650 research outputs found
Being in front is goodâbut where is in front? Preferences for spatial referencing affect evaluation
Speakers of English frequently associate location in space with valence, as in moving up and down the âsocial ladder.â If such an association also holds for the sagittal axis, an object âin front ofâ another object would be evaluated more positively than the one âbehind.â Yet how people conceptualize relative locations depends on which frame of reference (FoR) they adoptâand hence on crossâlinguistically diverging preferences. What is conceptualized as âin frontâ in one variant of the relative FoR (e.g., translation) is âbehindâ under another variant (reflection), and vice versa. Do such diverging conceptualizations of an object's location also lead to diverging evaluations? In two studies employing an implicit association test, we demonstrate, first, that speakers of German, Chinese, and Japanese indeed evaluate the object âin front ofâ another object more positively than the one âbehind.â Second, and crucially, the reversal of which object is conceptualized as âin frontâ involves a corresponding reversal of valence, suggesting an impact of linguistically imparted FoR preferences on evaluative processes.publishedVersio
From Einstein's Theorem to Bell's Theorem: A History of Quantum Nonlocality
In this Einstein Year of Physics it seems appropriate to look at an important
aspect of Einstein's work that is often down-played: his contribution to the
debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Contrary to popular opinion,
Bohr had no defence against Einstein's 1935 attack (the EPR paper) on the
claimed completeness of orthodox quantum mechanics. I suggest that Einstein's
argument, as stated most clearly in 1946, could justly be called Einstein's
reality-locality-completeness theorem, since it proves that one of these three
must be false. Einstein's instinct was that completeness of orthodox quantum
mechanics was the falsehood, but he failed in his quest to find a more complete
theory that respected reality and locality. Einstein's theorem, and possibly
Einstein's failure, inspired John Bell in 1964 to prove his reality-locality
theorem. This strengthened Einstein's theorem (but showed the futility of his
quest) by demonstrating that either reality or locality is a falsehood. This
revealed the full nonlocality of the quantum world for the first time.Comment: 18 pages. To be published in Contemporary Physics. (Minor changes;
references and author info added
Present and Future Experiments with Stored Exotic Nuclei at Relativistic Energies
Recent progress is presented from experiments on masses and lifetimes of bare
and few-electron exotic nuclei at GSI.Comment: Proceedings of International Conference on "Frontiers in Nuclear
Structure, Astrophysics and Reactions", Kos, Greece, September 12-17, 200
Direct observation of long-lived isomers in Bi
Long-lived isomers in 212Bi have been studied following 238U projectile
fragmentation at 670 MeV per nucleon. The fragmentation products were injected
as highly charged ions into the GSI storage ring, giving access to masses and
half-lives. While the excitation energy of the first isomer of 212Bi was
confirmed, the second isomer was observed at 1478(30) keV, in contrast to the
previously accepted value of >1910 keV. It was also found to have an extended
Lorentz-corrected in-ring halflife >30 min, compared to 7.0(3) min for the
neutral atom. Both the energy and half-life differences can be understood as
being due a substantial, though previously unrecognised, internal decay branch
for neutral atoms. Earlier shell-model calculations are now found to give good
agreement with the isomer excitation energy. Furthermore, these and new
calculations predict the existence of states at slightly higher energy that
could facilitate isomer de-excitation studies.Comment: published in PRL 110, 12250
Habit-based interventions for weight loss maintenance in adults with overweight and obesity: a randomized controlled trial
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Nitrate Biogeochemistry and Reactive Transport in California Groundwater: LDRD Final Report
Nitrate is the number one drinking water contaminant in the United States. It is pervasive in surface and groundwater systems,and its principal anthropogenic sources have increased dramatically in the last 50 years. In California alone, one third of the public drinking-water wells has been lost since 1988 and nitrate contamination is the most common reason for abandonment. Effective nitrate management in groundwater is complicated by uncertainties related to multiple point and non-point sources, hydrogeologic complexity, geochemical reactivity, and quantification of denitrification processes. In this paper, we review an integrated experimental and simulation-based framework being developed to study the fate of nitrate in a 25 km-long groundwater subbasin south of San Jose, California, a historically agricultural area now undergoing rapid urbanization with increasing demands for groundwater. The modeling approach is driven by a need to integrate new and archival data that support the hypothesis that nitrate fate and transport at the basin scale is intricately related to hydrostratigraphic complexity, variability of flow paths and groundwater residence times, microbial activity, and multiple geochemical reaction mechanisms. This study synthesizes these disparate and multi-scale data into a three-dimensional and highly resolved reactive transport modeling framework
Dipole Strength Distributions from HIGS Experiments
A series of photon scattering experiments has been performed on the double-beta decay partners 76Ge and 76Se, in order to investigate their dipole response up to the neutron separation threshold. Gamma-ray beams from bremsstrahlung at the S-DALINAC and from Compton-backscattering at HIGS have been used to measure absolute cross sections and parities of dipole excited states, respectively. The HIGS data allows for indirect measurement of averaged branching ratios, which leads to significant corrections in the observed excitation cross sections. Results are compared to statistical calculations, to test photon strength functions and the Axel-Brink hypothesi
On the verge of Umdeutung in Minnesota: Van Vleck and the correspondence principle (Part One)
In October 1924, the Physical Review, a relatively minor journal at the time,
published a remarkable two-part paper by John H. Van Vleck, working in virtual
isolation at the University of Minnesota. Van Vleck combined advanced
techniques of classical mechanics with Bohr's correspondence principle and
Einstein's quantum theory of radiation to find quantum analogues of classical
expressions for the emission, absorption, and dispersion of radiation. For
modern readers Van Vleck's paper is much easier to follow than the famous paper
by Kramers and Heisenberg on dispersion theory, which covers similar terrain
and is widely credited to have led directly to Heisenberg's "Umdeutung" paper.
This makes Van Vleck's paper extremely valuable for the reconstruction of the
genesis of matrix mechanics. It also makes it tempting to ask why Van Vleck did
not take the next step and develop matrix mechanics himself.Comment: 82 page
Observation of Non-Exponential Orbital Electron Capture Decays of Hydrogen-Like Pr and Pm Ions
We report on time-modulated two-body weak decays observed in the orbital
electron capture of hydrogen-like Pr and Pm
ions coasting in an ion storage ring. Using non-destructive single ion,
time-resolved Schottky mass spectrometry we found that the expected exponential
decay is modulated in time with a modulation period of about 7 seconds for both
systems. Tentatively this observation is attributed to the coherent
superposition of finite mass eigenstates of the electron neutrinos from the
weak decay into a two-body final state.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
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