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 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.
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation; Michael Lund, The Conversation; Wes Mountain, The Conversation, and 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Michael Courts, The Conversation and Sarah Keenihan, The Conversation
Hawking’s most famous book, A Brief History of Time, sold 10 million copies and was translated into 40 languages, skyrocketing to the top of the bestseller lists in the US and UK.
By figuring out fission, physicists were able to split uranium atoms and release massive amounts of energy. This Manhattan Project work paved the way both for atomic bombs and nuclear power reactors.