Why do wind turbines look the way they do? As you might expect, the answer boils down to physics. There are arguably three features of turbines which are worth explaining: their size (the length of the blades and hence how tall the turbine is), the number of blades they have, and the shape of the …
Supersymmetry
I don’t know about you, but I think the Standard Model is quite elegant. If you’re not familiar with this term, it’s a theory which essentially describes all the matter and forces we have ever been able to observe. As I wrote in one of my previous articles, it is arguably the closest thing we …
The Photoelectric effect
Messi or Ronaldo? Ford or Ferrari? Magnum or Cornetto? All of these perennial debates have raged on for years and ultimately polarised popular opinion. Amongst these great and contentious questions rests one which, once addressed, helped us better understand the true nature of reality. That debate? Electron: Wave or Particle? Our story starts with German …
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Imagine that you’re a police officer sitting in your car at the side of a road. A car speeds past you and so you take out your speed gun, point it at the car and get a reading. You can see where the car is (if only for a short time) and your device has …
Dark Matter
Our universe is a weird and wonderful thing. It popped into existence 13.8 billion years ago, for a reason which is still beyond us, and continues to hide other secrets which physicists struggle to unravel. Amongst these mysteries lies a question which is seemingly quite simple: what is our universe made of? The answer might …
Quantum Field Theory
A more accurate theory of everything From our very first science lessons in school, we are told that the world around is made out of building blocks called atoms. Atoms are infinitesimally small, atoms are indivisible and atoms make up all matter in existence, everything from a banana to a human. Depending on how far …
The Higgs Field
Most people need wait only a matter of hours, sometimes days or at most months before a theory they propose has been proven to be false or true. Will the horse you bet on win its race? Will it rain tomorrow? Will that politician you voted for be elected to office? Not Peter Higgs. Peter …
The Standard Model
One of the reasons I find physics so enthralling is that it brings scientists closer to a theory of everything than any other subject. When I say a “theory of everything”, you might think of the hit movie starring Eddie Redmayne but this isn’t quite what I mean: I mean a theory which explains what …
The Copenhagen Interpretation
The Fierce Battle between Einstein and Bohr Consider the greatest historical debates in scientific intellectual circles; heliocentrism vs geocentrism, how the universe began or pro or anti-Darwinian views of evolution. I would argue that the debate which emerged between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein in the mid-1920s should be considered on the same scale as …
An Introduction to Quantum Chromodynamics and the EIC
What if I told you that by obtaining a more detailed understanding of nucleons ( protons and neutrons ) , we could create technology millions of times more efficient than current nanotechnology ? While this speculative dream may be in the distant future and requires a deeper understanding of the quantum world, physicists have already …
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