Staring at an image of the Milky Way, James Peebles, the 2019 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, verbalized what his audience was thinking: “Isn’t that beautiful?”Just about everyone can agree that our galaxy is a remarkable sight. It was Sept. 16 and Peebles was visiting McGill to deliver the annual[Read More…]
Tag: physics
Top five podcasts to grab science on the go
For university students, podcasts can provide a much-needed respite from the monotony of studying and attending online classes. Their portable format makes them a great tool to learn science on the go while commuting, running errands, or doing chores. The McGill Tribune has compiled some of our favourite science podcasts[Read More…]
Detecting tiny cracks can reveal the potential of new technologies
The properties of materials, from the plastic in water bottles to the metal beams of skyscrapers, are determined by their microscopic structure. However, most substances are not perfectly uniform and rather contain a significant number of minuscule defects. These imperfections play a large role in determining the physical properties of[Read More…]
Soup & Science goes digital for “Sun & Science”
On May 22, the Faculty of Science offered students and community members their widely popular Soup and Science presentation series, where professors from various departments deliver short talks on their research. For the first time in its history, lectures were offered in the spring and online, prompting organizers to aptly[Read More…]
The levitating power of quantum materials
The Redpath Museum hosted Tami Pereg-Barnea, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Physics, on March 12 as part of the Cutting Edge Lecture in Science series. An expert in nano-scale materials, Pereg-Barnea discussed her current research, in which she applies quantum mechanical properties to understand the behaviour of superconductors.[Read More…]
Learning about our universe through bright bursts of light
On Jan. 6, McGill astronomers tracked down one of the brightest known repeating signals in the universe to a specific part of a galaxy just seven light years wide. The signal, called a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), was first detected in part by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME)[Read More…]
Image generation is rendering advertisements artificial
Decadent delicacies in food advertisements are not always what they seem to be. In these commercials, motor oil poses as pancake syrup, mashed potatoes become scoops of ice cream, and craft glue replaces milk in a bowl of cereal. Today, a rendering technique called physically based rendering (PBR) allows advertisers[Read More…]
Learning to love physics
Two months ago, my boyfriend picked up a physics minor, and our conversations gradually began to veer off into the realm of Newton’s laws and black holes. I, far from a physics lover, expressed my frustration that our discussions were going way over my head. Soon after, he bought me[Read More…]
Faculty of Science presents the 28th edition of Soup and Science
From Sept. 9—13, the Faculty of Science hosted Soup and Science, a semesterly event where professors briefly present their research and talk with students at Redpath Museum. The expanding universe Pouya Jafarian Contributor Jonathan Sievers, a professor in the Department of Physics and researcher at the McGill Space Institute, shared[Read More…]
Absurd science names and where they come from
The naming of scientific discoveries can seem, at times, both absurd and random. For example, shmoos, the mating protrusions of yeast, are so named because they look like a 1970s cartoon character. Meanwhile, dominant male elephant seals are called beachmasters and Somniosus microcephalus, the Latin name for the Greenland Shark, literally translates[Read More…]
