Top physics breakthroughs of 2014(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Top physics breakthroughs of 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30415007
3 comments
[deleted](1)
didn't know about the tractor beams. That's pretty cool
Sadly not quite as cool as I was hoping. It's really a "push from the sides w/ the right angle against an appropriately shaped object such that net momentum is toward some putative 'source' of the beam when in fact there are two separate beams that are widely displaced from this 'source' location".
Definitely awesome, but I was so hoping for "...in a vacuum" with that one.
It already said "Acoustic"[0] ;)
0. = "Definitely not in a vacuum"
0. = "Definitely not in a vacuum"
Right. So I see this comment mentioning tractor beam, I get my hopes up, and read "acoustic" in the article and come back here to express mild disappointment. Does the fact that I omitted that detail somehow mean I misunderstood?
The Philae spacecraft's touchdown on comet 67P: was named as the year's most significant advance by Physics World. It was singled out for its "fundamental importance to space science".
Light on the cosmic web (January): Researchers used the radiation emitted by a quasar as a "cosmic flashlight" to illuminate the hidden tendrils of dark matter that underlie the visible Universe.
Neutrinos from the Sun (August): The Borexino experiment in Italy detected neutrino particles from the main nuclear reaction that powers the Sun. The number of neutrinos it saw agrees with theories, suggesting we do understand what's going on inside our parent star.
Laser fusion milestone (February): Scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California made a breakthrough in the long road to self-sustaining fusion when they managed to get more energy out of fusion reactions than was deposited in the fuel by NIF's powerful laser.
Acoustic tractor beam (May): Once the preserve of science fiction, tractor beams are now a reality - at least in the lab. Physicists built a device that can pull objects by firing sound waves at them. The beam could have medical uses, such as manipulating objects within the body.
Supernovas in the lab (June): The Vulcan Laser Facility in Oxfordshire was used to recreate miniature star explosions, offering a window into some of the most powerful and unpredictable events in the cosmos.
Electron magnetism (June): Researchers in Israel were the first to measure the extremely weak magnetic interaction between two separate electron particles.
A better fibre for images (March): Scientists in the US used a physical effect called Anderson Localisation to develop a better optical fibre for transmitting images.
Holographic memory (February): American and Russian physicists built a new type of holographic memory device that stores data in the form of magnetic "bits".
Quantum compression: (September): The ability to compress quantum information was demonstrated for the first time by physicists in Canada and Japan.