Daily Scientists

The World’s Most Beautiful Equations From top: General Relativity Special Relativity Calculus Euler’s equation The Euler Line

The real Heisenberg

The name Heisenberg gained new fame thanks to the show called Breaking Bad. It was the main character Walter White's pseudonym for the drug underworld. This name was a tribute to a famous physicist, but out of all the scientists out there, why did Walt choose this one?

Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 – 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and a revolutionary man, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 “for the creation of quantum mechanics”. He is best known for his 1927’s uncertainty principle. It basically says that nothing has a definite position, a definite trajectory, or a definite momentum. In other words, uncertainty is inherent in the quantum realm. (The uncertainty principle reflects the extent to which Walter White’s life is also steeped in uncertainty)

Moreover, Breaking Bad’s allusion to Heisenberg and quantum physics also connects with the concept of duality. Just as an electron is both a wave and a particle (and neither of these), Walt is both a chemistry teacher and a meth cook, both a victim and a murderer.

Werner Heisenberg also formulated various other significant breakthroughs in quantum field theory and high-energy particle physics are associated with him. He wrote more than 600 original research papers, philosophical essays and explanations for general audiences. Heisenberg also played a vital role in the reconstruction of German science after the WWII.

Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter dies at age 88 NBC News: NASA pioneer astronaut Scott Carpenter died Thursday at the age of 88 due to medical complications from a recent stroke, his family announced.

His death leaves John Glenn as the last remaining member of the Mercury 7. Carpenter had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke last month in Vail, Colo., where he has his home. Word of his death came from a friend in Florida, Mark Widick, via NBC News’ Cape Canaveral correspondent, Jay Barbree.

Lenka Kotková has discovered 250 asteroids (one was also named after her by 2 of her colleagues). Kotková is a Czech astronomer who works at the Astronomical Institiute in Ondřejov, a village outside of Prague. Kotková received the Zdeněk Kvíz Award for her research concerning variable stars. Variable stars are stars whose brightness, or magnitude, appears to change when viewed from Earth. These changes can be attributed to either a change in light emitted or by something blocking the star’s light.

"As a boy Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendor, a harmony of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life. Harmony in this world eluded him. His three laws of planetary motion represent, we now know, a real harmony of the worlds, but to Kepler they were only incidental to his quest for a cosmic system based on the Perfect Solids, a system which, it turns out, existed only in his mind. Yet from his work, we have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on Earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a harmony, between the way we think and the way the world works.

When he found that his long cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts, he preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions. That is the heart of science.”

On October 7th, 1959 (44 years ago) Russian space probe Luna 3 captured the first ever photos of the dark side of the moon. 

Though the pictures were low quality, they were a great feat in the early years of space exploration was an exciting moment for humanity. The dark side of the moon became less of a mystery, and astronomy began sparking the interest of many young, budding scientists.