Tag Archives: physics

New Device Could Greatly Improve Speech and Image Recognition

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Holography is a technique based on the wave nature of light which allows the use of wave interference between the object beam and the coherent background. It is commonly associated with images being made from light, such as on driver’s licenses or paper currency. However, this is only a narrow field of holography.

Holography has been also recognized as a future data storing technology with unprecedented data storage capacity and ability to write and read a large number of data in a highly parallel manner.

Source: UCR Today: New Device Could Greatly Improve Speech and Image Recognition

Kepler’s Three Laws

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Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion can be described as follows:

  • The path of the planets about the sun is elliptical in shape, with the center of the sun being located at one focus. (The Law of Ellipses)
  • An imaginary line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the planet will sweep out equal areas in equal intervals of time. (The Law of Equal Areas)
  • The ratio of the squares of the periods of any two planets is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their average distances from the sun. (The Law of Harmonies)

via Kepler’s Three Laws.

The Mathematical Trick That Helped Smash The Record For The Largest Number Ever Factorised By A…

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And in any case, because this trick works using only 4 qubits, it can easily be reproduced on any classical computer. So it’s not so useful after all.

via The Mathematical Trick That Helped Smash The Record For The Largest Number Ever Factorised By A… — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium.

Here’s a paper on this subject:

[1411.6758] Quantum factorization of 56153 with only 4 qubits.

An Introduction to Semiconductor Physics, Technology, and Industry

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The simplest place to start is the materials. Silicon is incredibly important as a material in the industry because it’s a semiconductor. Of course, the name is self-explanatory, but there’s more to it. The key here is the band structure. Band structure refers to the “bands” of energy levels that form due to the sheer number of orbital states that can be occupied in molecules. Those that understand how electron orbitals work will point out that each energy level is discrete, but due to the sheer number of orbital configurations, a seemingly continuous distribution of energy can be seen. However, relatively large gaps still exist; known as a band gap, these are an energy state that an electron cannot occupy.

via AnandTech | An Introduction to Semiconductor Physics, Technology, and Industry – Print View.

And on and on it goes.  This is a great writeup for understanding how integrated circuits work.

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics

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This year’s Nobel Laureates are rewarded for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source – the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In the spirit of Alfred Nobel the Prize rewards an invention of greatest benefit to mankind; using blue LEDs, white light can be created in a new way. With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long-lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources.

via The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics – Press Release.

When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.

‘Unparticles’ May Hold The Key To Superconductivity, Say Physicists

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In very simple terms, when that happens, material properties such as resistance no longer depend on the length scales involved. So if electrons move without resistance on a tiny scale, they should also move without resistance on much larger scales too. Hence the phenomenon of superconductivity.

“We have described how it is possible for unparticles in strongly correlated matter to mediate superconductivity,” say LeBlanc and Grushin.

via ‘Unparticles’ May Hold The Key To Superconductivity, Say Physicists — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium.

Mathematicians Solve The Topological Mystery Behind The “Brazuca” World Cup Football

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The take-home message from Yuan-Jia and Bih-Yaw’ work is that the Brazuca ball does have a fullerene that is its molecular analogue, just like its predecessors at all the world cups dating back to 1970

via Mathematicians Solve The Topological Mystery Behind The “Brazuca” World Cup Football  — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium.

Open source physics engines

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Graphics give games a visual appeal, but it’s the internal physics engine that gives the game’s world life. A physics engine is a software component that provides a simulation of a physical system. This simulation can include soft- and rigid-body dynamics, fluid dynamics, and collision detection. The open source community has a number of useful physics engines operating in the 2D and 3D domains targeted to games and simulations. This article introduces the use and basics of a physics engine and explores two options that exist: Box2D and Bullet.

via Open source physics engines.

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Mars Express Orbiter Buzzes Martian Moon Phobos

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During the flyby, DSN operators reported “a slight effect in the Doppler residuals,” meaning that, as expected, Phobos’ gravity had accelerated Mars Express’ orbital velocity very slightly. Through careful analysis of the Doppler shifting of the radio signal, Phobos’ gravity can be measured, allowing scientists to discern its mass and density — the most precise measurement to date.

via Mars Express Orbiter Buzzes Martian Moon Phobos : Discovery News.

However, the operation allowed the spacecraft to beam back an extra 200 Gigabits of observational data, including imagery of Phobos during an earlier 500 kilometer pass of the moon.

New superconductor theory may revolutionize electrical engineering

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Heat makes atoms move and can shake Cooper pairs apart, so the holy grail is to design a material where the pairs are bound together so strongly that can happen even up to room temperature. It might be possible to describe a Fermi surface that would create that condition, and perhaps then imagine what crystal structure it would require. “Ideally we would like to be able to tell the materials scientist to put elements X, Y and Z together,” Lee said. “Unfortunately we can’t do that yet.”

via New superconductor theory may revolutionize electrical engineering.