Bronchial Antibiotics

The century of relativity. XXI century physics lasers can

Quantum Computation

quantum theory keeps us two surprises that collide with our common sense ven. The first is that the act of observation defines the world: there is no deep reality we live in a fantasy world where nothing exist until it is measured. The second is that in the subatomic world the notion of causality disappears, leaving only the probability of something happening. However, both will allow us to revolutionize the world of information. "There are plenty of free space in there." Thus began a conference on great physicist Richard Feynman. It was a warning about the huge amount of open space in the microscopic world inside the area. The current physical wonders why not exploit it and use it, for example, to transport, store and process information. That is precisely the goal of quantum information theory. Who could imagine the Library of U.S. Congress locked in the head of a pin? And not only that, but will allow us to encode this information so inviolable, quantum cryptography and build supercomputers capable of performing in a fraction of a second the same operations as a conventional computer would take several
million years to complete.

The Hunt for the God particle

What is done Matter? To answer this question physicists that atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. In turn, protons and neutrons are made of smaller particles called quarks. The theory predicts that there should be six of them, named as flowery as up, down, charm, strange, valley and peak. In accelerators have been discovered all of them. But there is a particle predicted theoretically that have not yet found a name is also peculiar: the Higgs boson vector. Nominated for over 30 years, responds to a fundamental question: why particles have mass? Guilt is the Higgs, it is he who gives mass to elementary particles. But you have to discover it. The new accelerator at CERN, the LHC, has among its missions to hunt. If it exists ...

The new nano science

We are at the threshold of a technological revolution similar to the invention of the lacquer ina steam. Nanoscience is, that is, the science of the very small. "Nano" is a prefix that is added to a magnitude to obtain a value of one billion times smaller. So, speaking of nanosystems involves objects smaller than bacteria. Physicists around the world working on projects whose ultimate goal is to control atomic-scale design new artificial materials. Devices have already been achieved as diverse as magnetic tunnel junctions, boxes and pumping systems quantum transistors that can control the flow of electrons one to one ... Here are the steps leading up to the nanorobots that flood the modern science fiction. The "nano" is fashionable.

Photonics and Optoelectronics

If predictions s of experts met in ten years we will see in the market a new type of circuits in our computers, televisions and DVD players, electronics made with light. In 25 years, optical computers arrive, they will be much faster than today. And is that as we miniaturize more and more pieces of metal that are used to connect components on a chip will cause, among other problems, a loss of speed. The use of optical connections is an alternative, why not have these problems, but you have to find materials capable of controlling and guiding the propagation of light on a microscopic scale. However, to achieve an electronic exclusively with photons may be away or even ever get. For this reason, research in optoelectronics, ie, the design of circuits that use both electrons and photons. It tends to the bridge linking electronics to photonics and optical communications.

at room temperature superconductors

Superconductivity is the gross tangible evidence of the existence of a world quantum. Superconductors can conduct electrical current without losses and therefore can carry current densities over 2,000 times what a copper cable. Used in a multitude of devices from magnetic resonance equipment for hospitals, the magnetic fields produced by superconducting coils-up in detecting magnetic fields smaller than one billionth that of Earth. The drawback is that a material becomes superconducting by cooling much. The so-called high-temperature superconductors are materials that acquire this property when it comes down to -138 º C. What is not so clear is why they are superconductors. The classical theory, called BCS and enunciated in 1957, it fails. Today, superconductivity is a field of intense research. Discover a superconductor at room temperature is one of the new challenges.

better life and the universe. Complexity

In recent years physics is committed to understanding life. Apparently, the behavior of most complex systems is the result of self-organization processes. In them, while elements such as ants or neurons, communicate only with other physically close, the system can generate structures-like spots of a jaguar-or property-like memory-only understand if you study the whole system. The complexity seems to emerge halfway between order and disorder. If we think in terms of information, the need to store it requires a degree of order, but also the ability to adapt and manipulate the information requires some degree of disorder. The structure of DNA is a good example. One of the biggest challenges facing research physical life is its inability to predict protein folding, ie, why, among all the possibilities, the long chain of amino acids folds this way and not another. The problem is that proteins are built on the edge of stability: if they were something else degrade unstable if more stable and not fulfill its function. The proteins leak through the fingers of the physical. We are, in essence, to a lack of fitness.

The cosmological constant and accelerating universe

For many this is the most fascinating enigma in physics. None of the ideas proposed so far has worked. The cosmological constant is something that comes out of everything. His story began with Einstein. An expanding universe was the result of the general theory of relativity and he could not believe it. To avoid this, equations modified by introducing a term foreign to stop the expansion theory: the cosmological constant. When after the astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the expanding universe, Einstein stated that the introduction of the cosmological constant had been the biggest mistake of his life. Almost 70 years after astronomers discovered that the universe's expansion is accelerating, something inconceivable. Faced with this disaster resumed cosmologists repudiated by Einstein's constant. This repulsion may be due to a mysterious dark energy (see VERY 278). But what is it? Nobody knows. Perhaps he best expressed the perplexity has been the laureate Steven Weinberg: "For physicists is difícill attack this problem without knowing what needs to be explained." Of course, if dark energy is a cosmological constant, we would face the worst theoretical estimate of the history of science.