Follow this little Feynman Factoid up with TED Ed’s animated video about just how small an atom really is.

(via crumblybutgood)

(Source: thatphysicsguy, via solvolysis)

The Feynman Series | The Key To Science | Richard Feynman

The Feynman Series | Curiosity | Richard Feynman

It’s okay  … not to know the answer? I like that too.

(via jtotheizzoe)

The Feynman Series | Honours | Richard Feynman

The Feynman Series | Beauty | Richard Feynman

The little-known art of beloved physicist Richard Feynman, born on May 11, 1918.

(Source: http, via explore-blog)

Happy birthday, (May 11th) to my literal favorite person in the history of humans, Richard P. Feynman.

(Source: neuronsandneutrons, via likeaphysicist)

Richard Feynman

(Source: contemplatingmadness, via wildcat2030)

Feynman’s double-slit experiment brought to life

The precise methodology of Richard Feynman’s famous double-slit thought-experiment – a cornerstone of quantum mechanics that showed how electrons behave as both a particle and a wave – has been followed in full for the very first time.

Although the particle-wave duality of electrons has been demonstrated in a number of different ways since Feynman popularised the idea in 1965, none of the experiments have managed to fully replicate the methodology set out in Volume 3 of Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics.

“The technology to do this experiment has been around for about two decades; however, to do a nice data recording of electrons takes some serious effort and has taken us three years,” said lead author of the study Professor Herman Batelaan from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“Previous double-slit experiments have successfully demonstrated the mysterious properties of electrons, but none have done so using Feynman’s methodology, specifically the opening and closing of both slits at will and the ability to detect electrons one at a time.

“Akira Tonomura’s brilliant experiment used a thin, charged wire to split electrons and bring them back together again, instead of two slits in a wall which was proposed by Feynman. To the best of my knowledge, the experiments by Guilio Pozzi were the first to use nano-fabricated slits in a wall; however, the slits were covered up by stuffing them with material so could not be open and closed automatically.”

In their experiments, which have been published today, Thursday 14 March, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society’s New Journal of Physics, Batelaan and his team, along with colleagues at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, created a modern representation of Feynman’s experiment by directing an electron beam, capable of firing individual electrons, at a wall made of a gold-coated silicon membrane.

The wall had two 62-nm-wide slits in it with a centre-to-centre separation of 272 nm. A 4.5 µm wide and 10 µm tall moveable mask, controlled by a piezoelectric actuator, was placed behind the wall and slid back and forth to cover the slits.

“We’ve created an experiment where both slits can be mechanically opened and closed at will and, most importantly, combined this with the capability of detecting one electron at a time.

“It is our task to turn every stone when it comes to the most fundamental experiments that one can do. We have done exactly that with Feynman’s famous thought-experiment and have been able to illustrate the key feature of quantum mechanics,” continued Batelaan.

Feynman’s double-slit experiment

In Feynman’s double-slit thought-experiment, a specific material is randomly directed at a wall which has two small slits that can be opened and closed at will – some of the material gets blocked and some passes through the slits, depending on which ones are open.

Based on the pattern that is detected beyond the wall on a backstop – which is fitted with a detector – one can discern whether the material coming through behaves as either a wave or particle.

When particles are fired at the wall with both slits open, they are more likely to hit the backstop in one particular area, whereas waves interfere with each other and hit the backstop at a number of different points with differing strength, creating what is known as an interference pattern.

In 1965, Feynman popularised that electrons – historically thought to be particles – would actually produce the pattern of a wave in the double-split experiment.

Unlike sound waves and water waves, Feynman highlighted that when electrons are fired at the wall one at a time, an interference pattern is still produced. He went on to say that this phenomenon “has in it the heart of quantum physics [but] in reality, it contains the only mystery.”

(Source: abcstarstuff)

Richard Feynman | The Great Conservation Principles | The Character of Physical Law (Lecture Series @ Cornell University)

I understand that my run-in with Christianity happened the way it happened, influencing my “bias” from being around people who interpret the Bible literally. And there’s this Christian club people seem to love. How could they not? There’s loud music and visually appealing graphic designed “trailers” and “cool-club” videos, an exhibition to show how it’s “down” with pop culture.

But it also takes the reality we live in and perverts it with Biblical fallacies, the natural way of life forever altered into a self-righteous, we-are-so-worthy attitude based on the human desire for a nurturing parent or guardian.

Why? Because those are the three main questions that popped up in the essential heart of philosophy and theology: Who/What Are We?, Why Are We Here? and Who’s Caring For “Us”, or to put it bluntly, Who’s In Charge? or further, “How Do We Explain The Not Yet Fully Understood?”

I would take this entire way of life, interpretation of the natural world and superimposed theory of creation riddled with love, nurturing and discipline a bit more seriously & respectfully if, aside from being absolutely the most generally racist, homophobic, stereotypical, deceitful, greedy, hypocritical, malicious, self-centered, disgusting, overly presumptuous, blusteringly overgeneralized and non-informative piece of literary idealism ever written for the benefit of a subservient population persistent in circular reasoning to deny and falsify eons of time and meticulous study and observation of the natural world,

if it weren’t simply…

false. Sorry? I mean…how many translations have there been now? And there still doesn’t exist a steward or some sort of village man or woman or group who aided this great man, Jesus, or these great men in the studying of the earth and it’s cycles of climate change, weather, natural disasters, species proliferation/extinction, biodiversity, archaeological uncoverings, geological resurfacing,

or the deep, mysterious and over 2,000+ years ago - illustrious - night skies, which were sure to put on quite a spectacular display of cosmic events, parallel to which we study today: comets, meteors, supernovae, conjunctions, eclipses, the solar system (because they were bound to observe and postulate some sort of “order” to accept that God had an organized plan for this life, on this planet, (the only planet that truly matters, of course)) along with countless oversimplification of the universe, which, to them, existed statically, with Earth at the center….of the whole universe. Yeah. And we’re supposed to “tolerate” and even more so, “be sensitive” to these religious “rights”.

Yet, I sit here reading Galileo, a man who was tortured, scrutinized, persecuted, outcast and ultimately, under imprisonment (via house arrest) and constant stress, died from a fever and heart palpitations, which doesn’t take into the reality that he was physically and mentally overworked by people believing with such intense conviction that this Biblical recounting was all there was to it and to alter it would be a sort of, no pun intended, “shattering of their universe” as they saw it. It was disrespectful to them and deemed it that way simply due to the confliction it posed for the establishment of the church and allegiance toward the willful ignorance that guided their blind faith. Truth, as it was revealed (and conflicted with “His word”), was attacked for heresy. This kind of belligerent ignorance is still thrust upon our society today.

Our brains are capable of such magnificent dreams, fantasies and in the right conditions or in that case, time periods and locales, indoctrination of this sort of ‘surreality of reality’ through the eyes of these “truths” - no matter the harmful consequences that would psychologically occur when/if confronted with the true nature of things - a population can be manipulated when not presented with an accurate account of the natural world (and (visible) universe) in a timely manner every week, month, months…which has become the case as technology evolved with our species.

There are a lot of “I wonder what they were thinking” moments when you read the Bible, which should be blindingly obvious to the “serious” reader. And I don’t want to sit here and make a mockery of things, so respectfully and forthright, let me say this: it’s 2013. This religion is embedded into our society’s culture and it’s been used as a crutch excuse scapegoat for far too long.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Certainly not.

However, let me make some things perfectly clear to my fellow brothers and sisters living in such a pivotal time in human/Earth history:

I/We do nothave to be tolerant to a religion exploited by a society which clearly doesn’t have their priorities in order.

I/We do nothave to be tolerant or respectful to a club of people who would much rather attach themselves to a doctrine they’ve chosen to pull their favorite parts out of to psychologically comfort them and apply to the present day whilst this same text is used to manipulate the minds of vulnerable children, vulnerable humans in general, whom are all, out of the womb, potential contributors to the foundation of our existing knowledge.

I/We do not have to be subservient to those who make excuses for their fellow members who occasionally “do bad things” simply because of how persecuted or attacked they feel when confronted with the true, rational, scientifically understood reality of reality, or as Richard Feynman suggested, “nature of nature,” making it devastatingly clear that most of them don’t understand the root origins of their own religion and have overlooked the passage of time to which this religious influence - built solely on the tales of others without a valid reason for it’s perpetuation other than tradition regarding a comforting delusion - have distracted, distorted, enslaved, tortured, killed and stagnated generations and centuries of human ambition, curiosity and ultimately - progress.

If it’s so important for this religion to continue. For what benefit? If the evidence to their suggested claims was actually valid under the most rigorous of scientific standards and processes, why not put them to the test? We have millions upon millions of humans who pray every single day. These people talk to a voice in their head.

Don’t worry about that sickness, ailment or broken arm, “I’ll pray for you.”

I am truly sorry for the loss of your only child. “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this most recent natural disaster.”

We must move past this irrationality if we’re to survive. In a colony of bees, if one worker drone decided to go off on his own and “imagine” its way through its existence, that organism would die. This applies to every organism on this planet, if not, the universe. However, due to our ability to, like I said before - rationalize our irrationality - it’s become quite easy for members of our culture to persist in this delusion because we’ve made things pretty comfortable and convenient for our species on this planet.

Example (at least in America): it’s easier to have a big meal, get in a gas guzzling vehicle, attend a church service in the company of others who interpret life this way as well, delight in the praise of a divine being by reapplying vague passages to the modern world, reinforcing our ignorance by making us feel as if we are doing the best we can, then returning from this place of worship, able to come home and turn on the tube, immersed further in a distorted view of life, led by “reality” television, corrupt politics, sexism, racism, the “news” as someone else’s opinion applies and corporations deem suitable for our brain, all while not being shot at, slain, bombed, exiled or persecuted, because it’s better for our mental health? Salvation? Afterlife? Relationship with a deity and deceased human?

I’m not on board with religious apologetics. If you can’t see the negativity and destruction while this society prints “in God we trust”, and “God bless AMERICA” on everything, you may want to re-evaluate your entire perception of life as we’ve come to understand it.

Every other species on this planet recognizes it’s errors and corrects them for self-preservation in order to perpetuate the species for further generations. Humans haven’t operated as a solitary organism, not all of us, together, moving toward a common goal with unified understanding of the natural world. No. Instead, we operate independently, choosing whichever path leads us toward that feeling of happiness, via whatever delusion feels the best in that point in time.

We will remain bound to adolescence when applying the occam’s razor principle to problem solving. It becomes an extremely dangerous gamble when betting against the natural/physical world with human conceit.

“The universe is nto required to be in harmony with human ambition.”
- Carl Sagan

♪ I gotta have my orange juice  

Just a little bit of orange juice ♪

- Richard Feynman [x]

Richard Feynman playing the bongos is a beautiful thing.

(Source: scienceing)

jtotheizzoe:

How Richard Feynman cracked the safes at Los Alamos using human behavior and simple math, in the meantime convincing everyone there he was some sort of magician and further cementing his place in my heart as coolest, cleverest dude ever.

(Numberphile via Open Culture)