There’s an ongoing debate in the world of academic publishing about whether the public should be allowed open access to research publications we all pay for in the first place. “If we are paying for this…
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Articles on Physics
Displaying 401 - 420 of 455 articles
Melbourne Researchers Rewrite Big Bang Theory sang a recent headline in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was one of many suggesting the Big Bang theory had been somehow overthrown. As the principal investigator…
Visible light forms part of the electromagnetic spectrum. So do emissions from TV and radio transmitters, mobile phones and the energy inside microwave ovens. The X-rays used in diagnostic imaging and…
Our notion of reality is built on everyday experiences. But wave-particle duality is so strange that we are forced to re-examine our common conceptions. Wave-particle duality refers to the fundamental…
The July 4 discovery of a particle that closely resembles the Higgs boson opens a new era in science: it should help us understand some fundamental mysteries, such as how microscopic particles attain their…
My ANU colleague John Rayner’s excellent recent article on the physics of music seemed to touch a nerve with the readership of The Conversation. Although beautifully framed by the personal and anecdotal…
My wife Theresa represents many things for me – in addition to being my partner, I see her as a 17cm-long quarter-wavelength resonator (which I hope you’ll understand and agree with by the end of this…
This expert reaction comes via the Australian Science Media Centre: CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) has this evening announced that the long-sought Higgs boson probably exists, after…
Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, have announced the observation of a new particle widely thought to be the elusive Higgs boson. Announced via a live two-way video…
When an ambulance passes with its siren blaring, you hear the pitch of the siren change: as it approaches, the siren’s pitch sounds higher than when it is moving away from you. This change is a common…
The term “uncertainty principle” suggests some grand philosophical idea, like “you can never be sure of anything”, or “there are some things you can never be sure of” and sometimes people use it as if…
On a given day, your typical physicist is mainly preoccupied with trying to understand the intimate secrets of the universe. As with most academics, we get to visit one another in parts of the world to…
Australian science is “generally in good health”, but faces major challenges in the form of falling science participation and literacy in high schools, mostly stagnant enrolments at universities, and diminishing…
Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s Health of Australian Science report, launched today at the National Press Club, starts on an optimistic note. Australian science is generally in good health: school students…
Albert Einstein made an executive decision to revolutionise our understanding of gravity in a paper published in 1916. Nearly 100 years on, a key prediction of Einstein’s theory has eluded direct detection…
Last week the world watched on as a supposed hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California. But was it a hologram? The term “hologram”, (“holos” meaning…
Last week rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California – a notable feat given he was shot dead in 1996. Tupac’s glowing image appeared on stage, rapping, dancing and interacting…
A single layer of atoms can be used to enhance or restrict heat flow between materials. The finding comes as researchers…
A new class of sea waves has been found to develop in areas of deep calm sea. Once thought to be an old pirates’ tale, “super…
Science is like high-performance racing: today’s Formula One machine is all too soon the jalopy of tomorrow. The Australian Synchrotron, opened in 2007 and located in Melbourne, is currently at the F1…
Top contributors
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Associate Professor, Philosophy of Science, The University of Melbourne
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Post Doctoral Research Associate, Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter, University of Adelaide
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia
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Physicien, Professeur des Universités, Université Paris-Saclay
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Professor of Nuclear Physics, Michigan State University
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Professor of Physics, University of Lynchburg
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Senior Lecturer in Physics, University of New England
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Professor & Head, School of Science & Mathematics, Mauritius Institute of Education
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Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technology, University of Sydney
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Professor, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, The University of Queensland
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Honorary senior lecturer, Australian National University
