linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:13:05
A lovely Girona sculpture at the entry to the city. View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:10:54
HEISENBERG’S UNCERTAINTY. “Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself. And I see this when I have a shock.” (Virginia Woolf). https://lnkd.in/dDUMxts View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:08:59
BEHIND THE COTTON WOOL OF DAILY LIFE. “From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art.” (Virginia Woolf). https://lnkd.in/dDUMxts View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:07:45
PROXY MEASURES. “Only astrophysical observations of neutron stars can constrain the properties of the cold supranuclear matter in their cores. Because we cannot sample the matter directly, we need to infer its state by measurements of neutron star masses, radii, and cooling rates. For the last two of these, the method of measurement is highly indirect and thus subject to systematic errors.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-62110-3_1 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:05:01
NEED FOR EXTRAPOLATION. “Any observations of neutron stars bearing on the properties of high-density matter must be put into the context of existing nuclear theory. This theory, which relies primarily on laboratory measurements of matter at nuclear density that has approximately equal numbers of protons and neutrons, must be extrapolated significantly to the asymmetric matter at far higher density in the cores of neutron stars. We also note that the inferred macroscopic properties of neutron stars depend on the nature of strong gravity as well as on the properties of dense matter.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-62110-3_1 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:02:53
COSMIC LABORATORY. “The nature of the matter in the cores of neutron stars is of great interest to nuclear physicists and astrophysicists alike, but its properties are difficult to establish in terrestrial laboratories. This is because neutron star cores reach a few times the density of matter in terrestrial nuclei and yet they are strongly degenerate and they have far more neutrons than protons. The core matter thus occupies a different phase than is accessible in laboratories.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-62110-3_1 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 04:00:25
MODERN COSMOLOGY. “Ever since the discovery of neutron stars it has been realized that they serve as probes of a physical regime that cannot be accessed in laboratories: strongly degenerate matter at several times nuclear saturation density. Existing nuclear theories diverge widely in their predictions about such matter. It could be that the matter is primarily nucleons, but it is also possible that exotic species such as hyperons, free quarks, condensates, or strange matter may dominate this regime.” https://lnkd.in/d4fNETR View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 03:58:15
EXOTIC PHASES. “For the first time, researchers have systematically scoured through entire databases of materials in search of ones that harbour topological states -- exotic phases of matter that have fascinated physicists for a decade. The results show that thousands of known materials probably have topological properties -- and perhaps up to 24% of materials in all. Previously, researchers knew of just a few hundred topological materials, and only around a dozen have been studied in detail. "I'm shocked by the number.” https://lnkd.in/dSG9qfN View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-19 03:56:52
THINKING BIG. “The phenomenon of late time cosmic acceleration, can be understood by incorporating dark energy as an exotic relativistic fluid with large negative pressure fills the whole universe. There is also an alternative view according to which current cosmic acceleration is an artifact of modification of gravity at large scale rather than the consequence of dark energy.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221268642030039X View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-02-20 06:56:55
PASTEUR “then began to add a “ferment” of beer yeast to get the process going, but his ultimate goal was still to establish a neat equation that ignored the yeast and counted up the water and sugar on one side, and the alcohol and carbon dioxide on the other. The work was a failure, one of the few of his career.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2020.1867786 View in LinkedIn