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Answering Einstein Decades Later; Quantum Entanglement is Real

Quantum mechanics is so mind-boggling that it has stumped even the greatest minds. In particular, Albert Einstein was so bothered by quantum mechanics that he never gave up in his efforts to discredit the theory.  Physicists have spent several decades trying to develop an experiment that would definitively prove him wrong. A few weeks ago, a team from Delft University finally settled the score. Einstein’s … Continue reading Answering Einstein Decades Later; Quantum Entanglement is Real

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Art Gallery, Images

The Light of Elendil in Shelob’s Lair

By Andrew Wong, a second year graduate student in the Applied Physics program at Harvard University.       The increase in global energy demand and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions has driven advancements in renewable energy generation technologies such as wind turbines and solar cells. However, these technologies are inherently intermittent, and require robust energy storage devices. Inexpensive, large-scale energy storage systems such as aqueous … Continue reading The Light of Elendil in Shelob’s Lair

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Innovating in a New Market: Challenges for Cleantech

by Greg Silverberg figures by Kaitlyn Choi Cleantech is a troubled sector Scientists know from geological data that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have been below 300 parts per million for nearly 1 million years.  However, for about a century, carbon dioxide concentrations have been rising at a rate unprecedented in these data and are now approaching 400 parts per million.  Carbon dioxide acts … Continue reading Innovating in a New Market: Challenges for Cleantech

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Stephen Hawking Makes Big Claims about Black Holes

Stephen Hawking recently announced that he has solved one of the most famous puzzles in science, the black hole information paradox. The information paradox is a conundrum of Hawking’s own making. In the 1970s, he predicted that black holes radiate, evaporate, and eventually disappear. This scenario is particularly concerning, because once inside a black hole, nothing can escape. If a black hole were to completely … Continue reading Stephen Hawking Makes Big Claims about Black Holes

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The long awaited and much debated discovery of the pentaquark

A few weeks ago, the LHCb, an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, announced the discovery of a new particle, the pentaquark. What is a pentaquark? Well…it’s a particle, that’s made of five quarks. A quark is one of the smallest fundamental building blocks of matter. Quarks have not been observed alone in nature, and are only known to exist as composite particles. Most commonly, … Continue reading The long awaited and much debated discovery of the pentaquark

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Didn’t the LHC restart in April?

This April, SITN Waves, along with many other news outlets, reported on the restart of the Large Hadron Collider, or the LHC. Many similar headlines were seen last week when CERN announced the machine’s official restart. So when did the LHC actually restart, and what were scientists at CERN doing in the meantime? On April 5, the LHC was powered on for the first time … Continue reading Didn’t the LHC restart in April?

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The Winds of Change are Blowing: New Kite-Like Wind Turbine Promises to Revolutionize Wind Energy

by Erin Dahlstrom Almost two years after its May 2013 purchase of alternative wind energy company Makani, Google X, Google’s semi-secret “moonshots” lab announced at SXSW that they will be starting to test full-scale models of Makani’s kite-like wind turbines in April 2015 [1,2].  While wind turbines have generally been trending bigger and more expensive in order to increase energy output, Makani has taken the … Continue reading The Winds of Change are Blowing: New Kite-Like Wind Turbine Promises to Revolutionize Wind Energy

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Seminars

Understanding sea level change by diving into the past

Presented by Jacky Austermann Why does sea level change? Everyone knows that sea level rise is a threat to coastal cities, but the mechanisms of why the change happens are less often talked about. In my talk I will explain why sea level is changing, why it is changing at different rates around the globe, how we can use the measured sea level rise to … Continue reading Understanding sea level change by diving into the past

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A View inside the LHC
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Giant Particle Smasher Returns

Two weeks ago, the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, returned after two years of extensive upgrades. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is part of particle physics, a branch that examines the tiny particles that constitute everything in the universe. Two years ago, the LHC provided evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson. After such a monumental achievement, what do particle physicists hope to discover with the upgraded LHC? Continue reading Giant Particle Smasher Returns

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Algae: Applications in Removing Arsenic and Beyond

Scientists at Zhejiang University have recently published an improved method for removing arsenic from drinking water, which relies on chemically modifying the shells of a type of algae, called diatoms, to make the shells efficient “sponges” for soaking up arsenic. Modified diatom shells are unique in that they can be widely manipulated for applications in fields as diverse as medicine and materials science. Despite their … Continue reading Algae: Applications in Removing Arsenic and Beyond

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