JON CARTWRIGHT – Page 31 – & THREE QUARKS EDITORIAL

University open days: plot your course with open questions

The TelegraphJon Cartwright6 April, 2013

Published in The Daily Telegraph, 6 Apr 2013

Open days are brilliant opportunities for prospective students – just make sure you know what you are looking for, says Jon Cartwright

A normal coach tour of Bristol might start at the harbour, swing past the Gothic cathedral on College Green and then meander through Clifton to witness the famous suspension bridge. On the University of the West of England (UWE) open day, however, the route is a little more prosaic. “It tells you everything from where the pubs and clubs are, to the price of a pint,” says Sue Fox, head of UWE’s corporate relations and events.

Fox’s job is to oversee a day that will sell UWE to the current generation of school leavers. And it’s a demanding one: each of the 7,000 prospective students who registered for the open day last month had specific ideas about what being an undergraduate ought to be like. That means the open day is not just about quality of teaching, but about practicalities, social life and the university’s ethos. “These open days are invaluable,” says Fox. “They give people the chance to see where we are, and what we’re about.” […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Entangled photons beat noise through teamwork

NatureJon Cartwright5 April, 2013

Published in Nature, 5 Apr 2013

Technologies that rely on ‘quantum-weirdness’ phenomena, such as electrons being in two places at the same time, are inherently delicate: the smallest disruption can make such uncertain states ‘collapse’ into well-defined outcomes. Now, however, physicists have shown that quantum effects do not always succumb entirely to disruptions — at least not those from electromagnetic noise.

Their technique, called quantum illumination, could enable schemes based on quantum effects to work in much noisier environments than they can now. It could even make quantum physics useful in applications such as radar, which now relies on classical physics. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Twisted light sparks radio debate

Physics WorldJon Cartwright1 April, 2013

Published in Physics World, 1 Apr 2013

Many observers were dubious when, in 1901, Guglielmo Marconi claimed to have sent the world’s first radio signal across the Atlantic. But the Italian inventor proved the sceptics wrong, and went on to win the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics.

A century later, physicists and engineers are striving for the next breakthrough in wireless communication. The electromagnetic spectrum is now packed with signals carrying everything from shipping forecasts to the latest movies. But because each signal must occupy a channel on a single frequency, certain regions of the spectrum are becoming severely congested. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Why don’t more girls study physics?

The TelegraphJon Cartwright16 March, 2013

Published in The Telegraph, 16 Mar 2013

Jon Cartwright investigates why just 20 per cent of pupils who take A-level physics are female, and what’s being done to address the issue

The girls at Redland Green School have little enthusiasm for atoms, forces, energy and stuff. Unlike the boys. “I like physics,” says James, 16, a GCSE student. “It explains everything. It’s the way the universe works. It’s pretty much the entirety of existence. And it’s cool.”

Redland Green is a modern comprehensive, built six years ago in the heart of the affluent, liberal northern area of Bristol. Its physics teacher, Sarah Webb, is so enthusiastic about her subject that she has just completed a PhD in atmospheric spectroscopy on the side. And yet, like most other British schools, Redland Green is struggling with a basic physics question: why there are so few girls. Just 20 per cent of the pupils in its A-level physics class are girls – precisely the UK average.

That physics is a male-dominated subject will not come as a surprise. Together with chemistry and maths, physics is often associated with an abstract, oddly masculine type of cleverness. But chemistry and maths have outgrown this stereotype. Since the Eighties the proportion of girls in chemistry and maths at A-level has risen steadily, to the extent that the ratio of girls to boys is now roughly equal. (In chemistry it’s just under 50 per cent girls; in maths, about 40 per cent.) Not so in physics. According to a recent report by the Institute of Physics, nearly half of all mixed state schools have no girls studying A-level physics at all. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Exoplanet spectrum hints at ‘core accretion’

Chemistry WorldJon Cartwright14 March, 2013

Published in Chemistry World, 14 Mar 2013

Scientists in the US and Canada have uncovered what could be the most detailed spectrum of an exoplanet to date. The spectrum reveals the presence of carbon monoxide and water, which suggest that the planet formed by core accretion.

Astronomers have detected some 3000 exoplanets since searches began in the late 1980s. Most of these have been spotted by looking for the dimming of a parent star as an exoplanet passes in front, or for a ‘wobble’ in a star caused by an exoplanet’s gravitional field. Both of these methods can reveal the orbits and masses of the exoplanets, and to some extent radii and composition. To get a proper look at an exoplanet’s atmospheric composition, however, a direct image is essential. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

First weak measurements made on optical polarization states

Physics WorldJon Cartwright11 March, 2013

Published in Physics World, 11 Mar 2013

Physicists in Canada and the US claim to be the first to make a direct measurement of the polarization quantum state of light – a feat that at first glance appears to defy Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The technique, which relies on a process known as weak measurement, could help in fundamental studies on quantum mechanics or in the development of quantum computing.

In quantum mechanics, it is normally considered impossible to know everything about a system at one time. Measure the position of a particle accurately, for instance, and the particle’s momentum will suddenly become very ill defined. Physicists call pairs of variables such as position and momentum “conjugate”: they are innately connected, such that the measurement of one essentially destroys information about the other. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Realistic ice data ‘crucial’ to climate models

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright11 March, 2013

Published in ERW, 11 Mar 2013

Realistic sea-ice data are crucial to the reliable predictions of climate models. That is the conclusion of an international group of scientists, who warn against the use of models that employ averaged or “climatological” sea-ice conditions.

The steady loss of sea ice around the Arctic over the past few decades is expected to have a strong impact on the climate. Recent studies have linked the loss of ice to a cooling over mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere – a counterintuitive result, since the lost ice should itself have had a reflective, cooling quality. Scientists think that an initial warming caused by the ice loss might have weakened the sub-polar jet stream, which would have eased the flow of cold Arctic air southwards. In any case, the message seems clear: there is a complex interaction between sea ice and the climate, which scientists need to understand. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Physicists Discover a Whopping 13 New Solutions to Three-Body Problem

ScienceJon Cartwright8 March, 2013

Published in Science, 8 Mar 2013

It’s the sort of abstract puzzle that keeps a scientist awake at night: Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this “three-body problem” was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It’s quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems.

The trove of new solutions has researchers jazzed. “I love these things,” says Robert Vanderbei a mathematician at Princeton University who was not involved in the work. He says he, in fact, spent all night thinking about the work. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Cellulosic biofuels will be pricier than oil

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright8 March, 2013

Published in ERW, 8 Mar 2013

Advanced “cellulosic” biofuels that have a low carbon footprint will struggle in coming decades to compete economically with oil, a study by researchers in China and the US has revealed. The study, which takes into account the cost reduction that results from stimulated production, estimates that cellulosic biofuels will still be at least 40% more expensive than oil in two decades.

Cellulosic biofuels are a type of ethanol biofuel derived from lignocellulose, the basic structural material of plants. Compared with widely used biofuels, such as ethanol derived from corn or sugarcane, cellulosic biofuel has a much lower carbon footprint. This is largely down to the grassy crops used – miscanthus and switchgrass, which require little fertilizer to grow, and from which woody “lignin” can be extracted to convert into liquid fuel. […]

The rest of this article is available here.

Earthquake detected from space

NatureJon Cartwright5 March, 2013

Published in Nature, 5 Mar 2013

The earthquake that rocked Tohoku, Japan, in 2011 was so powerful that its rumble was ‘heard’ from space. Scientists in France and the Netherlands have found that sound waves from the quake reached as far as an orbiting satellite, 260 kilometres above ground.

Earthquakes make the ground resound like a giant subwoofer, generating seismic waves that travel through the Earth and, to a lesser extent, acoustic waves that travel through the air. […]

The rest of this article is available here.