Category Archives: Scicomm
A transistor for heat
Quantum technologies and the prospect of advanced, next-generation electronic devices have been maturing at an increasingly rapid pace. Both research groups and governments around the world are investing more attention in this domain. India for example mooted its National Quantum … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged electrical transistors, electrons, materials science, National Quantum Mission, negative differential thermal conductance, photons, quantum computers, quantum tunnelling, relaxation time, superconducting wires, thermal reservoirs, variable range hopping
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The Hyperion dispute and chaos in space
I believe my blog’s subscribers did not receive email notifications of some recent posts. If you’re interested, I’ve listed the links to the last eight posts at the bottom of this edition. When reading around for my piece yesterday on … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged butterfly effect, classical chaos, decoherence, ensemble interpretation, Hyperion, Leslie Ballentine, Maximilian Schlosshauer, measurement problem, Nathan Wiebe, quantum chaos, Saturn, Titan, wavefunction, Wojciech Zurek
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What on earth is a wavefunction?
If you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread outward in gentle circles. We all know this sight, and it feels natural to call them waves. Now imagine being told that everything — from an electron to an atom … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged classical mechanics, coherence, decoherence, delocalisation, Newton's second law, quantum information, Quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, Schrödinger equation, uncertainty principle, wavefunction, wavefunction collapse, zero-point motion
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A new kind of quantum engine with ultracold atoms
In conventional ‘macroscopic’ engines like the ones that guzzle fossil fuels to power cars and motorcycles, the fuels are set ablaze to release heat, which is converted to mechanical energy and transferred to the vehicle’s moving parts. In order to … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged adiabatic compression, adiabatic expansion, Bose gas, Bose-Einstein condensate, Fermi gas, internal combustion engine, Otto cycle, Pauli energy, quantum engine, quantum thermodynamics, thermodynamic efficiency
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What keeps the red queen running?
AI-generated definition based on ‘Quantitative and analytical tools to analyze the spatiotemporal population dynamics of microbial consortia’, Current Opinion in Biotechnology, August 2022: The Red Queen hypothesis refers to the idea that a constant rate of extinction persists in a … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged continual turnover, evolutionary biology, PRX Life, red queen hypothesis, species extinction, Stanford University
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A limit of ‘show, don’t tell’
The virtue of ‘show, don’t tell’ in writing, including in journalism, lies in its power to create a more vivid, immersive, and emotionally engaging reading experience. Instead of simply providing information or summarising events, the technique encourages writers to use … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Friends, narrative, narrative populism, Physics World, polarons, science communication, The Hindu
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A microscope that catches the slightest hints of heat
A superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) is a device well-known for its extreme sensitivity to photons, the particles of light — so much so that they can count photons one by one. They also have very little noise, which makes their … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged atomic force microscopy, bolometry, critical temperature, electromagnetic fields, hexagonal boron nitride, hyperbolic phonon-polaritons, infrared laser, niobium, optical power, phonons, quantum materials, quasiparticles, scanning probe, superconductor, terahertz fields, transiditransition-edge sensors
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Frugality is a toxic chalice
From ‘Earth Imaging Satellite NISAR Exposes NASA’s Weaknesses, ISRO’s Strengths’, NDTV, July 26, 2025: At the end of the day, the US scientists have swallowed their pride and are sheepishly going to watch the launch of a satellite where they … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged frugality, Indian Space Research Organisation, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launch insurance, NASA, NISAR, Space Applications Centre, synthetic aperture radar
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Physicists test if they can load antimatter on a truck
Physicists in Europe have reported that it’s possible to transport charged particles on a truck for four hours without disturbing them in any way. This seemingly run-of-the-mill announcement, reported in Nature on May 14, actually contains within its details the … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged antimatter, Antimatter Factory, BASE-STEP Penning trap, CERN, CP violation, CPT symmetry, Large Hadron Collider, liquid helium, Penning trap, quantum field theory
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Quasiparticles do the twist
Physics often involves hidden surprises in how matter behaves at the smallest scales. A fundamental property in physics is angular momentum, which describes how things spin or rotate, from planets all the way down to particles. Angular momentum is involved … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged angular momentum, blue sky research, centrosymmetry, chiral crystals, Debye temperature, Einstein-de Haas effect, phonons, quasiparticles, tellurium, torque
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