] The Office of Naval Research is part of a team that is
] developing an electrically driven, tunable laser that
] could transmit infrared light for use in ship-defense
] systems.

Amazingly the FEL (http://www.jlab.org/FEL/feldescrip.html) at Tomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (or just TJ Labs for short) is now the world's most powerful FEL, zotting pulsed beams in the 10kW power range (full height half mean power).

LASER WEAPONS HAN SOLO WOULD BE AT HOME

] Two losing games, when alternated in a periodic or random
] fashion, can produce a winning game. This paradox occurs
] in a family of stochastic processes: if one combines two
] or more dynamics where a given quantity decreases, the
] result can be a dynamic system where this quantity
] increases. The paradox could be applied to a number of
] stochastic systems and has drawn the attention of
] researchers from different areas. In this paper we show
] how the phenomenon can be used to design Brownian or
] molecular motors, i.e., thermal engines that operate by
] rectifying fluctuations. We briefly review the literature
] on Brownian motors, pointing out that a new
] thermodynamics of Brownian motors will be fundamental to
] the understanding of most processes of energy
] transduction in molecular biology.

Translated from the original spanish, this arxiv article is a wonderful catchup on Parrondo's paradox (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ParrondosParadox.html). In the end the author's show it is possible to construct Brownian (or molecular) motor.

Gambling for free energy is cool.

[cond-mat/0309053] Paradoxical games and Brownian thermal engines

] In October 2003 the Office of Naval Research will unveil
] the performance of the next-generation, super-accurate
] clock no bigger than a matchbox. The Ultra-miniature
] Rubidium (Rb) Atomic Clock, 40 cubic centimeters in
] volume and using a minuscule one watt of power, doesn’t
] weigh much more than a matchbox either.
]
] And...it will lose only about one second every 10,000 years.

Office of Naval Research figures it out again. This time w/ a Super Dooper Rubium clock. What does this mean for you and me? Well more accurate gps readings for one thing. The other is the ability to give ultra-fine grain timing to almost any device... better guided missles, better aimed unmanned surveillance drones.

ONR -- "Securing America's freedom by increasingly more accurate bombing technology."

ONR TO UNVEIL THE “MATCHBOX” CLOCK

Crackpots are funny. Especially when they post their "theories" about how or why "Newton was wrong", "Einstein was wrong", "Newton's critical error", "Einstein's BIGGEST BLUNDER", "Why in the last 400yrs of physics has been a LIE".

Humanity please note this is the exact method to get your scientific ideas totally ignored... even by other crackpots.

Okay I had to update this... here's some links to this jackass:
http://members.aol.com/human14737/bpage1.htm
http://members.aol.com/smart1234/SmartPage1.htm

Or you could just goto google groups and search for `smart1234 "smart model" theory'. The guy is a pile of bad ideas.

Crackpots are funny [sci.physics]

Granular flow is an area of interest to me. It's so cute and requires little actual money to do very interesting science.

Full Abstract: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v90/e184301/

Mixing it Up (Or Not)

Some japanese scientists have designed an accelerator to zap nuclear weapons with a high energy beam of neutrinos. When the neutrino interacts w/ the neutron it will cause the neutron to decay. If you do this to enough of the nuclear material the chain reaction will not be able to sustain itself and no "boom".

We'll just overlook the generation of rouge alpha (He+ particles) and high speed neutrons which will probably cause a lot of radiation poisoning.

Neutrino beam could neutralise nuclear bombs

Full title of arvix article is: [hep-ex/0305017] Observation of a Narrow Resonance of Mass 2.46 GeV/c^2 in the D_s^* \pi^0 Final State, and Confirmation of the D_sJ^*(2317)^*

This is *wonderful* news. I wanted to just post the link now. I'll read thru the pdf (http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ex/0305017) later this afternoon, and post some of my observations about the dual resonance.

New Physics is Good Physics.

New particle is indiependantly confirmed at Cornell accelerator lab.

For the uninformed, one british foot in length (or 304.8mm to be precise) is about 1ns in time.

Proof:
c = 2.99792458 x 10 8 m/s (http://www.what-is-the-speed-of-light.com/)

1ft = 304.8mm := 3.048 x 10^-1m

Therefore:
1ft = 3.048 x 10^-3 m / 2.99792458 x 10^8 m/s == 1.01670336216396744710 x 10^-9 s

So this jackass is selling remarked wooden school rulers for the super deal price of $1.50 + s&h.

Novelty toys for the physicsts.

If confirmed a new subatomic particle would be one of the most interesting things to come out of the low energy BaBar particle factory.

It's named BaBar because it's optimized for B Bbar particle interactions. In particle physics the notation of "bar" or just an underscore is standard for anti-particles. This particular accelerator/detector is optimized for "B" quarks (either called "bottom" or "beauty" quarks).

New Subatomic Particle -- Press Release Dated April 28, 2003

HyperPhysics.

A organic webpage that's a good place to learn about neat new physics stuff at your own pace. I only wish it had problem sets.

HyperPhysics Concepts