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“Atomic clocks often have a limited coherence time due to the interactions between the constituent atoms. While it is usually very easy to use fewer atoms to reduce the interactions, this leads to lower signal-to-noise and less precise measurements. This tension between strong interactions and noise seems unavoidable and limits the accuracy of the world’s best cesium clocks, the keepers of international atomic time. As reported in a paper in Physical Review Letters, Christian Deutsch and coworkers at three laboratories in Paris, France, have circumvented this seemingly unavoidable compromise by showing that a clock’s coherence can actually be enhanced by strong atomic interactions. Even better, strong atomic interactions might also reduce the clock’s systematic frequency shifts.”
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“The linear accelerator [at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center]– the same one that discovered the charm quarks, now more than 40 years old — still accelerates electrons, but now as part of the X-ray laser. Instead of the electrons being directed onto a collision course at near-light speeds, they slalom through sinuous magnetic fields. As the electrons wiggle, they emit X-rays, and with precise wiggling, the X-rays coalesce into a laser beam.
At the end of the magnetic slalom, a large magnet siphons off the electrons while the X-ray photons continue onward to the experiments. The sheer number of them clumped into ultrashort pulses enables new types of science. “
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“A few weeks ago, after serving up some sobering statistics about food waste in America, the Lantern put out a call for your best tips on how to avoid refrigerator rot. Nearly 200 of you responded, with some big suggestions (move to a place within walking distance of a grocery store) and small ones (grow your own herbs). Here are 10 key lessons that emerged from your letters and comments.”
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“Starting today, I’ll be posting on a different element each weekday (the blog will run through early August), starting with the racy history of an element we’ve known about for hundreds of years, antimony, and ending on an element we’ve only just discovered, the provisionally named ununseptium. I’ll be covering many topics–explaining how the table works, relaying stories both funny and tragic, and analyzing current events through the lens of the table and its elements. Above all, I hope to convey the unexpected joys of the most diverse and colorful tool in all of science.”
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” ” God told me to write this book and that it would become a bestseller.”
I talked to God. He said he was just messing with you.”
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Rawr!