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Scotsman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe Theatre reviews: Aether
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Aether Summerhall (Venue 26) ★★★★☆ How does one make a piece of theatre about dark matter, the material which makes up most of the universe, but which we cannot see and don't really understand? It's a tall order, but Emma Howlett, the writer and director behind TheatreGoose's Fringe hits, Her Green Hell and Sisters Three, is determined to give it a go. Aether | TheatreGoose In a fast-moving production packed with energy and inventiveness, the four women performers power through the stories of five women operating on the edge of the unknown, playing everyone and everything from Nobel Prize winning physicists to different types of quark, referencing styles which range from a science lecture to a TV games show. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Sophie is a particle physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider at Cerne, but she's on the verge of quitting her PhD because the Great Unknown is not showing any signs of giving up its secrets. She – and the company – look to the past for inspiration, settling first on Hypatia, a female mathematician and astronomer in 4th century Alexandria who met a violent death at the hands of a mob. Via a teenage medium in London in 1874, and vaudeville magician Adelaide Herrmann, known as the Queen of Magic, we arrive at Vera Rubin, the American astrophysicist who provided the first widely accepted evidence for the existence of dark matter. It makes for a piece of theatre which hurtles around like the particles in the Large Hadron Collider, firing out stories, ideas and information in all directions. It's packed with research, and so much science it's in danger of leaving a significant percentage of its audience behind. While it does need a greater degree of focus, and perhaps a little less material, it's a well-written and endlessly surprising look at humankind's fascination with the unknown, the different ways we have pursued it, and how it has affected us. SUSAN MANSFIELD until 25 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad READ MORE: How Summerhall Arts are supporting artists like never before this festival r/Conspiracy Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140) ★★★☆☆ For twentysomething Alex the internet is a place, one she feels at home in and comforted by. Yet it's also somewhere danger and darkness can be found, albeit at the far remove of mutual anonymity and scary places observed on online maps. She trawls the popular internet forum Reddit, looking in discussion groups called things like r/Local, r/Crime and r/Conspiracy, and pieces together a fantastical, fragmentary understanding of the world. Others like her are out there, including anonymous user Hipnotic, who reveals Alex's local park is the locus of an online conspiracy theory about a masked figure known as 'the machete man'. Intrigued, she finds clues which reinforce this theory, and decides to break safety protocols by meeting Hipnotic in real life. Writer/performer Ella Hällgren and director Emma Ruse wrong-foot the audience with the tone from here, because the play's not so much a journey into the internet's heart of darkness as it is a creepy but Scooby Doo-ish adventure in which an insular and directionless young woman finds herself and her people, first online, then in reality. In particular, it comes thoroughly recommended for the measured and captivating solo performance by Hällgren, who sells every twist and emotional turn with versatile accuracy. DAVID POLLOCK until 24 August Shirley: A Ghost Story theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall (Venue 53) ★★★☆☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Far from a straight biography, more a hall of mirrors, this weirdly compelling one-woman show is inspired by the life and work of Shirley Jackson with reference to the ghost stories of M.R. James. Initially, this appears an odd pairing as Jackson's psychologically acute uncanny tales feature characters who are haunted by something ghost-like rather than James' more traditional phantoms. Similarly, the Shirley (an impressive Jasmin Gleeson) here is not Jackson but like her. After finding success with her short stories, Shirley is pressured by her husband to write a more conventional supernatural tale as a novel. Bridling at this, Shirley recalls her formative years (now reimagined as in Gleeson's native Ireland rather than Jackson's California) prodding at her memories, searching for what haunts her. Josh King's script is largely fictitious but it seems apt — like something Jackson would write for one of her own characters. It's not true but it feels true. While Shirley scorns the cursed tomes that furnish more antiquated ghost stories, King rather rushes his story toward an almost Jamesian reveal which, while admittedly more psychological, feels a little at odds with the nature of Jackson's writing — which would have probably preferred to leave things unexplained. RORY FORD until 23 August Baby in the Mirror Summerhall (Venue 26) ★★★☆☆ This first production from new theatre company SecondAdolescence explores the fraught process of a queer family considering parenthood with sensitivity and humour. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lena and Joey are a couple that want to have a baby. Lena is a woman. Joey is trans. Last year, Joey got cold feet about conceiving via a sperm donor. Now, the two of them have moved into a new flat and decided to start a family, DIY-style, with their gay best friend Ollie. Lena will be the baby's mum, Joey its 'Dappy', and Ollie its 'Spuncle.' Over three long scenes, though, things fall apart. Resentments about past behaviour surface. Anxieties about bodies emerge. Tensions over parenthood boil over. Co-created by Sammy J Glover and Stella Marie Sophie, Baby in the Mirror authentically articulates some tricky topics, its overlapping dialogue and cardboard-cluttered set effectively evoking an angsty atmosphere. It also features three nicely naturalistic performances from Sophie, Zoë West and Derek Mitchell as Lena, Joey and Ollie. The play's fast-paced conversations are overwritten at times – too slick, too sitcom-like – and it ends somewhat abruptly, but this is a promising debut from SecondAdolescence nonetheless: a pained portrait of planning for queer parenthood. FERGUS MORGAN until 25 August Almost Everything Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41) ★★★☆☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Becca meets Charlie when she's looking for a room in a London flat. They bond, bicker and become best pals. Both are haunted by events in their pasts, and they weather good times and bad together. But when Becca's vivacious sister Emily arrives in town, the friendship turns into a love triangle. Writer/performers Lauren Barrie and Ben McGuinness set out to create a drama about contemporary relationships in the vein of Sally Rooney's Normal People or David Nicholls' One Day. The result is a play which feels a bit like it should be a novel; it's hard to keep up pace and tension when tracing your characters through the course of several years. There are strong performances from McGuinness (Charlie), Barrie (Becca) and Imogen Eden-Brown (Emily), and Tiffany Yu has created a stylish domestic set, but the dialogue sometimes lacks the necessary sharpness and some of the plot twists are straight out of central casting. However, the play has something meaningful to say about the things which trip people up, which hold them back from taking the risks which will determine whether they gain or lose almost everything. SUSAN MANSFIELD until 24 August Wilde Women Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) ★★☆☆☆ A backstage audience with Lily Langtry as she prepares the titular celebration of the playwright's eminent ladies, this frustratingly bitty show by Texas-based performer Krista Scott doesn't really work as tribute to Wilde or the illustrious actress. Scott is fine as Langtry but the piecemeal nature of the material is barrier to engagement. Neither a wedge of exposition from An Ideal Husband or an unusually lengthy recounting of the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest provide much in the way of entertainment or insight. Although less than edifying, the production is at least handsomely mounted and looks authentic. RORY FORD until 16 August Flora Macdonald and Zombies Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) ★★☆☆☆ until 16 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Given that the novelty of appending 'and Zombies' to an unlikely partner lost its appeal about 10 years ago you could be forgiven for expecting that this show from Debbie Cannon might have an ace up its sleeve. Unfortunately, that optimism is misplaced. This pairing of the 'Jacobite pin-up of 1746' and the 'un-woke' is rambling and largely bereft of wit. Cannon — writer and performer of a well-regarded retelling of The Green Knight — is an energetic performer but her charm can't disguise the fact that almost all the scenes in this entirely untrue, scattershot adventure through the Highlands go on far too long and would test the patience of anyone — living or dead. RORY FORD until 16 August
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Created an Antimatter Qubit That Could Upend Physics
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: The explanation behind the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry—an apparent violation of a fundamental law of nature known as charge-parity-time (CPT) symmetry—is one of particle physics' greatest mysteries. A new study details how scientists at CERN created antimatter qubits, which could improve physicists investigations into magnetic moment differences between matter and antimatter. This breakthrough—along with CERN's ongoing effort to protect the transport of particles to other laboratories—could drastically improve baryonic antimatter research. The universe is filled with something instead of nothing—and that's a problem. Well, a quick clarification: This unexplainable quirk of science is great news for you, me, and every other living being throughout the cosmos, since it means that we (being made of matter) get to exist. But from a particle physicist's perspective, it represents a massive gap of knowledge in the Standard Model, which is our current best guess at explaining the strange world of the subatomic. The Swiss-based particle physics laboratory CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, is at the forefront of exploring this particular unknown, which is an apparent violation of a fundamental law of nature known as charge-parity-time (CPT) symmetry. This nearly 75-year-old theory posits that matter and antimatter behave identically, meaning that they should have annihilated each other mere moments after the Big Bang. But for some reason, matter prevailed. Now, a recent study—led by scientists at CERN and published in the journal Nature—details a new tool in their exploratory toolbox for trying to understand why the universe contains something instead of nothing. At its most basic, researchers created the world's first antimatter 'qubit'—the quantum-powered building blocks of quantum computers—in an effort to study matter-antimatter asymmetry with higher fidelity. This was achieved by the Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) collaboration using the antimatter factory at CERN. Like most things that deal with quantum properties, the main challenge was keeping the antiproton from experiencing decoherence, in which a qubit loses its quantum properties via disruptions from the surrounding environment. The researchers successfully kept the antiproton trapped and oscillating smoothly between quantum states for almost a minute and then measured transitions between magnetic moments using a process known as 'coherent quantum transition spectroscopy.' Although an incredibly complicated process, CERN describes this method like pushing a child on a swingset: With the right push, the swing arcs back and forth in a perfect rhythm. Now imagine that the swing is a single trapped antiproton oscillating between its spin 'up' and 'down' states in a smooth, controlled rhythm. The BASE collaboration has achieved this using a sophisticated system of electromagnetic traps to give an antiproton the right 'push' at the right time. And since this swing has quantum properties, the antimatter spin-qubit can even point in different directions at the same time when unobserved. This qubit isn't destined to run in some hyper-advanced quantum computer. Instead, its role lies in exploring the very edge of the standard model of particle physics. Previously, BASE collaboration has shown that magnetic moments of protons and antiprotons are identical up to just a few parts-per-billion—any detectable deviation would violate CPT symmetry and possibly explain why protons outnumbered antiprotons following the Big Bang. However, these results used incoherent techniques impacted by magnetic field fluctuations and perturbations caused by the measurements themselves. This new technique suppresses those interferences and makes coherent observations that are many times more accurate than previous magnetic moment experiments. 'This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments,' BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement. 'Most importantly, it will help BASE to perform antiproton moment measurements in future experiments with 10- to 100-fold improved precision.' And this new level of precision is only the beginning. A simultaneous effort known as BASE-STEP (Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable Antiprotons) utilizes a portable trap system so antiprotons can be transported to other facilities with more stable environments. In October of last year, BASE-STEP successfully transported 70 protons via truck on a round trip at CERN's main site. This will allow labs throughout Europe—and maybe, one day, the world—to work on one of physics' most puzzling mysteries. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
CU Denver engineer develops science-altering quantum tool
DENVER (KDVR) — An engineer at the University of Colorado Denver is developing a tool that can significantly help advance the future of science. According to a press release from the university, the tool being developed has the potential to spur advancements that could eradicate cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue and prove Stephen Hawking's multiverse theory by revealing the fabric underlying the universe. Butterfly Pavilion oversees historic firefly milestone Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Aakash Sahai, PhD, had his work featured as the cover story in 'Advanced Quantum Technologies,' one of the most prominent journals in quantum science, materials and technology. 'It is very exciting because this technology will open up whole new fields of study and have a direct impact on the world,' Sahai said in the press release. 'In the past, we've had technological breakthroughs that propelled us forward, such as the sub-atomic structure leading to lasers, computer chips, and LEDs. This innovation, which is also based on material science, is along the same lines.' Sahai has developed a way to create extreme electromagnetic fields that have never been seen in a laboratory. The fields are created when electrons in materials vibrate and bounce at rapid speeds, which can in turn power things from computer chips to super particle colliders that are searching for dark matter. Before this discovery, creating fields that are so strong required using facilities like the 16.7-mile-long Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, which is very expensive to use and can be volatile. Sahai developed a silicon-based, chip-like material that can withstand high-energy particle beams, manage energy flow and allow scientists to access electromagnetic fields created by the oscillations of the quantum electron gas, according to CU Denver. The advancement could see the results achieved at a miles-long collider replicated into a chip about the size of a thumb. 'This breakthrough in technology can make a real change in the world. It is about understanding how nature works and using that knowledge to make a positive impact on the world,' said Kalyan Tirumalasetty, a graduate student in Sahai's lab working on the project. CU Denver has applied for and received provisional patents for the technology in the United States and internationally. 5 injured after gas fire in Johnstown The researchers said that real-world application remains years away, but they plan to basically live in the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a facility operated by Stanford University and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, while they continue to develop the technology. 'Gamma ray lasers could become a reality,' Sahai said. 'We could get imaging of tissue down to not just the nucleus of cells but down to the nucleus of the underlying atoms. That means scientists and doctors would be able to see what's going on at the nuclear level, and that could accelerate our understanding of immense forces that dominate at such small scales while also leading to better medical treatments and cures. Eventually, we could develop gamma ray lasers to modify the nucleus and remove cancer cells at the nano level.' In the immediate future, the pair of researchers will refine the technology that has been in the works since 2018. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists just made the 1st antimatter 'qubit.' Here's why it could be a big deal
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Physicists at CERN — home of the Large Hadron Collider — have for the first time made a qubit from antimatter, holding an antiproton in a state of quantum superposition for almost a minute. This landmark achievement has been performed by scientists working as part of the BASE collaboration at CERN. BASE is the Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment, which is designed to measure the magnetic moment of antiprotons – in essence, how strongly they interact with magnetic fields. However, while qubits are commonly associated with quantum computing, in this case the antiproton qubit will be used to test for differences between ordinary matter and antimatter. It will specifically help probe the question of why we live in a universe so dominated by ordinary matter when matter and antimatter should have been created in equal quantities during the Big Bang. They're opposites of one another, right? A proton and antiproton have the same mass but opposite charges, for example. In physics, the mirror-image properties between matter and antimatter is referred to as charge-parity-time (CPT) symmetry. CPT symmetry also says that a particle and its antiparticle should experience the laws of physics in the same way, meaning that they should feel gravity or electromagnetism with the same strength, for example (that first one has actually been tested, and indeed an antiprotons falls at the same rate as a proton). So, theoretically, when the universe came into existence, there should have been a 50-50 chance of antimatter or regular matter particles being created. But for some reason, that didn't happen. It's very weird. Even the BASE project found that, to a precision of parts per billion, protons and antiprotons do have the same magnetic moment. Alas, more symmetry. However, the BASE apparatus has enabled physicists to take things one step further. Antiproton antics When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate one another in a burst of gamma-ray photons, so BASE has to keep them apart. To do so, it uses something called Penning traps, which can hold charged particles in position thanks to the careful deployment of electric and magnetic fields. BASE has two primary Penning traps. One is called the analysis trap, which measures the precession of the magnetic moment around a magnetic field, and the other is the precision trap, which is able to flip the quantum spin of a particle and measure that particle's oscillation in a magnetic field. Quantum physics tells us that particles are born in a state of superposition. Take, for instance, the property of quantum spin, which is just one example of the weirdness of the quantum universe. Despite the name, spin does not describe the actual rotation of a particle; rather, it describes a property that mimics the rotation. How do we know that it isn't a real rotation? If it were, then the properties of quantum spin would mean particles would be spinning many times faster than the speed of light — which is impossible. So, fundamental particles like electrons, protons and antiprotons have quantum spin values, even if they are not really spinning, and these values can be expressed either as a whole number or a fraction. The quantum spin of a proton and antiproton can be 1/2 or –1/2, and it is the quantum spin that generates the particle's magnetic moment. Because of the magic of quantum superposition, which describes how all the possible quantum states exist synchronously in a particle's quantum wave-function, a proton or antiproton can have a spin of both 1/2 or –1/2 at the same time. That is, at least until they are measured and the quantum wave-function that describes the quantum state of the particle collapses onto one value. That's another bit of weirdness of the quantum world — particles have all possible properties at once until they are observed, like Schrödinger's cat being alive and dead at the same time in a box, until someone opens the box. In fact, any kind of interaction with the outside world causes the wave function to collapse in a process known as decoherence. Why this happens is a subject of great debate between the various interpretations of quantum physics. Regardless, by giving an antiproton that is held firmly in the precision trap just the right amount of energy, BASE scientists have been able to hold an antiproton in a state of superposition without decohering for about 50 seconds — a record for antimatter (this has previously been achieved with ordinary matter particles for much longer durations). In doing so, they formed a qubit out of the antiproton. Keep the qubits away! A qubit is a quantum version of a byte used in computer processing. A typical, binary byte can have a value of either 1 or 0. A qubit can be both 1 and 0 at the same time (or, have a spin of 1/2 and –1/2 at the same time), and a quantum computer using qubits could therefore, in principle, vastly accelerate information processing times. However, the antiproton qubit is unlikely to find work in quantum computing because ordinary matter can be used for that more easily without the risk of the antimatter annihilating. Instead, the antiproton qubit could be used to further test for differences between matter and antimatter, and whether CPT symmetry is violated at any stage. "This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments," said BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer, of the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan, in a statement. "Most importantly, it will help BASE to perform antiproton moment measurements in future experiments with 10- to 100-fold improved precision." Currently, BASE's experiments have to take place at CERN, where the antimatter is created in the Large Hadron Collider. However, the next phase of antimatter research will be BASE-STEP (Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable Antiprotons), which is a device that contains a portable Penning trap, allowing researchers to move antiprotons securely away from CERN to laboratories with quieter, purpose-built facilities that can reduce exterior magnetic field fluctuations that might interfere with magnetic moment experiments. RELATED STORIES — The Mystery of Antimatter — How 2024 brought us deeper into the world of particle physics — Modern-day alchemy! Scientists turn lead into gold at the Large Hadron Collider "Once it is fully operational, our new offline precision Penning trap system, which will be supplied with antiprotons transported by BASE-STEP, could allow us to achieve spin coherence times maybe even ten times longer than in current experiments, which will be a game-changer for baryonic antimatter research," said RIKEN's Barbara Latacz, who is the lead author of the new study. The results are described in a paper that was published on July 23 in the journal Nature.
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
An Entire Hidden Layer of Reality May Be Lurking Just Below the Standard Model of Physics
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Although CERN's Large Hadron Collider has made a lasting impact on particle physics, it hasn't yet open up a whole new frontier of particle physics like some scientists expected. One scientist champions a theory that new physics could be hiding in what he calls the 'zeptouniverse'—the realm of objects on the scale of the zeptometer (which is 1 quintillionth of a meter)—and that the best way to explore that universe is through observing kaon and B meson decays. Future colliders will likely be able to directly observe the zeptouniverse, but for now, studying these decays could help us find new physics within the decade. We humans have gotten pretty good at glimpsing the invisible. The Large Hadron Collider—our premier instrument for exploring the subatomic—can thoroughly explore the world of the attometer, which is (incredibly) just one-quintillionth of a meter. Famously, the LHC confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012, and physicists prepared for a rush of new particles to explain lingering mysteries of the universe like the existence of dark matter and matter-antimatter asymmetry. But that explosion of discovery didn't really materialize. That's certainly not to say nothing has happened since then, but no major revelations on par with the Higgs have been discovered since. And now, a new article in New Scientist, written by particle physicist Harry Cliff who works on the LHCb experiment, details one theory as to why we haven't found what we were expecting to find. At its most basic, many of these revelations could be hiding in what's sometimes referred to as the 'zeptouniverse,' which is a world that only exists at the 10-21-meter scale. The LHC can only analyze particles directly down to 50 zeptometers, but Cliff highlights a theory—largely championed by Technical University of Munich theoretical physicist Andrzej Buras—that these elusive particles could simply be beyond LHC's detection capabilities. Of course, a better detector could open up this frontier—CERN completed a feasibility study for the Future Circular Collider (FCC) just earlier this year. But Buras believes that we can explore this frontier of new physics indirectly without the need to wait the several decades required to finally probe this question (the FCC won't perform high-energy physics until 2070). In 2020, Buras explored this question in an article for Physik Journal, writing: Can we reach the Zeptouniverse, i.e., a resolution as high as 10–21m or energies as large as 200 TeV, by means of quark flavour physics and lepton flavour violating processes in this decade well before this will be possible by means of any collider built in this century? In a paper uploaded to the preprint server arXiv last year, Buras identified seven possible targets for this investigation, which he dubbed the 'magnificent seven,' according to New Scientist. All seven are extremely rare decays of particles containing strange and bottom quarks, which Cliff calls 'echoes from the zeptouniverse.' Luckily for Buras, some experiments are already searching for these ultra-rare decays. One example of such a decay starts with the B meson—a kind of composite particle made of different quarks, as Cliff explains. In 2023, the Belle II experiment in Japan captured this decay in action, producing another particle called a kaon (or K meson) and two neutrinos. However, because the experiment wasn't set-up to directly detect neutrinos, information about them is limited. This isn't the only ultra-rare decay that's been detected recently, either. In September of 2024, the NA62 experiment at CERN recorded the decay of a positively charged kaon into a pion and a matter-antimatter pair. It's thought that less than one in 10 billion kaons should decay in this way. Because this interaction is sensitive to Standard Model deviations, it's identified as one of the prime targets for finding new physics. Today, the KOTO experiment in Japan is searching for a second confirmation of this kaon decay. 'The search for new particles and forces beyond those of the Standard Model is strongly motivated by the need to explain dark matter, the huge range of particle masses from the tiny neutrino to the massive top quark, and the asymmetry between matter and antimatter that is responsible for our very existence,' Buras wrote last year in the trade magazine CERN Courier. 'As direct searches at the LHC have not yet provided any clue as to what these new particles and forces might be, indirect searches are growing in importance.' Scientists are only beginning to peer inside the unknown frontier of the zeptouniverse, and until next-generation colliders are up and running, these extremely rare decays are our only windows into that universe. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
