Get your very own set of Vice Versa Balls. Two black rubber balls. One bounces and the other does not. Why? Why not? Get your own set and have a blast, but be warned that it could become addicting!

Physlink is moving to a larger warehouse! What does that mean to you? HUGE discounts on selected inventory, like this Solar Mobile Charger and Power Supply! This will charge your cell phone or even other electronic devices via solar technology. Harness the power of the sun for cheap!

Sale ends on June 21, 2007.

Wow! Did you know that your brain could control robots in the future? Check this out... Story.

Is it true that boys and girls have a different genetic disposition to math and science? Check out this interesting article on this topic here...

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light.

Confused? You're not alone.

"I've had some of the world's experts scratching their heads over this one," says Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester. "Theory predicted that we could send light backwards, but nobody knew if the theory would hold up or even if it could be observed in laboratory conditions."

Boyd recently showed how he can slow down a pulse of light to slower than an airplane, or speed it up faster than its breakneck pace, using exotic techniques and materials. But he's now taken what was once just a mathematical oddity—negative speed—and shown it working in the real world.

Read the rest: Here

(PLANETQUEST) -- Though he couldn't be observed directly, the Invisible Man knew his presence could be betrayed by his effect on visible things. Employing a similar principle, a team led by Andrew Gould of Ohio State University will hunt for hard-to-see celestial objects, like black holes and dark matter, by observing how they affect light coming from stars behind them.

This "gravitational lens" effect, predicted by Albert Einstein, has been observed repeatedly from the ground. But NASA's SIM PlanetQuest space telescope will enable Gould's team to use Einstein's lens in ways never before possible. They hope to make the first real "sighting" of dark matter, the mysterious stuff thought to constitute 90 percent of the galaxy. They also will investigate how much of the galaxy is composed of ordinary stars and how much consists of more exotic objects that can't be directly imaged by current telescopes.

"We're able to measure objects based on their mass instead of their light, and so we're able to do a census of all objects independent of whether they're shining or not," Gould said. "The objects that are dark -- and those are black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs and brown dwarfs -- that's the more interesting science driver because people really don't know how many of those there are."

Einstein's magic ring

The analysis that Gould's team wants to do requires that they determine the distance and mass of cosmic objects they won't be able to see. The key to that seemingly impossible task lies in a phenomenon called an "Einstein ring."

Full article: Read more here

Who said physics couldn't be fun?! Certainly not Dr. David Anderson who arranged for 50 of British Columbia's best science students to study roller coaster and the merry-go-round at the Brightest Minds Science and Physics competition.

Read more about it here: Putting the 'phun' in physics.

Jason Corneveaux
Arizona State University

Recently, NASA astronomers announced new evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, which states that the universe was once subatomic in size and, in only one trillionth of a second, expanded to astronomical proportions. [1]

The findings are based on data collected by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite. The satellite, which was launched in 2001, measures the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), or, more simply, the radiant heat left behind from the Big Bang. [1]


In 2003, researchers announced that, with WMAP data, they were able to capture a snapshot of the primordial universe and ascertained its age to be approximately 13.7 billion years old. Based on these preliminary findings, researchers determined that it was not until about 200 million years after the Big Bang that conditions cooled down enough to foster the development of the first stars. Another surprising twist came with the conclusion that the universe is comprised of approximately 4 percent ‘real’ matter and 23 percent dark matter, while the remaining 73 percent is composed of dark energy. The real mystery lies in the fact that dark matter and dark energy have yet to be understood and defined. [1]

According to Lyman Page, a WMAP researcher who spoke at the NASA press conference, “this new signal is roughly 100 times weaker than the signal we analyzed three years ago and about a billion times less than the radiant warmth we feel from the Sun.” [1]


Inflation theory, a sub-theory of the Big Bang, states that as the universe expanded following the Big Bang, some regions increased in size more quickly than others. Researchers were able to test this theory using the new WMAP observations, which revealed density fluctuations on the order of 1 to 10 billion light years. Such fluctuations are believed to have played a role in helping matter coalesce and form galaxies. [1]

These findings bring scientists closer to elucidating the origins of matter and the universe. The more we learn about the origins of the macrocosm, the more precise our answers will be to one of humankind’s most enduring questions.

References:

[1] Than, Ker. “Astronomers Detect First Split-Second of the Universe” Space.com. 16 March 2006. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060316_wmap_results.html

Images courtesy NASA/WMAP Science Team