Free Republic

Subatomic particles paint pictures of inner worlds of pyramids, volcanoes and more illustration of muon particles raining down on the Great Pyramid of Giza - An invisible rain of the subatomic particles called muons pierces structures on Earth’s surface, including the Great Pyramid of Giza. Those muons can help map out the chambers within the pyramid and have even revealed an unexplained hidden void. Inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza lies a mysterious cavity, its void unseen by any living human, its surface untouched by modern hands. But luckily, scientists are no longer limited by human senses. To feel out...

Up until last year, mathematician Peter Bierhorst had hoped the physicists he works with would fail. It was nothing personal. He just found their worldview a little disturbing. Like most physicists, his co-workers believe that our universe’s particles can influence each other using a sort of telepathy. Called “entanglement,” this connection allows two particles separated by vast distances to behave as a single entity. Both instantly react to something that happens to one of them. If you find this very weird and counterintuitive, you’re not alone. “I find this very weird and counterintuitive,” says Bierhorst, a postdoc at the National...

New analysis shows a way to self-propel subatomic particles, extend the lifetime of unstable isotopes. David L. Chandler | MIT News Office January 20, 2015 Press Inquiries Some physical principles have been considered immutable since the time of Isaac Newton: Light always travels in straight lines. No physical object can change its speed unless some outside force acts on it. Not so fast, says a new generation of physicists: While the underlying physical laws haven’t changed, new ways of “tricking” those laws to permit seemingly impossible actions have begun to appear. For example, work that began in 2007 proved that...

Scientists at the world's largest smasher said Wednesday they have discovered two new subatomic particles never seen before that could widen our understanding of the universe. An experiment using the European Organization for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider found the new particles, which were predicted to exist, and are both baryons made from three quarks bound together by a strong force.

Physicists explore subatomic particle strategy for revealing archaeological secrets At its most glamorous, the life of an experimental high-energy physicist consists of smashing obscure subatomic particles with futuristic-sounding names into each other to uncover truths about the universe—using science's biggest, most expensive toys in exciting locations such as Switzerland or Illinois. But it takes a decade or two to plan and build multibillion-dollar atom smashers. While waiting, what's a thrill-seeking physicist to do? How about using some of the perfectly good, and completely free, subatomic particles that rain down on Earth from space every day to peek inside something really...

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 13 — At least three advanced diagnostic tests suggest that an experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory has cracked open protons and neutrons like subatomic eggs to create a primordial form of matter that last existed when the universe was roughly one-millionth of a second old, scientists said here on Tuesday. The hot, dense substance, called a quark-gluon plasma, has managed to generate intense disputes in the 15 years or so in which scientists have pursued it. In 2000, a major European laboratory claimed that it had, for the first time, liberated particles called quarks from where...