Like Oak Ridge, Argonne National Laboratory serves as a living witness to the continuity of American 20th century physics theory: after its first incarnation as part of the Manhattan Project’s Metallurgical Laboratory (the group that first successfully isolated Plutonium), it was the first research site to be designated a National Laboratory after the war. In the sixty-five years between some of the world’s first nuclear reactor research and today’s most cutting-edge accelerator development, there was hardly a science-and-technology subject in which Argonne didn’t have a hand.

This history is written all over the lab, even as it is already carving itself a place in the 21st century:

The beautiful but abandoned Building 330, which housed the 1950s-era Chicago Pile 5 reactor. Argonne was also the second home of Enrico Fermi’s Chicago Pile 1, which was moved to the lab from the University of Chicago in 1943 and renamed Chicago Pile 2.

In an amazing contrast, old warehouses lodge some of the world's most cutting-edge research.

Argonne's obviously much newer Advanced Photon Source, which produces the brightest x-rays in the western hemisphere.

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Do Module #12 Test.  Read pp. 423-438, doing OYO questions as you go.  Start Practice Problems.

The mystery of “Dark Matter” is one that has puzzled physicists since Fritz Zwicky first started noticing the conundrum of “missing mass” in his observation of galaxies in clusters. He noticed that some invisible force was asserting gravitational influence on the things we can see (planets, stars, comets) but that whatever the force was, it was invisible.

Scientists estimate that about 23% of the Universe is made up of dark matter, and now researchers think that supermassive dark holes may be the key to understanding how dark matter works.

From PhysOrg:

In the early Universe clumps of dark matter are thought to have attracted gas, which then coalesced into stars that eventually assembled the galaxies we see today. In their efforts to understand galaxy formation and evolution, astronomers have spent a good deal of time attempting to simulate the build up of dark matter in these objects.

The UNAM astronomers, Dr. Xavier Hernandez and Dr. William Lee, calculated the way in which the dark holes found at the centre of galaxies absorb dark matter. These dark holes have anything between millions and billions of times the mass of the Sun and draw in material at a high rate.

The researchers modeled the way in which the dark matter is absorbed by dark holes and found that the rate at which this happens is very sensitive to the amount of dark matter found in the dark holes’ vicinity. If this concentration were larger than a critical density of 7 Suns of matter spread over each cubic light year of space, the dark hole mass would increase so rapidly, hence engulfing such large amounts of dark matter, that soon the entire galaxy would be altered beyond recognition.

Dr. Hernandez explains, “Over the billions of years since galaxies formed, such runaway absorption of dark matter in dark holes would have altered the population of galaxies away from what we actually observe.”

Their work therefore suggests that the density of dark matter in the centres of galaxies tends to a constant value. By comparing their observations to what current models of the evolution of the Universe predict, Hernandez and Lee conclude that it is probably necessary to change some of the assumptions that underpin these models – dark matter may not behave in the way scientists thought it did.

Just for the record, if I ever go into a crazy science field, I’m changing my name to Xavier. So what does it all mean? A theoretical greater understanding of our universe and how it works. I’m calling that Fucking Awesome.

A preprint of the paper can be seen here.

Today we reviewed the research that students did on the ROV systems and narrowed down the components that will be purchased for our prototype.

Imperfect Balance

Imperfect Balance is a great game for those who like to concentrate. The object of the game is to knock all the blocks off the screen using the blocks provided at the top of the play area. It is all about balance. Once you have knocked all the blocks from the play area you advance to the next level.

Imperfect Balance is not as easy at it sounds and will take a concentrated effort to remove all the blocks. You are only given a limited amount of blocks at the top to accomplish the feat. Each of the blocks are shaped different and have different weights.

The background music is soothing and you can easily get lost in the game. Each level is a little harder and you will find yourself playing this game for a very long time. This is the type of game to play when you really need to zone out and think of nothing else.

Play!

The LHC recently reached a milestone by obtaining 7 trillion electron volt (TeV), surpassing the previous world record by approximately 3x, however it appears the world’s largest particle accelerator will be shutting down at the end of 2011 in order to address the robustness of several copper sheaths surrounding the superconducting joints in the tunnel. The LCH is the first of its kind and therefore engineering issue such as these arise as a result of quality control, as noted in the article:

The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype. We are pushing technologies towards their limits.

I have been working my way slowly through “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” which is a collection of short stories and musings of the life of Richard Feynman. It is amazing how interesting and intriguing these stories are, which provide a lot of insight into the life of Richard Feynman. I am constantly amazed by how relevant this book is.

For those who are unfamiliar with him, Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning physicist who was involved with numerous projects, which could not be summed up in only a few sentences. Suffice it to say that the man was a brilliant scientist, who had a deep appreciation for learning.

There are a number of incredibly interesting videos on YouTube, where Feynman explains how certain things work or breaks down scientific principals. Many of these are from a BBC documentary named ‘Fun to Imagine.’ Being mechanically inclined, I have always found his explanation of how a train stays on the track to be one of my favorites.

Whats great about these videos, as well as his written works, is that his love for learning and science shine through, much of which is still entirely relevant today.

For instance, in the chapter titled “A Map of the Cat?,” Feynman describes how, during his time at Princeton, he made an effort to explore other areas of science aside from physics theory. During this time, he took an interest in Biology and began attending a course on advanced biology taught by E. Newton Harvey.

One of his assignments dealt with the electrical impulses that are sent through the nerves, with the research being based on the nerves of a cat. During his presentation, he began drawing the different muscles of the cat to show how the nerves interacted with the muscles, when he came to an interesting realization.

When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles. The other students in the class interrupt me: "We know all that!”

"Oh," I say, "you do? Then no wonder I can catch up with you so fast after you’ve had four years of biology.” They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes.

This touches on something that is just as relevant today as it was 60 years ago and is something that most modern schools have been slow to embrace.

With the way the Internet works, there is rarely a piece of general information that you can not find in a matter of seconds, providing you know how and where to search for it. However, all to often, the focus is still on memorization, rather than the building of the skills necessary to find the information.

Being able to recite something from memory is great and certainly shows some level of intelligence, but being able to identify what information bears memorization and what information it is better to look up shows a whole different level of understanding.

This is but one of the many gems in his work…