- Science AMA Series: We are University of Sydney physicists working at the nanoscale – from quantum engineering to photonics (light). Hear how we are building technology using the most fundamental constituents of matter and trying to change the world. Ask us anything!
- Can a tornado exist without the cloud touching down? Can it essentially be invisible and still destructive?
- I saw a Black Spot on the Sun today in the very center, and as it was rising the black spot stayed centered, what could it have been?
- What happens to the kinetic energy of two annihilating antiparticles?
- Can intersecting electric and magnetic fields produce light in mid air?
- How can Hubble see nebula's light years away, but we had to wait till New Horizons to see Pluto?
- What attributes change the index of refraction of a medium?
- Why is the convergence of Gauss-Seidal and Gauss-Jacobi sufficiently satisfied by diagonal dominance?
- Two consciousness in the same brain: Possible? Are there any studies relating it to psych. disorders?
- How many moves into a chess game does it usually take for two Grandmasters to enter virgin territory--a game which hasn't been recorded yet?
- [Physics] Where does the mass come from in fusion or fission?
- What makes voices unique?
- Is AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia always caused by Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome?
- How does quantum tunneling work? How is it possible that solid objects can pass through each other?
- How are we addressing the problem of plastic nanoparticles ending up in our oceans and rivers and how do we remove the existing ones?
- If the speed of light is static, can we use it to determine the speed of other things?
- Why is every number whose digits add to a multiple of 3 divisible by 3? Is this a product of using base 10?
- During bacterial sporulation how is the last part of the chromosome carried into the prespore compartment?
- Why don't satellites that have polar orbits collide with satellites that have equatorial orbits?
- How do astronomers make observations about things like the speed of a galaxies rotation without watching it for centuries?
- What exactly does Quantum Mechanics have to say about consciousness - if anything?
- How can we know what color were dinosaurs?
- Do bionic eyes need a blind spot?
| Posted: 19 May 2016 12:37 PM PDT Hi Reddit! We (Professor David Reilly, Professor Benjamin Eggleton, Associate Professor Michael Biercuk) have just moved into a $150 million purpose-built research and educational facility at the University of Sydney. The Sydney Nanoscience Hub building has been specifically designed to enable new science at the nanoscale and will form the centrepiece of an innovation ecosystem enabled by access to the most precise lab environments on earth. We seek to manipulate matter at the scale of a billionth of a metre to transform areas as diverse as health and medicine to communications, IT and security. Some have described it as science fiction come true. Professor Ben Eggleton – Ask me about the evolution of nanophotonics (behaviour of light at the nanoscale). I am building a photonic chip that will essentially put the entire optical network on to a chip the size of your thumbnail. This research has the potential to exponentially increase internet speeds. Associate Professor Michael Biercuk – Ask me about building technology atom by atom, quantum simulation, and putting quantum systems to work for us! Professor David Reilly – Ask me about quantum nanoscience and how this research will change our world. I recently answered a heap of questions about this topic from Huffington Post readers, I also evaluated Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's definition of quantum computing. Ask us anything! edit: Thanks for all your amazing questions, we'll be on in less than an hour to answer them. edit 2: Here's Professor Ben Eggleton at the computer ready to dive into the questions edit 3: Michael, Ben and David answering away edit 4: thanks for the fantastic questions everyone! The professors are signing off to get back to work. Visit the website to find out more about the University of Sydney's Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 11:30 AM PDT |
| Posted: 20 May 2016 01:21 AM PDT |
| What happens to the kinetic energy of two annihilating antiparticles? Posted: 20 May 2016 03:16 AM PDT So in a module I'm taking at the moment, the answer sheet states that the energy of the two photons emitted by annihilating anti/electrons is always 511KeV each, and presumably this equals the mass-energy of each particle, but what happens if the annihilating particles have higher every in the form of kinetic energy? What if the annihilation is relativistic? Is this answer simply wrong, or assuming the kinetic energy is significantly less than 511KeV? [link] [comments]  |
| Can intersecting electric and magnetic fields produce light in mid air? Posted: 19 May 2016 07:03 PM PDT Would it be possible to build two devices, one that produces an electric field and the other a magnetic field, and aim them so that the fields intersect at a point in space to produce a visible light source (seemingly in mid-air)? [link] [comments]  |
| How can Hubble see nebula's light years away, but we had to wait till New Horizons to see Pluto? Posted: 20 May 2016 01:14 AM PDT |
| What attributes change the index of refraction of a medium? Posted: 19 May 2016 07:58 PM PDT I understand that the index of refraction has a correlation to the speed of light refracting through the medium, yet what physical aspects of the medium affect the speed? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 08:31 PM PDT I am looking for an intuitive evidence or argument in favour for this... But even if there's a proof for this please do post it... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 08:34 AM PDT This is for a question for both psychologists, psychiatrists and neurologists. There are people who hear voices, there's also those who have double personality since they were born. Science can't explain consciousness, but do we know if there can be two of them in the same 'body'? Is this even theorized as a way to explain this kind of disorders? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 03:07 PM PDT Is there a statistician or mathematician out there that can figure this out? [link] [comments]  |
| [Physics] Where does the mass come from in fusion or fission? Posted: 19 May 2016 09:41 PM PDT I know that there is a very slight mass difference but the numbers of protons neutrons and electrons as far as I know remains constant so where does the extra mass come from? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 06:07 PM PDT I assume it has to do with the structure of one's jaw, throat, etc., but why does everyone have their own 'voice'? Is there a 'base voice', that we all share before we develop? Is our voice directly dependent on our DNA? Why does it seem like some people are so good at impressions? [link] [comments]  |
| Is AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia always caused by Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome? Posted: 20 May 2016 06:48 AM PDT Every time I try to search for the causes of AVNRT, they always just say it's the "presence of an extra or abnormal pathway," but isn't that the definition of WPW, or is there something else that that could be? [link] [comments]  |
| How does quantum tunneling work? How is it possible that solid objects can pass through each other? Posted: 19 May 2016 06:02 PM PDT I'm not a physicist or by any means intelligent in this aspect, I just enjoy reading and learning about this kind of stuff. I understand, to a very minuscule degree what quantum tunneling is but I would like to better be able to understand how it works, and why it's possible. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 04:59 PM PDT Many personal hygiene products contain plastic nanoparticles which end up in our oceans. These are being consumed by fish which end up in the food chain and then consumed by us. [link] [comments]  |
| If the speed of light is static, can we use it to determine the speed of other things? Posted: 20 May 2016 06:13 AM PDT This question obviously stems from ignorance of the topic at hand and may be worded improperly, but I'll do my best: Since the speed of light is constant, could we theoretically then just "point" light in various directions, measure its speed relative to us, and use that to determine how fast we are actually moving through the universe? Example: I'm moving forward at 1mph, I launch a projectile forward that moves at a constant 2mph irrespective to me, therefore it appears to me to be moving at 1mph. I then launch it directly backwards, and it therefore appears to be moving 3mph away from me. Knowing the speed of the object I can then calculate my actual speed - 1mph. Or, is this question completely moot because we already know exactly how fast we're moving through the universe? Or is it moot for some other reason? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 07:21 AM PDT For example 1 + 2 + 9 = 12 which is a multiple of 3. Consequently, every combination of 1, 2, and 9 is divisible by 3. 129 / 3 = 43 192 / 3 = 64 219 / 3 = 73 291 / 3 = 97 912 / 3 = 304 921 / 3 = 307 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 May 2016 04:54 AM PDT SpoIIIE DNA translocase forms two separate channels, through both membranes, to carry the part of the chromosome not trapped by asymmetric cell division into the prespore compartment. But the chromosome in Bacteria is circular, so how is the last part carried through? Surely it would be stuck between the two channels on the mother cell side of the septum. My guess is it is broken to be carried through, but I can't find any information on the specific enzymes that regulate this last part of the DNA translocation process. [link] [comments]  |
| Why don't satellites that have polar orbits collide with satellites that have equatorial orbits? Posted: 20 May 2016 04:41 AM PDT |
| Posted: 19 May 2016 03:06 PM PDT |
| What exactly does Quantum Mechanics have to say about consciousness - if anything? Posted: 19 May 2016 04:44 PM PDT So over the last few years I've read quite a few books that have a lot of "woo-woo" ideas in them. Books that try to use QM to justify an idea known as "participating consciousness" - the notion that our conscious minds directly participate with physical reality. In his book The Reenchantment of the World, Morris Berman (who would be horrified to be associated with the word woo-woo, sorry Morris) writes: The major philosophical implication of quantum mechanics is that there is no such thing as an independent observer. One of its founders, Werner Heisenberg, summarized the point in popular form in 1927 when he formulated his Uncertainty Principle. Imagine, he said, a microscope powerful enough to observer an atomic particle, such as an electron. We shine light down the instrument to enable observation, only to discover that the light possesses enough energy to knock the electron out of position. We can never see that particular electron, for the experiment itself alters its own results. Out consciousness, our behavior, becomes part of the experiment, and there is no clear boundary here between subject and object. We are sensuous participants in the very world we seek to describe......He says [Heisenberg] , in effect, that consciousness is part of the measurement and therefore reality is inherently blurry, or indeterminate. I've seen other authors use this kind of interpretation to justify the idea that human beings thoughts will shape the future course of nature, and that this has already happened in the past. This all strikes me as sloppy reasoning, but I don't understand Quantum Mechanics enough to know where to draw the line. I enjoy reading books that challenge mainstream scientific ideas, but I'm getting to the point where I can't keep reading these quantum-consciousness theories without smelling something rotten. My question is as the title states : What does Quantum Mechanics have to say about consciousness - if anything? thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| How can we know what color were dinosaurs? Posted: 19 May 2016 04:32 PM PDT I can understand how bones can help us determine their shape, but what about skin color, patterns, etc? [link] [comments]  |
| Do bionic eyes need a blind spot? Posted: 19 May 2016 06:17 PM PDT With human eyes having a blind spot in the centre, would there be any adverse effects if bionic eyes didn't have it, or would the brain just adapt? [link] [comments]  |
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