Quantum clock breaks entropy barrier
In physics, the second law of thermodynamics says that a closed system tends to become more disordered over time. This disorder is captured in an entity called entropy. Many devices, especially clocks…
thermodynamics
9 posts
My heart of physics
Every July 4, I have occasion to remember two things: the discovery of the Higgs boson, and my first published byline for an article about the discovery of the Higgs boson. I have no trouble believing…
Where is the coolest lab in the universe?
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) performs an impressive feat every time it accelerates billions of protons to nearly the speed of light – and not in terms of the energy alone. For example, you release…
Journalistic entropy
Say you need to store a square image 1,000 pixels wide to a side with the smallest filesize (setting aside compression techniques). The image begins with the colour #009900 on the left side and, as yo…
The symmetry incarnations
This post was originally published on October 6, 2012. I recently rediscovered it and decided to republish it with a few updates. Geometric symmetry in nature is often a sign of unperturbedness, as i…
Why a pump to move molten metal is awesome
The conversion of one form of energy into another is more efficient at higher temperatures.1 For example, one of the most widely used components of any system that involves the transfer of heat from o…
Thanksgiving turkey and drinking water
The US CPSC says you shouldn't try to deep-fry a frozen Thanksgiving turkey. But why not?…
The Symmetry Incarnations - Part I
Symmetry in nature is a sign of unperturbedness. It means nothing has interfered with a natural process, and that its effects at each step are simply scaled-up or scaled-down versions of each other. F…
Graphene the Ubiquitous
Every once in a while, a (revolutionary-in-hindsight) scientific discovery is made that's at first treated as an anomaly, and then verified. Once established as a credible find, it goes through a…