The Science Thread

[Ragey Erasmus]

Science stuff

Slightly self serving here but I do a little piece on local radio about science/engineering stories and I thought it would be a decent thread topic too.

What big science/engineering stories interest you the most and you think you would listen to a 5-8 minute snippet on?

Personally I did a short talk about the Bloodhound land speed record attempt due to run over the next 2 years.

 

[SelimNiai]

http://www.therugbyforum.com/threads/32926-The-Science-Thread

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Oops, missed that.

 

[Feicarsinn]

We're talking recent breakthroughs then? Because I got lots hun.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It's more trying to gauge what sort of sciency things people would be interested hearing about. I plan to do some talks on local radio but I know I'm far more interested in it than your average person (eg I doubt your average person really cares that much about Graphene or 3d printing)

 

[Every Time Ref]

I'm a sucker for anything evolution/genetics-based myself. Not sure that's necessarily a crowd pleaser though

 

[SelimNiai]

Dat Pluto though

<img style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: zoom-in;" src="http://sourcefed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Screen-Shot-2015-07-14-at-7.23.37-AM-860x450.jpg" width="808" height="422">

 

[Feicarsinn]

They've also confirmed the existence of the pentaquark. Pretty fab week for physics, exciting times.

 

[SelimNiai]

They've also confirmed the existence of the pentaquark. Pretty fab week for physics, exciting times.

Literally no idea what that is but its sounds cool

 

[Feicarsinn]

Literally no idea what that is but its sounds cool

Well, quarks are fundamental particles, so they're the smallest building blocks of all matter in the universe. The particles in the nucleus of the atom (protons and neutrons) are called baryons, and are made up of three quarks. Quarks obey certain funny laws due to the quantum laws and forces that act on that scale - they can't be found in isolation and there's a conservation law called the baryon number conservation law which means that they're only likely to be found in groups of twos and threes - 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999...% of matter in the universe exists in these states. However, it's been hypothesized that under incredibly unlikely energetic conditions they could exist in groups of five. The particle that this group makes up is called the pentaquark and at the LHC they were able to produce the conditions needed for such a state to exist. It's a very fundamental, very impressive bit of work.

 

[SelimNiai]

That is pretty damn impressive

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Well, quarks are fundamental particles, so they're the smallest building blocks of all matter in the universe. The particles in the nucleus of the atom (protons and neutrons) are called baryons, and are made up of three quarks. Quarks obey certain funny laws due to the quantum laws and forces that act on that scale - they can't be found in isolation and there's a conservation law called the baryon number conservation law which means that they're only likely to be found in groups of twos and threes - 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999...% of matter in the universe exists in these states. However, it's been hypothesized that under incredibly unlikely energetic conditions they could exist in groups of five. The particle that this group makes up is called the pentaquark and at the LHC they were able to produce the conditions needed for such a state to exist. It's a very fundamental, very impressive bit of work.

Is there anything pentaquarks actually do other than evolve James Joyce's expansive vocabulary?

Literally the only thing I remember from physics back in the day.

 

[Feicarsinn]

Is there anything pentaquarks actually do other than evolve James Joyce's expansive vocabulary?

Literally the only thing I remember from physics back in the day.

No.

 

[SelimNiai]

New Horizons survived its Pluto pass. Looking forward to seeing what it shows when the images are downloaded