We need female role models in the NSW physics syllabus to normalise women in physics and encourage their engagement and further study.
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The new physics syllabus for year 11 and 12 students in NSW contains no mention of specific women who have contributed to the field, nor their work.
Captured: approximately 15,000 galaxies (12,000 of which are star-forming) widely distributed in time and space.
NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (University of Geneva), and M. Montes (University of New South Wales)
Astronomers are voting to rename one of the laws of physics. The voting may have far-reaching effects leading to renaming of other laws and giving ‘forgotten’ scientists due credit.
Machine learning is changing the world in ways that we are just beginning to appreciate. But could it change the way we do science and the reasons why we do science?
Jumping in elevators is fun. If you like jumping.
Mavis Wong/The Conversation
If you fall one storey, dust yourself off – you’ll be fine. If you fall seven storeys: sorry, but you’ve probably got about 2 seconds to prepare to meet your maker.
Once the car is at steady speed, the insect doesn’t need to be pulled along anymore and it won’t be able to tell that the car is moving.
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If the insect wants to stay right in front of your nose, it must fly forwards just a little bit when the car is speeding up. But when the car is at constant speed, it only needs to hover.
In fact, some things are slowing the Earth down or could change its spinning in the future.
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In 1954, three scientists observed a paradox to which they gave their name: the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence. Now, fibre optics are on the way to finally providing an explanation.
You may need to pop your ears by yawning when you go up in a plane.
Listen up. Today we’re hearing all about why your ears pop when you go up, up, up and away.
After this episode, you’ll be able to explain how quantum mechanics affects everything from the way your jeans are cut to the headphones you use.
Cindy Zhi/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation; Michael Lund, The Conversation; Wes Mountain, The Conversation e Julie Carli, The Conversation
The explainer episode
The Conversation, CC BY67,5 MB(download)
Today on Trust me, I'm An Expert, we're explaining the tricky topics: what is quantum mechanics? What does the research say about lone actor terrorism? And why do people like pimple popping videos?
Harrison Ford as Han Solo with his blaster in the old Star Wars triology.
BagoGamesFlickr
A particle physicist explains just what this keystone theory includes. After 50 years, it’s the best we’ve got to answer what everything in the universe is made of and how it all holds together.
Edwin Land, on the left, invented and commercialized a number of technologies, most of which centered on light.
AP Photo
Whether at a family gathering or in a research lab, getting access to images immediately was a game-changer. And Land’s innovations went far beyond the instant photo.
A podcast on intuition: from how it works in the body, to how to harness it, and the story of two scientists who followed a hunch – about quantum biology.
Mark Oliphant in 1939.
From a collection at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Gift of Ms Vivian Wilson 2004
Australian scientist Mark Oliphant helped push the development of nuclear weapons during World War II but later riled at US attempts to keep the UK and others out of the nuclear arms race.
Out there in space there is no air.
Cindy Zhi NY-BD-CC
Out there in space there is no air. If you took your helmet off, all the air you need to breathe would whoosh out.
An illustration of the two 20-micrometre-wide vibrating drumheads, each composed of trillions of atoms, in an entangled quantum state of motion.
Petja Hyttinen and Olli Hanhirova, ARKH Architects Ltd.
We usually think of quantum entanglement in the realm of atomic systems, but now it’s been scaled up to relatively massive objects. This opens the door to new kinds of technology.
For the Earth, which is shaped like a ball, the force of gravity pulls you to the centre from every point on the ground.
Cindy Zhi/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
Justin Webster, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Whether or not you’ve ever used the word flutter, you’ve encountered the phenomenon – in flags, airplanes, bridges and more. Mathematicians are still figuring out exactly why and how this happens.
The famous cosmologist was closely identified with black holes due to his revolutionary theoretical work explaining some of their mysterious properties.