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Electric dipole moment would explain the creation of the universe in the form that we know it This release is available in German.IMAGE: Juelich researchers want to demonstrate the electric dipole moment of the electron in cooperation with colleagues in the USA and the Czech Republic. Many physical theories presume its existence --... Click here for more information. Electrons are negatively charged elementary particles. They form the shells around atoms and ions. This or something similar is what you will find in text books. Soon, however, this information may have to be supplemented. The reason is that many physicists believe...

A radical reformulation of quantum mechanics suggests that the universe has a set destiny and its pre-existing fate reaches back in time to influence the past. It could explain the origin of life, dark energy and solve other cosmic conundrums.The universe has a destiny—and this set fate could be reaching backwards in time and combining with influences from the past to shape the present. It’s a mind-bending claim, but some cosmologists now believe that a radical reformulation of quantum mechanics in which the future can affect the past could solve some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including how life arose....

By It’s hard to imagine a more fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of life on the Earth than gravity, from the moment you first took a step and fell on your diapered bottom to the slow terminal sagging of flesh and dreams. But what if it’s all an illusion, a sort of cosmic frill, or a side effect of something else going on at deeper levels of reality? So says Erik Verlinde, 48, a respected string theorist and professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, whose contention that gravity is indeed an illusion has caused a continuing ruckus among physicists,...

A violent cosmic explosion has unleashed the brightest blast of X-rays ever detected from distant space, a signal so bright it temporary blinded the NASA space telescope assigned to spot it. The powerful explosion, called a gamma-ray burst, was detected by NASA's Swift observatory, scientists announced Wednesday. Gamma-ray bursts are narrow beams of intense radiation shot out when stars explode in supernovas. In addition to gamma-ray light, they also produce X-rays and other forms of radiation, including visible light. This recent event, dubbed GRB 100621A, was particularly powerful.

Rumours are emerging from the rival to the Large Hadron Collider that the Higgs boson, or so-called "God particle", has been found. Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua, has said in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, that the Higgs has been discovered. The Tevatron, the huge particle accelerator at Fermi - the most powerful in the world after the LHC - is expected to be retired when the CERN accelerator becomes fully operational, but may have struck a final blow before it becomes obsolete....

Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua, has said in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, that the Higgs has been discovered. The Tevatron, the huge particle accelerator at Fermi - the most powerful in the world after the LHC - is expected to be retired when the CERN accelerator becomes fully operational, but may have struck a final blow before it becomes obsolete. If one form of the rumour is to be believed - and Prof Dorigo is extremely circumspect about it - then it...

Rumours that the Higgs boson - sometimes called the 'God particle' - has been detected by the Tevatron particle accelerator have been denied. A spokesman for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory told the Telegraph: "The rumour of evidence for the Higgs boson is just that: a rumour, with no factual basis. "Beyond that, we don't comment on rumours."

Sophisticated measurements from experiments indicate the radius is 4% smaller than thought. If true, the finding could have major ramifications for the standard model used in modern physics. Physicists might have to rethink what they know about, well, everything. European researchers dropped a potential bombshell on their colleagues around the world Wednesday by reporting that sophisticated new measurements indicate the radius of the proton is 4% smaller than previously believed. In a world where measurements out to a dozen or more decimal places are routine, a 4% difference in this subatomic particle — found in every atom's nucleus — is...

This is the moment that Planck was conceived for,” says ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood. “We’re not giving the answer. We are opening the door to an Eldorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper understanding of how our Universe came to be and how it works now. The image itself and its remarkable quality is a tribute to the engineers who built and have operated Planck. Now the scientific harvest must begin.” From the closest portions of the Milky Way to the furthest reaches of space and time, the new all-sky...

Reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman, who MOSCOW (AFP) – Reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman, who shot to global fame after claiming to solve the seemingly intractable Poincare conjecture, has refused another prize for the achievement. The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) said Thursday that Perelman informed the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research center that he would not accept its million-dollar prize. "I have turned down (the award)," Perelman told the Interfax news agency by telephone. "The main reason is disagreement with the organised mathematics community. I do not like their decisions, I consider them unfair." "I think that the contribution of American mathematician...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- When high-temperature superconductors were first announced in the late 1980s, it was thought that they would lead to ultra-efficient magnetic trains and other paradigm-shifting technologies. That didn't happen. Now, a University of Florida scientist is among a team of physicists to help explain why. In a paper set to appear Sunday in the online edition of Nature Physics, Peter Hirschfeld, a UF professor of physics, and five other researchers for the first time describe precisely how the atomic-level structural elements of high-temperature ceramic superconductors serve to impede electrical current. Their explanation for how "grain boundaries" separating rows...

In today’s issue of Science, CSIRO astronomer George Hobbs and colleagues in the UK, Germany and Canada report that they have taken a big step towards solving a 30-year-old puzzle: why the “cosmic clocks” called pulsars aren’t perfect.“We now have a more fundamental understanding of how pulsars work,” Dr Hobbs said. “We’ve shown that many pulsar characteristics are linked, because they have one underlying cause.” Armed with this understanding, astronomers will find it easier to compensate for errors in their pulsar “clocks” when they use them as tools - for instance, in trying to detect gravitational waves, which is something...

The Star Trek vision of analysing rocks and minerals with the sweep of a handheld device has taken a step towards becoming science rather than science fiction. "We are developing a tricorder," said Robert Downs, associate professor of geosciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson. Professor Downs is using a technique called Raman spectroscopy to compile a library of spectral fingerprints for all the Earth's minerals. About 1,500 of the 4,000 known minerals have been catalogued so far. Although the current Raman spectrometer takes up an area the size of a tabletop, Professor Downs's colleague M. Bonner Denton, a...

An inventor in the Bundaberg area has been able to operate around fifteen different engines on the Joe Cell alone, with no fuel line connected. He contacted me to begin the process of providing a demonstration as well as full disclosure of how the technology works; and has worked closely with me in the composition of this piece. Most of his engines were outside of a vehicle, though he has gotten vehicles to run on such engines as well -- with no petrol fuel coming to the engine. Partially due to financial restraints, it will be a month or two...

British scientists have claimed that the method used to calculate the make-up of the universe may be wrong. The universe as we know it -- formed of recognisable components such as planets, stars, asteroids and gas -- accounts for just four per cent of the cosmos, according to the decades old Standard Model. The rest is thought to be made up of mysterious dark matter and dark energy. This permeates space and powers the expansion of the universe. But physicists at Durham University now claim the calculations on which the Standard Model is based could be fatally flawed. This raises...

Enormous black holes, some of the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe, apparently switch on after galaxies collide, researchers have found. The centers of as many as a tenth of all galaxies generate more energy than can be explained by stars, with some of these "active galactic nuclei" releasing more radiation than the entire Milky Way galaxy combined, but from a space no larger than our solar system. Astronomers suspect this energy is released when matter falls into giant, supermassive black holes that are up to billions of times the mass of our sun at these galaxies'...

The 120 lead ingots, each weighing about 33 kilograms, come from a larger load recovered 20 years ago from a Roman shipwreck, the remains of a vessel that sank between 80 B.C. and 50 B.C. off the coast of Sardinia. As a testimony to the extent of ancient Rome's manufacturing and trading capacities, the ingots are of great value to archaeologists, who have been preserving and studying them at the National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari, southern Sardinia. What makes the ingots equally valuable to physicists is the fact that over the past 2,000 years their lead has almost completely lost...

From deep space, cosmic rays come fast and pack a heck of a punch. They may also carry clues to the most vexing mysteries in the universe. Nothing on the tree-less plains of western Argentina seems to expend much energy. Cattle stand nearly motionless as they graze on the thin grass, which grows slowly in the dry heat and high altitude. A cylindrical water tank with a small solar panel and a skyward-facing antenna sits unobtrusively in the nearly motionless landscape. But hidden within this scene is plenty of drama. At any given moment, millions of projectiles from deep space...

Walter Rudin, a preeminent mathematician who taught at UW-Madison for 32 years, died Thursday at the age of 89 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Rudin’s advanced work on mathematical analysis may have been of interest to only a small worldwide audience, but his three textbooks were translated into multiple languages and used by generations of college students. “Especially because of his textbooks, he was known universally among undergraduates and graduates studying mathematics,” said Alexander Nagel, a colleague in the UW-Madison math department. Rudin was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 2, 1921, to a prosperous Jewish family. His family fled...

Research scientists announced on Monday they had identified the missing piece of a major puzzle involving the make-up of the universe by observing a neutrino particle change from one type to another. Science The CERN physics research center near Geneva, relaying the announcement from the Gran Sasso laboratory in central Italy, said the breakthrough was a major boost for its own LHC particle collider programme to unveil key secrets of the cosmos. According to physicists at Gran Sasso, after three years of monitoring multiple billions of muon neutrinos beamed to them through the earth from CERN 730 kms (456 miles)...