World-class Physics at the Bottom of the World To Be Featured in Global Webcast
On Dec. 1, scientists at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station will participate in a live, worldwide webcast in conjunction with the World Year of Physics (WYOP).
Image: Equipment and buildings support the IceCube drilling project at NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Credit: Peter West, National Science Foundation
Web cast now live at http://beyond-eins … nd-einstein/
South Pole Station is the site of two major physics facilities. One detects the arrivals and trajectories of elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos to study enormously powerful astrophysical processes that occur at cosmological distances. The other examines properties of the cosmic microwave background--the faint radiation afterglow of the big bang that brought the universe into being--for clues about how the universe arrived at its present structure.
Scientists with both projects will discuss the significance of their work, which is taking place in one of Earth's most forbidding venues for astrophysics observatories, as part of a 12-hour global webcast titled "Beyond Einstein." The event is organized by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cap the WYOP, which ends this month.
WYOP is a celebration of physics and its importance in everyday life. It is being held this year because 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's "miraculous year" in which he published three important papers describing ideas that have since influenced all of modern physics. For more information about the specifics of Einstein's landmark discoveries, see the NSF Web site's special report on the WYOP: http://www.nsf.gov … op/index.jsp
The webcast will feature on-camera discussions and interviews with researchers from the IceCube collaboration, which is constructing the high-energy neutrino observatory and includes 27 universities and institutes from the United States, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Venezuela, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. An NSF award to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will cover most of the $272 million cost of IceCube, an array of neutrino detectors that will extend over a 1 cubic-kilometer area centered 2 kilometers beneath the ice sheet at the South Pole Station.
The webcast will also feature a research team that is using extremely sensitive radio telescopes at the Pole to study minuscule but information-rich variations in the cosmic microwave background. Researchers will discuss how their work can help unlock the secrets of how the universe was formed and share insights about how dark matter and dark energy contribute to the shape and distribution of mass in the universe today.
Both scientific teams receive support from the U.S. Antarctic Program. NSF manages the Antarctic Program and coordinates all U.S. science on the southernmost continent and in the Southern Ocean.
Source: NSF
-
From lemons to lemonade: Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor,
32 comments
-
Thioridazine kills cancer stem cells in human while avoiding toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments,
3 comments
-
SpaceX private rocket blasts off for space station (Update),
42 comments
-
Climate scientists say they have solved riddle of rising sea,
31 comments
-
SpaceX capsule has 'new car' smell, astronauts say (Update),
4 comments
More news stories
Is a classical electrodynamics law incompatible with special relativity?
(Phys.org) -- The laws of classical electromagnetism that were developed in the 19th century are the same laws that scientists use today. They include Maxwell’s four equations along with the Lorentz la ...
May 24, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (18) |
43
|
Landmark calculation clears the way to answering how matter is formed
(Phys.org) -- An international collaboration of scientists, including Thomas Blum, associate professor of physics, is reporting in landmark detail the decay process of a subatomic particle called a kaon – ...
May 25, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (23) |
53
|
Lying in wait for WIMPs: Researchers seek to dramatically increase sensitivity of Large Underground Xenon detector
Although it's invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.
May 23, 2012 |
4 / 5 (7) |
18
|
Hawaii lab turns laser-powered bubbles into microrobots
(Phys.org) -- A team of scientists from the University of Hawaii are working on microrobots created from bubbles of air in a saline solution. The bubbles take on their title of “robots” as a laser ...
May 23, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
2
|
Sound increases the efficiency of boiling
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology achieved a 17-percent increase in boiling efficiency by using an acoustic field to enhance heat transfer. The acoustic field does this by efficiently removing vapor bubbles ...
May 24, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
2
'Unzipped' carbon nanotubes could help energize fuel cells, batteries
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside could replace some of the expensive platinum catalysts used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, according to scientists at ...
Change in developmental timing was crucial in the evolutionary shift from dinosaurs to birds: study
At first glance, it's hard to see how a common house sparrow and a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have anything in common. After all, one is a bird that weighs less than an ounce, and the other is a dinosaur that ...
Computer model used to pinpoint prime materials for efficient carbon capture
When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it's a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking.
T cells 'hunt' parasites like animal predators seek prey, study shows
By pairing an intimate knowledge of immune-system function with a deep understanding of statistical physics, a cross-disciplinary team at the University of Pennsylvania has arrived at a surprising finding: T cells use a movement ...
Stunning image of smallest possible five-ringed structure
Scientists have created and imaged the smallest possible five-ringed structure – about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair – and you'll probably recognise its shape.
Land and sea species differ in climate change response: study
(Phys.org) -- Marine and terrestrial species will likely differ in their responses to climate warming, new research by Simon Fraser University and Australia’s University of Tasmania has found.
