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Newton, the 17th-century English scientist most famous for describing the laws of gravity and motion, beat Einstein in two polls conducted by eminent London-based scientific academy, the Royal Society. More than 1,300 members of the public and 345 Royal Society scientists were asked separately which famous scientist made a bigger overall contribution to science, given the state of knowledge during his time, and which made a bigger positive contribution to humankind. Newton was the winner on all counts, though he beat the German-born Einstein by only 0.2 of a percentage point (50.1 percent to 49.9 percent) in the public poll...

A very brief video because I want to tell you about this story I learned from William Jason Morgan's obituary. It's a lovely story about how the process of scientific discovery sometimes takes unexpected turns.He looked for gravitational waves, but discovered something entirely different | 3:39Sabine Hossenfelder | 1.03M subscribers | 232,486 views | October 19, 2023her YouTube channel

On this date in 1950, Milada Horakova was hanged with three others in Prague’s Pankrac Prison as a spy and traitor to the Communist Czechoslovakian government. Not (yet) as internationally recognizable as Rudolf Slansky,* the Communist General Secretary in Horakova’s time who would run afoul of Stalin and die on the same gallows two years later, Horakova (English Wikipedia page | Czech | the detailed French) is a potent symbol domestically of her country’s Cold War nightmare. Lawyer, social democrat, and a prominent feminist in the interwar and postwar periods — her life’s work, rather overshadowed by an end that...

In the most massive test to date, physicists have probed a major paradox in quantum mechanics and found it still holds even for clouds of hundreds of atoms.Using two entangled Bose-Einstein condensates, each consisting of 700 atoms, a team of physicists co-led by Paolo Colciaghi and Yifan Li of the University of Basel in Switzerland has shown that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox scales up.The researchers say this has important implications for quantum metrology – the study of measuring things under quantum theory...One of the tools we use to close one of the gaps is quantum mechanics, a theory that arose...

In a recently unearthed recording of an interview conducted nearly 30 years ago, a former assistant to Albert Einstein alleges that the famed scientist was enlisted to examine the Roswell wreckage, including the ET occupants of the downed craft. UFO researcher Anthony Bragalia uncovered the remarkable revelation when he tracked down ufologist Sheila Franklin, who interviewed Dr. Shirley Wright in 1993 about her time working with Einstein in the summer of 1947. As luck would have it, Franklin still had the tapes from her conversation with the former assistant and what she told the researcher was nothing short of stunning....

Decades before we knew birds could 'see' Earth's magnetic field, Albert Einstein was discussing the possibility of undiscovered super senses in his fan mail. A long-lost letter from the famous scientist to an inquiring engineer in 1949 has turned out to be extraordinarily prescient in both the field of biology and physics. The original enquiry from engineer Glyn Davys, which started the correspondence, has since been lost, but judging from Einstein's reply, Davys' question had something to do with animal perception and what it can tell us about the physical world. "It is thinkable that the investigation of the behaviour...

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs)—the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago—are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius). At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter. BECs straddle the line between the macroscopic world governed by forces such as gravity and the microscopic plane, ruled by quantum mechanics. Creating the fifth state of matter, especially within the physical confines of a space station, is no mean...

The dynamics of electrons change ever so slightly on each interaction with a photon. Physicists at ETH Zurich have now measured such interplay in its arguably purest form—by recording the attosecond-scale time delays associated with one-photon transitions in an unbound electron. The photoelectric effect, whereby photons impinging on matter cause the emission of electrons, is one of the quintessential effects of quantum mechanics. Einstein famously explained the key mechanism underlying the phenomenon in 1905, earning him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. He built on a concept introduced five years earlier by Max Planck: Electromagnetic energy is absorbed and emitted...

Switzerland has minted the smallest gold coin the world has ever seen, state-owned Swissmint announced Thursday. The 2.96-millimeter (0.12-inch) gold coin, weighing only 0.063 grams (¹⁄500th of an ounce), is so small the viewer needs to squint closely to see world-famous physicist Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. The coin has a nominal value of ¼ of a Swiss franc (26¢, €0.23) and can be ordered online. According to Swissmint, 999 of the coins have been made, and a single coin will be sold for 199 francs and accompanied with a special magnifying glass so owners can see Einstein. …

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Albert Einstein. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Albert Einstein was a smart fella who once worked in a copyright office. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer grid) belowEach letter must stay...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Albert Einstein. Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Albert Einstein was a former postal worker who dabbled with math and physics on the side. You know the rest of the story. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares...

This Week's Bonus Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Albert Einstein. Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle.Bonus puzzle created for a long Saturday afternoon. Note: Today's regular puzzle can be located here.All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer grid)...

The black hole is enormous, with a radius of roughly 9 billion miles... The concept of a black hole goes back to the 18th century, when the English astronomer-clergyman John Michell calculated that a sufficiently large star couldn't shine because light wouldn’t move fast enough to “lift off” and escape the star’s gravity. But Michell’s conjecture outran the physics of its time, which didn’t understand light, gravity or stars well enough to support it. The foundations for the modern understanding of black holes weren’t laid until the early 20th century, building on James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism and Albert...

A letter written in German by Albert Einstein in 1954 is going under the gavel on Tuesday. Experts at Christie's auction house in New York estimate the so-called "God letter" could sell for up to $1.5 million (€1.3 million). "This remarkably candid, private letter was written a year before Einstein's death and remains the most fully articulated expression of his religious and philosophical views," said Christie's in a statement. The missive is referred to as the "God letter" because it addresses how Einstein felt about the characterization of God and Judaism in a then-recently published book on the subject by...

Recently on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Hank Reichman ran some thoughts on academic freedom that Albert Einstein delivered more than half a century ago. If Reichman's hope in doing so was to provide comfort to progressives, the ironic effect is that, although that may have been the target audience in the 1950s, modern-day conservatives, particularly in the academy, are more likely to identify with Einsten's observations. "The threat to academic freedom in our time must be seen in the fact that, because of the alleged external danger to our country, freedom of...

...Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed the hybrid image called "Marilyn Einstein," which, if you have clear vision, will look like the Hollywood bombshell from afar but will shift into an image of the revered physicist when it gets up close. People who have vision problems may not be able to see a picture of Einstein anywhere....

It must grow tedious being right all the time – no not Barry - Albert Einstein. Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger. To quote one of our country’s great prognosticators, “This is a big f***ing deal!” At last, scientists have validated a key part of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The National Science Foundation, Caltech and MIT have confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, or ripples in spacetime. Their two LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors measured atomic-scale differences on September 14th, 2015 that point to the collision of black holes (also a new discovery) 1.3...

In a recent interview, Gaza ENT doctor Muhammad Yahya Barzaq said that he had written a book refuting Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. "Had Einstein deigned to read the discoveries of Christian Doppler, we would never have had something called the Einstein Theory," he said. Barzaq further said that he had come up with his invention of what he called a "cartridge plane" after replacing a cassette at the exact moment when an airplane was flying overhead. On the issue of Gaza he said that people there "deserve to live because they have the benefit and interest of humanity at...

Device acts like a wormhole, as if the magnetic field was transferred through an “extra special dimension”Ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel, physicists have crafted a wormhole that tunnels a magnetic field through space. "This device can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another point, through a path that is magnetically invisible," said study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. "From a magnetic point of view, this device acts like a wormhole, as if the magnetic field was transferred through an extra special dimension."...

When Henri met Albert the stars didn’t quite align; nor did their clocks. Jimena Canales, historian of science, tells Joe Gelonesi about her discovery of an explosive 20th century debate that changed our view of time and destroyed a reputation.Physicists and philosophers have a curious relationship. They both need each other for the cosmic dance, but one partner sometimes refuses to join in. Star physicist Stephen Hawking even declared the end of philosophy in 2011. In some ways the pronouncement was to be expected; physics triumphalism dictates that at some point philosophy will exhaust itself and be unable to solve...