Quantum uncertainty goes uncertain

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is the stuff out of which some of the best modern legends are made, such as the ill-fated Schrödinger's cat, which is neither dead nor alive but exactly the opposite, or the fantastic stories about quantum improbability drives, which made the infinite monkey theorem to be real for a fraction of eternity only to vanish again (for example).

However everything has an end and that seems to be the case with the uncertainty principle as well. Canadian researchers have managed to prove it false in some circumstances, circumstances theorized already in 2003 by Masanao Ozawa but not experimentally confirmed until now.

Lee A. Rozema et al., Violation of Heisenberg’s Measurement-Disturbance Relationship by Weak Measurements. Physical Review Letter, 2012. Pay per view ··> LINK [doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.100404]

Abstract

While there is a rigorously proven relationship about uncertainties intrinsic to any quantum system, often referred to as “Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle,” Heisenberg originally formulated his ideas in terms of a relationship between the precision of a measurement and the disturbance it must create. Although this latter relationship is not rigorously proven, it is commonly believed (and taught) as an aspect of the broader uncertainty principle. Here, we experimentally observe a violation of Heisenberg’s “measurement-disturbance relationship”, using weak measurements to characterize a quantum system before and after it interacts with a measurement apparatus. Our experiment implements a 2010 proposal of Lund and Wiseman to confirm a revised measurement-disturbance relationship derived by Ozawa in 2003. Its results have broad implications for the foundations of quantum mechanics and for practical issues in quantum measurement.

In other words, the researchers managed to measure a photon with a very weak interaction first and then measure the photon regularly again, producing the same result. This means that the photon was not altered by the first measure, what surely opens many possibilities for both theoretical and applied physics. 

Source: Science Daily.

Higgs Boson discovered?

The elusive subatomic particle, dubbed "the God particle" or something that looks a lot like it, has been finally found, according to an announcement by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), whose particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), spans many kilometers underground the French-Swiss border near Geneva.

"We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV. The outstanding performance of the LHC and ATLAS and the huge efforts of many people have brought us to this exciting stage", said ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, "but a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication".

"The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found", said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. "The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks".

While the implications of this discovery are yet to be refined there is almost no doubt that it will strongly affect our understanding of nature confirming the theoretical set of the so-called Standard Model of particle physics.

The unification theory or Theory of Everything (ToE), which would fuse particle physics and space-time (and gravity) physics described in Einstein's General Relativity is still out of our immediate reach, however consolidating the Standard Model should provide more solid basis for such efforts.

The Higgs Boson is involved in the Higgs mechanism: the why behind particle mass.

Echoes from the Class War (Sep 25)

Basque Country:



Video homage to Kukutza III social center:

The arrested in the demos (mostly while running away from police attacks) report very different treatments: some were treated properly, while others have been beaten, threatened, insulted and abused ··> SA[eu].

A new social center is occupied in the old quarter of Donostia (San Sebastian) ··> Gara[es].

Spanish fascists show up in Leitza for a photo. The citizens ignored the provocation ··> SA[es].


Britain: protests against healthcare (NHS) cuts ··> video at PO.


Yemen: after return, dictator Saleh attacks opposition breaking his own request of a truce ··> Al Jazeera.


Egypt: striking teachers protest in Cairo ··> video at PO.


USA:


Occupy Wall Street movement continues growing amidst arrests and police repression:

Live Stream from New York.

Videos at PO: reporters arrests, arrests of women who protested police touching them, RT report.

Washington's Blog also has a host of videos on police violence. The movement also gets a commentary at Naked Capitalism. 



Los Angeles Israel consulate close down... by local anti-Zionist Jews ··> video at PO.


Japan:

Latest Fukushima Dai Ichi videos show steam ··> Fukushima Diary.

Yellow powder scattered by typhoon may be plutonium ··> Fukushima Diary.

Generalized food insecurity in Japan as newly harvested rice measures 500Bq/Kg (and yet is distributed as "food"). The amount is more than a hundred times normal safety standards in Germany ··> Fukushima Diary.


Science:

Speed of light limit may have been broken by neutrinos ··> BBC, Al Jazeera.

Dwarf galaxies dislike the very concept of dark matter ··> BBC.

A one-dimensional universe at the Big Bang?

This is so weird and intriguing that I can't but make a quick comment on it. Two US scientists, Jonas Mureika and Dejan Stojovic, are proposing a radical rethink of what we understand as the basic physics of our universe: they suggest that, at the Big Bang, the Universe had only one dimension (like a line), acquiring then two dimensions (plane) and then three (space), and probably soon a fourth (if not already). 

This radical rethink seems to have been pushed by the advances (and lack of them) in the fields of Physics and Astrophysics in the last decades, when questions have been piling up and convincing answers have been lacking instead. 

These problems include the fundamental incompatibility between gravito-centric General Relativity and particle-centric Quantum Mechanics, the mystery of the Universe's accelerating expansion (which seems to demand extra dimensions) and serious issues with the elusive (and maybe non-existent) Higg's Boson. 

By reflecting this new proposal I do not mean to adhere to it but I do like the principle they begin from: maybe something fundamental is wrong in the way we think Physics, so exploring radically new venues may be the way out of an otherwise unsolvable problem. 

They are thinking out of the box and that is something I really like and that often brings real solutions in all fields. 

The new theory has been published in the Physical Review Letter (pay per view) and is also discussed in its essentials at Science Daily.

Brain's electrical fields: feature, not any bug

Caltech researchers have found that the electric fields of the brain are not just any mere by product of neuronal electrical activity but that they actually provide feedback to neurones and is an important part of the cognitive process.

In the words of lead researcher Costas Anastassiou:

... while active neurons give rise to extracellular fields, the same fields feed back to the neurons and alter their behavior.

So far, neural communication has been thought to occur at localized machines, termed synapses. Our work suggests an additional means of neural communication through the extracellular space independent of synapses.

Importantly external electric fields as weak as 1 mV/mm alter the behavior of neurones. Typically mammalian brains have fields of 2-3 mV/mm or more, what implies that they are actually affecting the brain's behavior internally.

An open question is whether electric fields external to our bodies such as those produced by all types of machines, as well as electric and telecommunication installations, do have an effect in our brains and which one. Even the Earth has its own significant electromagnetic field which interacts with the also powerful Solar one in barely researched ways.

Source: Science Daily.

Ref. paper: Costas A. Anastassiou et al., Ephaptic coupling of cortical neurons. Nature Neuroscience, 2011. Pay per view.

The new flavor of neutrinos: standard model suffers big blow

Oddly enough this finding is not new but was already discovered some 20 years ago. However this research from Fermilab confirms it: neutrinos (in antimatter contexts) have a fourth flavor... and this totally breaks the posited charge-parity (CP) symmetry central to the Standard Model of quantum mechanics.

While it sounds somewhat esoteric, as everything in advanced physics, this, along with other issues (like not finding the elusive Higgs boson anywhere, nor being able to explain the mysterious dark matter, etc.) may soon signal the final demise of the Standard Model. It has served us well for some time but it is clearly not a theory of everything, as it cannot integrate gravity nor other phenomena. It is surely about time to move on to a more advanced paradigm, such as String Theory.

A. Aguilar Arévalo, Event Excess in the MiniBooNE Search for ν̅μ→ν̅e Oscillations. Physical Review Letters, 2010. Pay per view.

Source and more detailed explanation at Science Daily.