This week: Neutrinos still superluminal according to experiments

A lot of things happend this week, so I am pinning few down here...

"The statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory"
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1111.3328
http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137499597688930305

Are neutrinos running faster than light?
http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137675067193700352
http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137506258361126913

http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137595451984711680

http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137593841875288064

http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/137592914200104960

http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/136812249892401152

http://twitter.com/#!/nabinkm/status/136599314486140928

Automated FarmBots for farmer-less farming:
Recent developments in automated farming the crop field has achieved centimeter level accuracy in localization of the farming UAVs.

http://aerialfarmer.blogspot.com/2011/01/uavs-and-agriculture-4.html
http://www.commoncontrolnow.com/Download/The-Unmanned-Farmer.pdf


Lets just call it "Microwave Maths" or "Lightwaves in your service" instead of that long title
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=microwaves-and-the-speed
However, it nicely points out the physics happening inside the microwave.
By measuring the cooked spots in microwave, one could calculate the speed of light. I think it could be a nice textbook entry for high school students in western world.

Fobos-Grunt Lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome

Fobos-Grunt mission to scoop Phobos, one of the moons of Mars...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfsNzNEHhM#!&t=3495
(note how the tail disappears @ about 1hour mark)

The spacecraft is expected to reach Mars' orbit in September 2012, with landing on Phobos scheduled for February 2013.

Update: it seems it is stuck in the earth's space because of some technical troubles... they say if it does not fire in two days, it might be lost!
Ref: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15684192

On the other news:
Mars Science Laboratory, a suv sized rover, is going to be launched by the end of this month.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-347

Snapshot credit: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Follow MSL @marscuriosity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos-Grunt

Clocking your Time-- Globally

Daylight saving is the practice of temporarily advancing clocks during the summertime so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.

The following video nicely explains all you need to know about the daylight savings time.


Back in the days, daylight saving time was thought as an innovative way to schedule people's work hours around the availability of the sun. The questions are "Does it really save the money?", and "Does it make people more productive, or rather less?" It has been highly debated (there goes ideas for few more correlation studies!).

Personally, for me, even though the DST says it is lunch time, my biological clock says it is otherwise. It takes time to get used to the DST changes, and that happens every time DST changes are made. In general, there might be people who are sleep deprived because of DST. To catch a sudden change is another pressure the body is subjected to, which might in turn increase the health related risks.
Thats why I think DST might not be effective in "saving" anything (cry out for more research!!).

Moreover, I would argue that in the age of internet, the whole idea of local time shall be removed. We all shall globally adopt the UTC. So, instead of referring to the local time and then going plus minus x hours for intercontinental communication/scheduling, one could simply refer to UTC. That means in USA east coast, a person who wakes up at about 7 AM will say, "I woke up at about 12PM (UTC) today". Everyone will adapt to the same clock, but will manage to sleep/work according to the local sunrise/sunset with reference to the UTC. It may sound weird to say that the sun will rise at 10PM (UTC) in USA east coast, or  12AM (UTC) in south asia, but it will be OK after some practice. We will all enter into the new year at the same time around the globe. Since UTC would be the only standard, it would be very simplified to, "meeting at 9PM"-- no need to worry about the country, place, or whatever. Simply pick your universal time!

You can see how complex it becomes for each region.
If UTC were to be the only time, one could say meet @ 6PM UTC! 

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Physics in Alphabet

A = 6.02x10^23 -- Avagadro's constant

B = E/c -- Magnetic field equals the electric field divided by the speed of light

C = 299792458 m/s -- The speed of light

D = sqrt[(X-x)^2+(Y-y)^2)] -- The distance between points (x,y) and (X,Y)

E = mc^2 -- Mass-Energy relation

F = ma -- Force equals mass times acceleration

G = 6.67x10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2 Gravitational constant

H = 6.626x10^-34 J s -- Planck's constant

I = V/R -- Current equals voltage divided by resistance

J = Newton*meter -- Joule (unit of energy)

K = 8.9875*10^9 N*m^2/c^2 -- Boltzmann's constant

L = m(v x r) -- Angular momentum equals mass times the cross product of the velocity and radius

M = (Y-y)/(X-x) -- Slope equals the rise over the run

N = kg*m/s^2 -- A Newton (N) is a kilogram meter per second squared

O = (0,0,0) -- The origin is usually designated as an "O"

P = mv -- Momentum equals mass times velocity

Q = c*m*(delta)T -- Heat loss/gained equals the specific heat times the mass times the change in Temperature

R = v/w -- Radius equals velocity divided by angular velocity

S = E x B -- The Poynting vector

T = 2(pi)*sqrt(L/g) -- The period of a simple harmonic oscillator

U = mgh -- Potential energy equals mass times gravitational acceleration times height

V = dx/dt -- Velocity equals the change in position over time

W = F*d -- Work equals force times distance

X = [-b / sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)]/2a -- The quadratic equation

Y = F(x) -- Y is a function of X

Z = (delta)(lambda)/(lambda) -- Redshift (the change in wavelength divided by the rest wavelength)

Source: internet

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Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess. 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2011/press.html

What are type Ia supernova and how they help?
Answer is here...

Saul Perlmutter, U.S. citizen. Born 1959 in Champaign-Urbana, IL, USA. Ph.D. 1986 from University of California, Berkeley, USA. Head of the Supernova Cosmology Project, Professor of Astrophysics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
www.physics.berkeley.edu/research/faculty/perlmutter.html

Brian P. Schmidt, U.S. and Australian citizen. Born 1967 in Missoula, MT, USA. Ph.D. 1993 from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Head of the High-z Supernova Search Team, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australia.
msowww.anu.edu.au/~brian/
@twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/cosmicpinot

Adam G. Riess, U.S. citizen. Born 1969 in Washington, DC, USA. Ph.D. 1996 from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Professor of Astronomy and Physics, Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
www.stsci.edu/~ariess/

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