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For the first time, physicists have demonstrated a phenomenon known as the Terrell-Penrose effect, which causes an object moving close to the speed of light to warp before our eyes. The new findings, a collaboration between TU Wien and the University of Vienna, once again confirm a key prediction of Einstein’s theory of relativity by making an optical illusion of relativistic motion observable for the first time. Terrell-Penrose Effect According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, objects moving close to the speed of light experience unusual effects, including changes in length and time compared to objects at rest. Many relativistic...

In a landmark discovery, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a solitary stellar-mass black hole—an object with immense gravity, yet no visible companion, quietly roaming the depths of the Milky Way galaxy. Identified in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation, this black hole is believed to be around seven times more massive than our Sun and marks the first confirmed detection of a black hole not bound to another star. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal and led by Kailash C. Sahu and colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute, relied on more than a decade of high-precision data...

Michael Faraday’s illustrated notes that show how radical scientist began his theories at London’s Royal Institution to go online He was a self-educated genius whose groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry electrified the world of science and laid the foundations for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity nearly a century later. Now, the little-known notebooks of the Victorian scientist Michael Faraday have been unearthed from the archive of the Royal Institution and are to be digitised and made permanently accessible online for the first time. The notebooks include Faraday’s handwritten notes on a series of lectures given by...

Albert Einstein Birth Anniversary: One of the greatest physicists of all time, Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Germany. He was best known for developing the Theory of Relativity, but his contributions to the Theory of Quantum Mechanics were also widely accepted and praised.

Star Trek, The Next Generation featured a recurring guest character, "Q", an incorporeal, vastly superior, malevolent intellect who harassed and dogged the "Enterprise" crew through various episodes of calculated perversity, limited only by the constraints of other, more emotionally mature members of his species. ("Q" seems to be a character extension of the original Star Trek character of "Trevelyan" in the episode "The Squire of Gothos", who is revealed at the end of his tyranical torments of the Enterprise crew to be a mere infant member of his vastly superior, incorporeal species.) I criticize the idea of the "mischievous sprite",...

Time travel has long captured the human imagination, from its appearances in science fiction fantasies to its profound implications in modern theoretical physics. Now, a recent study by Dr. Lorenzo Gavassino, a theoretical and mathematical physicist at Vanderbilt University, delves into the enigmatic nature of time travel involving time loops to examine their profound implications for quantum mechanics, entropy, and human experience. Dr. Gavassino’s findings, published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, present a strikingly different picture of time travel. They reveal that traveling through such time loops would prevent many classical time travel paradoxes, including the infamous “grandfather paradox.” “It...

Scientists report the first known observation of a variety of quasiparticle that exhibits a very peculiar behavior: it appears to have mass, but only while moving in one direction. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University recently succeeded in detecting the unusual quasiparticle while conducting studies involving a semi-metallic crystalline material. Known as a semi-Dirac fermion, this unique formation of particles was first theorized more than a decade ago, but until now had never been directly observed. The discovery potentially paves the way toward future advances in a range of emerging technologies that include power storage and novel forms of sensor technologies....

A recent study led by a Kansas State University engineer has provided evidence that supports the "Tired Light" theory, a century-old concept that challenges the widely accepted Big Bang theory. ... Shamir's findings align with the long-standing "Tired Light" theory, originally proposed in the 1920s. "In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble and George Lemaitre discovered that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to move away from Earth," Shamir explained. "That discovery led to the Big Bang theory, which suggests that the universe began expanding approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Around the same time, astronomer Fritz Zwicky proposed...

“We proved that the Einstein field equation from general relativity is actually a relativistic quantum mechanical equation,” the researchers note in their study. In simple words, this new framework connects the science that governs the macroscopic world with that of the microscopic world. Therefore, it has the potential to explain every physical phenomenon known to humanity ranging from the mysterious dark matter in space to the photons emitted by your phone’s flashlight. “To date, no globally accepted theory has been proposed to explain all physical observations,” the researchers added. They claim that their theory can challenge the foundations of physics...

More than any other equation in physics, E = mc² is recognizable and profound. But what do we actually learn about reality from it? ===================================================================== This 1934 photograph shows Einstein in front of a blackboard, deriving special relativity for a group of students and onlookers. Although special relativity is now taken for granted, it was revolutionary when Einstein first put it forth, and doesn't even describe his most famous equation, which is E = mc². - Public Domain ====================================================================== Key Takeaways: * First introduced way back in 1905, Einstein’s most famous equation, E = mc², put forth the mathematical formula...

Quantum entanglement in top quarks has been demonstrated, according to physicists at CERN who say the discovery offers new insights into the behavior of fundamental particles and their interactions at distances that cannot be attained by light-speed communication. The research, led by University of Rochester professor Regina Demina, extends the phenomenon known as “spooky action at a distance” to the heaviest particles recognized by physicists and offers important new insights into high-energy quantum mechanics. Initially discovered almost three decades ago, top quarks are the most massive elementary particles that have been observed. The mass of these unique particles originates from...

Albert Einstein allegedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But without validation, he was just a super-smart guy making an educated guess about scientific repeatability and human mental stability. Fortunately, his postulation is moving from “theoretical” to “proven,” via testing provided by the Democrat party. The Dems came up with a surefire battle plan to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the Oval Office. Just prosecute him for something — it didn’t matter what. The Donald would become “damaged goods,” and voter outrage would prevent a return of mean tweets to...

Opinion The scientific community celebrated April 14 as World Quantum Day to raise awareness of quantum science’s impact across diverse fields The world of science is on the cusp of a transformative era driven by the burgeoning field of quantum technology. Quantum science is founded on several key principles that underpin the behaviour of particles and systems at the quantum scale. The term “quantum scale” refers to the realm of physics that deals with phenomena occurring at very small scales, typically at the level of atoms, subatomic particles and fundamental particles. It encompasses the principles of quantum mechanics, which govern...

Newton, the 17th-century English scientist most famous for describing the laws of gravity and motion, beat Einstein in two polls conducted by eminent London-based scientific academy, the Royal Society. More than 1,300 members of the public and 345 Royal Society scientists were asked separately which famous scientist made a bigger overall contribution to science, given the state of knowledge during his time, and which made a bigger positive contribution to humankind. Newton was the winner on all counts, though he beat the German-born Einstein by only 0.2 of a percentage point (50.1 percent to 49.9 percent) in the public poll...

Dreams of a world powered by antigravity got quashed by a particle physics today. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It turns out that Einstein was right yet again. A recent experiment just proved that antigravity doesn’t exist and we probably won’t ever get to use antimatter to levitate or build a perpetual motion machine or power warp drives (sorry, Star Trek). Antimatter itself is very real. Made of particles that mostly behave like regular matter, but their electrical charges are reversed, an anti-proton looks just like a proton but has a negative charge, while an anti-electron (or positron) looks and moves just like an...

Quantum machine - Inside the 30-meter tube. (ETH Zurich/Daniel Winkler) Albert Einstein wasn't entirely convinced about quantum mechanics, suggesting our understanding of it was incomplete. In particular, Einstein took issue with entanglement, the notion that a particle could be affected by another particle that wasn't close by. Experiments since have shown that quantum entanglement is indeed possible and that two entangled particles can be connected over a distance. Now a new experiment further confirms it, and in a way we haven't seen before. In the new experiment, scientists used a 30-meter-long tube cooled to close to absolute zero to run...

ESA / Hubble & NASA Physicists believe most of the matter in the universe is made up of an invisible substance that we only know about by its indirect effects on the stars and galaxies we can see. We’re not crazy! Without this “dark matter”, the universe as we see it would make no sense. But the nature of dark matter is a longstanding puzzle. However, a new study by Alfred Amruth at the University of Hong Kong and colleagues, published in Nature Astronomy, uses the gravitational bending of light to bring us a step closer to understanding. Invisible but...

A nearly 60-year-old mathematical problem has finally been solved. The story began last fall when David Smith, a retired print technician from Yorkshire, England, came upon a shape with a tantalizing property. The life-long tiling enthusiast discovered a 13-sided shape — dubbed the hat — that is able to fill the infinite plane without overlaps or gaps in a pattern that not only never repeats but also never can be made to repeat. This elusive shape is known to mathematicians as an aperiodic monotile or an einstein, a clever pun that takes its name from the German words ein and...

An amateur mathematician in the United Kingdom may have solved a 60-year-old problem in geometry, garnering the attention of researchers. CNN reported David Smith, a retired printing technician, has discovered a shape known as an “einstein,” which can be tiled over a surface without the pattern repeating. The outlet noted mathematicians first began working on this problem in the 1960s. Smith and three coauthors, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, published a paper explaining Smith’s finding. Smith, who says he is “always looking for an interesting shape,” wrote a blog post to serve as a “scrapbook” of...

A SUPPOSED time traveller from the year 3311 has published a bizarre confession tape in which he presented three photos of what he claimed is the future. The anonymous man’s time travel confession emerged in March 2019, after he shared his story with online paranormal investigators. The supposed time traveller had his face blurred and voiced distorted in the video but he claimed he is the real deal. Speaking to a camera for YouTube channel ApexTV, the time traveller produced three photos, which he said he took on a mission in the year 3311. The time traveller said he has...