RHIC collision of gold ions: The tracks indicate the paths taken by thousands of subatomic particles produced in the gold ion collisions at RHIC.
Courtesy Argonne National Laboratory A heavy isotope of antihydrogen was created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) on Long Island, New York. This antihydrogen isotope was heavier than the previous antimatter record-holder, antihelium. I say "was", because it only lasted a few hundred trillionths of a second.
Super smash-up
To make the antimatter, physicists smashed two gold nuclei against each other with enormous energies. The data resulting from the collision "literally looked like haystacks". Sophisticated software was used to make sense out of the debris and pick out the new antimatter.
To form the new antihydrogen isotope, first an antistrange quark binds with an antiup and antidown quark to make an antilambda -- an antineutron-like particle. The antilambda, which is fractionally heavier than a neutron, must then combine with a conventional antineutron and an antiproton. The chances of this happening are very slim: out of 100 million collisions, RHIC generated just 70 of the new antihydrogen isotopes.
Why?
Studying the properties of antinuclei such as these might help physicists study the primordial form of matter that existed in the universe shortly after the Big Bang and why the Universe is full of matter rather than antimatter.
Source article
Heavy antimatter created in gold collisions Scientific American
Tags : Chilean quake sped up Earth's rotation, tipped planet's axis
Earth spins faster
Courtesy NASA If you read the post about how earthquakes differ, you would know that in the Chile earthquake, a large amount of the Earth's crust plunged under its neighboring crust, bringing it closer to the center of the earth.
Just as Olympic figure skaters spin faster when their arms move closer to their body, the Earth is now spinning faster making our day about 1.26 microseconds shorter than it was before the quake.
Earth was also slightly tipped off balance, like when a spinning skater brings in one arm but not the other. The planet's axis tilted about 8 centimeters. This is insignificant compared to other wobbles measuring several meters resulting from winds and ocean currents.
John Shuster, the captain--or "skip"--of the U.S. Curling Team in Vancouver, explains this unusual sport, and NSF-funded scientists Sam Colbeck, a retired scientist from the U.S. Army Cold Regions Lab and physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University explain the friction that makes it all work.
Melissa Hines, the Director of the Cornell University Center for Materials Research, and Sam Colbeck, a retired scientist from the U.S. Army Cold Regions Lab, explain how innovations in boot and blade design help skaters perform better than ever before.
U.S. Ski Team members Julia Mancuso, Ted Ligety and Scott Macartney, and Katharine Flores, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State University, explain how the materials used to make skis play a vital role in their performance on the mountain.
Paul Doherty, a senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco uses a skateboard and a glass of water to demonstrate snowboard physics.
Olympic hopeful Rachael Flatt, and Deborah King, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at Ithaca College, to help explain the physics of figure skating.
Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Deborah King, associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at Ithaca College, physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University, and bobsled designer Bob Cuneo, the team explains how they hope to win the gold at the Winter olympics.
Speed skating is all about force and movement--what, in physics, are known as Newton's First Three Laws of Motion. Celski and physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University explain.
If Scientists Ever Figure Out How to Engineer a Money Tree....
In Science we trust?
Courtesy Jacob Lewis Bourjaily...I bet it will have dollar bills that look like the ones pictured here in an online collection of banknotes from around the world, which feature notable scientists like Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. This collection was put together by a graduate student in theoretical physics at Princeton University named Jacob Bourjaily, who started collecting banknotes with scientists on them after seeing the website of yet another money-collecting physicist, Edward Redish. After seeing these websites, I think the United States could breathe some new life into its currency by featuring some of today's notable scientists. Any thoughts on whose face should be printed on the almighty dollar?
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