The Oh-My-God particle was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray detected on 15 October 1991 by the Fly's Eye camera in Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, U.S. At that time it was the highest-energy cosmic ray that had ever been observed.Although higher energy cosmic rays have been detected since then, this particle's energy was unexpected, and called into question theories of that era about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays. The Oh-My-God particle's energy was estimated as (3.2±0.9)×1020 eV, or 51 J. This is 20 million times more energetic than the highest energy measured in electromagnetic radiation emitted by an extragalactic object.It had 1020(100 quintillion) times the photon energy of visible light, equivalent to a 140 grams (5 oz) baseball travelling at about 26 m/s (94 km/h; 58 mph). Assuming it was a proton, this particle traveled at 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light, its Lorentz factor was 3.2×1011 and its rapidity was 27.1. At this speed, if a photon...
READ CAPTION How a Student Took a Photo of a Single Atom The award-winning long-exposure photograph captures a positively charged atom suspended in an ion trap. SOMETIMES, ALL IT takes to capture a great photo is a DSLR camera, a microscopic atom, and a curious Ph.D. candidate. David Nadlinger, who traps atoms for his quantum computing research at the University of Oxford, captured this image on August 7 using a standard DSLR camera. The photo shows a pinprick of a positively charged strontium atom illuminated by a blue-violet light on a black background. The atom is held nearly motionless by an electric field emanating from two metal electrodes placed on either side of it. The distance between the ion trap's small needle tips is less than .08 of an inch. The photograph, entitled "Single Atom in an Ion Trap," won the overall science photography prize put on by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The name 'red mercury' is a code word used in the USSR nuclear weapons program since the 1950s to describe enriched lithium-6. Lithium-6 has two nuclear weapons uses: as a reactor target for production of tritium, and in the form of lithium-6 deuteride as a thermonuclear weapon material. The code name originated because mercuric impurities contaminate the lithium- 6 during production, giving it a red color. 'Red mercury' has been identified by many European media reports as 'any of several simple mercuric compounds and tinctures offered for sale by Russian and European agents,' but none of these had any nuclear value. The uses for lithium-6 are consistent with claims about the uses of 'red mercury.' The USSR built a large complex in the early days of their nuclear weapon program to produce and stockpile lithium- 6. Some was also supplied to China in the 1950s. Russian and Western officials have both stated that no lithium-6 from Russian or Chinese inven...
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