Most popular New Scientist stories 2009

[glenc (Glen)]

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1...entist-stories
There are 12 stories. The most popular two were:
2: Our world may be a giant hologram
It may sound absurd, but there is plenty of theoretical physics that strongly suggests the entire universe is an enormous cosmic hologram, man. The idea has floated around for years, but now there is real evidence. A German experiment looking for gravitational waves has picked up some inexplicable noise, and it could be a clue to the underlying nature of the cosmos.
1: Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
Normal storms are bad enough, but a solar storm could be really disastrous. The fiercest release balls of plasma from the sun's surface, and if one of them was to hit the Earth's magnetic field our power grids would be wiped out, our modern technological society would be shut down overnight, and it would take months or even years to repair the damage – during which time millions of people would die. Bad news. Happy reading!

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by glenc

2: Our world may be a giant hologram
It may sound absurd, but there is plenty of theoretical physics that strongly suggests the entire universe is an enormous cosmic hologram, man. The idea has floated around for years, but now there is real evidence. A German experiment looking for gravitational waves has picked up some inexplicable noise, and it could be a clue to the underlying nature of the cosmos.

Most fascinating! Could be a wonderfully fortuitous case of serendipity but if the supposed holographic noise turns out to have another explanation, it is a great detective story by Hogan and associates anyway. I love the irony that an experiment, designed to pick up gravitational waves over a large scale, might have detected the miniscule graininess of space-time.

Regards, Rob.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Read them both. I liked "Space Storm" best.
NS is starting to get a tad flakey for me - beginning to wonder if that guy who publishes "Null Physics" has bought the mag.

[Wavytone]

No.. the editor bought the mag... he's both a philospher - not a scientist - and religious as well, in case you hadn't noticed; he never misses a chance to slip God in. He's killed NS as far as I'm concerned.

[mac (Matt)]

Unfortunately my brain's too small to grasp the concepts in that first article. Although I often wonder if the world is an illusion.

[Benno18 (Ben)]

Sorry but the Holagram one seems a little bit far fetched. Could someone got a text message at the wrong time? Taken a sneaky photo and the camera made some noise?

From the phone of God

[glenc (Glen)]

I like this one: http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/...r-space-2009/5

[glenc (Glen)]

http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/...r-physics-2009
It includes The perfect way to slice a pizza
and Are we immersed in a shadowy world of dark matter and hidden forces?

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Benno18

Sorry but the Holagram one seems a little bit far fetched. Could someone got a text message at the wrong time? Taken a sneaky photo and the camera made some noise?

From the phone of God

Not any more far-fetched than General Relativity or Dark Matter. Remember that the hologram idea is simply a model representing the real world. If the model works i.e. explains something about the real world then it may in fact be useful, even if it seems to go against the grain.

Regards, Rob.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by glenc

....It includes The perfect way to slice a pizza....

It's comforting to know our finest mathematical minds are working on the problem.

Steven