In the early decades of the twentieth century, an amazing thing happened: physicists realized that essentially everything we thought we knew about the workings of the universe was wrong. Out of this realization came the amazing field of quantum physics. At the same time, authors were revolutionizing our vision of the future through the advent of a new genre of literature: science fiction.

In his most recent book, The Amazing Story of Quantum Physics, physicist James Kakalios brings these two movements together by explaining the key points of quantum mechanics through the pulp heroes of the early days of sci-fi: Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, and others.

As in his earlier book, The Physics of Superheroes, Kakalios is able to use familiar examples from popular culture as the prism through which to explain seemingly-exotic (but oddly commonplace) scientific concepts which would intimidate many readers.

Interested in more details?  Check out our review of the book.

Popular Science has started their third annual National School Inventor's Challenge, which allows students (or teachers, on behalf of their class) to enter to win science equipment for their school. The theme is for students to come up with inventions that will "improve the world."

The contest has three divisions, with a Grand Prize winner and 2 Runner-up prizes for each of the following divisions:

• Elementary School - Submit an essay of 200 words or less describing way(s) on how to improve the world.
• Middle School - Submit a schematic (i.e. a drawing and/or image) along with an essay of 400 words or less describing way(s) on how to improve the world.
• High School - Submit a model/working demo/animation along with an essay of 600 words or less describing way(s) to improve the world.

You can find out more by reading the official rules, which include details about prizes for home schooled students, at the Popular Science website.

Physicist Lawrence Krauss's new book looks at the life of Richard P. Feynman, one of the most important (and interesting) characters in twentieth century science and a key figure in the evolution of quantum physics.

Most people know about Feynman's life through his own autobiographical books, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, or through the bio pic Infinity starring Matthew Broderick as Feynman. In this most recent incarnation of Feynman's life story, Krauss explores him as one physicist looking at another. A full review will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, there's an excerpt from the new Krauss book is available from Scientific American.

Physics is about pushing the boundaries and those boundaries may well be exploding with the potential discovery of a new particle at the Tevatron experiment at the Fermilab particle accelerator ... or it could just be an anomaly in the data that goes away with further testing.

The known particles of the Standard Model
Source: Fermilab

The last week has had a flurry of activity discussing the result, mixed with an equal amount of caution. No one is really sure how to explain the energy spike seen in a set of Tevatron experimental results. But, according to physicist Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe:

"... if it isn't something that can be washed away through more refined data, this would be a huge revolution."

Why? Well, simply put, the energy spike is at a location that cannot currently be explained by our understanding of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. If the spike persists in further tests, then it really leaves only two possibilities:

1. It represents an entirely new particle, not currently part of the Standard Model of Particle Physics
2. It represents unexpected behavior from an already-known particle

The problem with possibility 2 is that physicists really believe that they know how the particles of the Standard Model should behave, so this energy spike is very curious. If it is a known particle, it means that there are some fundamental misconceptions on how the fundamental forces of physics work!

The alternative - possibility 1 - means that the underlying theory is probably still sound, but there's a whole new particle to begin exploring, and possibly even a whole new force.

One thing that is agreed upon by most physicists commenting on the issue is that this is not an indication of the long-sought-after Higgs Boson, which is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model that hasn't been observed by experiment.

At least one physicist, though, hasn't missed the opportunity to float the possibility that this discovery could be experimental verification of string theory , which sometimes predicts the possibility of extra Z' bosons ... which he thinks is the most likely explanation for these results.

What is clear is that, to paraphrase Greene, if these results are real, then they would be truly revolutionary. Which option do you think is most likely?

Related Articles:

• NPR - New Particle, If Proved, Could Be a 'Huge Revolution,' (audio) April 9
• CNN - Is it a new particle, or just a fluke? (video) April 8
• Reference Frame blog - Fermilab: CDF "new force" seminar tonight, April 8
• Scientific American - U.S. Collider Offers Physicists a Glimpse of a Possible New Particle, April 7
• SymmetryBreaking blog - Fermilab's data peak that causes excitement, April 7
• arXiv - Technicolor at the Tevatron, April 6
• MSNBC - Particle discovery has whole physics world buzzing, April 6
• arXiv - Invariant Mass Distribution of Jet Pairs Produced in Association with a W Boson in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV, April 4 (Video lecture on the paper)