Diamond is well known for its appeal as a gemstone. Perhaps less well known are some of its extreme material properties. As well as being the hardest material in nature, diamond is very good at conducting…
You’d probably get a bit of a fright if ball lightning started moving through your house.
Wikimedia Commons
Ball lightning is one of the strangest phenomena on our planet. It’s usually seen during thunderstorms as a ball of light about the size of a grapefruit, with the intensity of roughly a 40W light bulb…
David Wineland has mentored many of the world’s leading atomic physicists.
AAP
Frenchman Serge Haroche and American David Wineland have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in what researchers in the field say is long overdue recognition. Through their ingenious laboratory methods…
There’s an ongoing push to open the world of academic knowledge to the wider population … for free.
Jackman Chiu
There’s an ongoing debate in the world of academic publishing about whether the public should be allowed open access to research publications we all pay for in the first place. “If we are paying for this…
“We’re accused of sitting in our ivory tower when we don’t engage with the public, and of sensationalism when we do.”
photosteve101
Melbourne Researchers Rewrite Big Bang Theory sang a recent headline in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was one of many suggesting the Big Bang theory had been somehow overthrown. As the principal investigator…
Imagine a magic prism for the entire range of electromagnetic waves.
TORLEY
Visible light forms part of the electromagnetic spectrum. So do emissions from TV and radio transmitters, mobile phones and the energy inside microwave ovens. The X-rays used in diagnostic imaging and…
“Most people just get used to the concept and get on with their lives.”
Roger McLassus
Our notion of reality is built on everyday experiences. But wave-particle duality is so strange that we are forced to re-examine our common conceptions. Wave-particle duality refers to the fundamental…
The Higgs boson is alive with the sound of music.
rafeejewell
The July 4 discovery of a particle that closely resembles the Higgs boson opens a new era in science: it should help us understand some fundamental mysteries, such as how microscopic particles attain their…
“Physics permeates the language we use to describe music, and the concepts we use to understand it.”
Ravages
My ANU colleague John Rayner’s excellent recent article on the physics of music seemed to touch a nerve with the readership of The Conversation. Although beautifully framed by the personal and anecdotal…
Music is the language of love – and it exemplifies some principles of science.
Roxanne Milward
My wife Theresa represents many things for me – in addition to being my partner, I see her as a 17cm-long quarter-wavelength resonator (which I hope you’ll understand and agree with by the end of this…
Results pertaining to the Higgs boson are “consistent with its existence”.
jef safi
This expert reaction comes via the Australian Science Media Centre: CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) has this evening announced that the long-sought Higgs boson probably exists, after…
Where one search ends, a whole lot of new searches begin.
Robbie Biller
Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, have announced the observation of a new particle widely thought to be the elusive Higgs boson. Announced via a live two-way video…
Ripples in a pond help to illustrate wave motion and the Doppler effect.
*˜Dawn˜*
When an ambulance passes with its siren blaring, you hear the pitch of the siren change: as it approaches, the siren’s pitch sounds higher than when it is moving away from you. This change is a common…
Life would be pretty boring if we could predict what was coming next.
ModernDope
The term “uncertainty principle” suggests some grand philosophical idea, like “you can never be sure of anything”, or “there are some things you can never be sure of” and sometimes people use it as if…
A simple desire to understand the way the world works has landed some Iranian researchers in hot water.
On a given day, your typical physicist is mainly preoccupied with trying to understand the intimate secrets of the universe. As with most academics, we get to visit one another in parts of the world to…
The focus on mathematics and other enabling sciences is diminishing in Australia.
Flickr/eriwst
Australian science is “generally in good health”, but faces major challenges in the form of falling science participation and literacy in high schools, mostly stagnant enrolments at universities, and diminishing…
Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s report, released today, presents some serious concerns for the future of Australian science.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s Health of Australian Science report, launched today at the National Press Club, starts on an optimistic note. Australian science is generally in good health: school students…
The global push to detect gravitational waves could provide an enormous return for science.
Wikimedia Commons
Albert Einstein made an executive decision to revolutionise our understanding of gravity in a paper published in 1916. Nearly 100 years on, a key prediction of Einstein’s theory has eluded direct detection…
The ghost-like image of Tupac captured the imagination of concert-goers … imagine if they’d seen a real hologram.
Last week the world watched on as a supposed hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California. But was it a hologram? The term “hologram”, (“holos” meaning…
Pepper’s Ghost is an amazing technique, but holograms, done right, are so much cooler.
kisokiso
Last week rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California – a notable feat given he was shot dead in 1996. Tupac’s glowing image appeared on stage, rapping, dancing and interacting…