sideways, never forwards, so the charge curves into a circle, or a helix if it also drifts along the field. The time per...
Why Do Charged Particles Spiral in a Magnetic F...
A magnetic field pushes a moving charge sideways, never forwards, so the charge curves into a circle, or a helix if it also drifts along the field. The time per...