Last week, Twitter changed its DM settings so users only receive messages from verified users (which can be manually changed back). Now, the social network is making another change to direct messaging: A daily limit for unverified users.
“We’ll soon be implementing some changes in our effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages,” the @TwitterSupport account tweeted on Friday. “Unverified accounts will have daily limits on the number of DMs they can send.”
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@TwitterSupport then linked to the Twitter Blue signup screen.
Twitter owner Elon Musk said he wanted to kill spambots on Twitter when he took over, but as the Wall Street Journal reported last month, Twitter spam activity has remained at similar levels since before Musk’s tenure. With the recent change in DM settings, Twitter admitted it has an issue with spammer DMs, tweeting, “We’re adding a new messages setting that should help reduce the number of spam messages in DMs.”
Now, given the latest announcement, even Twitter Blue members appeared to be frustrated by the company’s decision-making, as evidenced by replies to this tweet:
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Some unverified users have seen a message stating, “You’ve hit the maximum limit for Direct Messages in a single day. Sign up for Twitter Blue to continue messaging.”
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Mashable has reached out to Twitter for clarification on what is the “maximum limit” for unverified users. The auto-respond poop emoji to its press email is gone, now replaced with the message, “We’ll get back to you soon.”
NASA’s unprecedented asteroid experiment is still churning out results.
Last year in a mission called DART, the space agency intentionally slammed a sacrificial spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos, which was 7 million miles from Earth. Scientists hoped to prove civilization could alter the path of a menacing asteroid — should one be on a collision course with our planet — and they successfully nudged the (non-threatening) 525-foot-wide space rock.
Now, planetary researchers are watching the aftermath of the event to gather all the information possible about how to best change the trajectory of, or deflect, a future incoming asteroid. NASA released an image captured by the legendary Hubble Space Telescope — orbiting some 332 miles above Earth — showing a “swarm of boulders” from the experimental impact, which you can see below.
“This is a spectacular observation – much better than I expected,” David Jewitt, a planetary scientist at The University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. “We see a cloud of boulders carrying mass and energy away from the impact target. The numbers, sizes, and shapes of the boulders are consistent with them having been knocked off the surface of Dimorphos by the impact.”
“The boulders are some of the faintest things ever imaged inside our solar system,” Jewitt added.
SEE ALSO:
How likely is a terrible asteroid impact in your lifetime?
Hubble glimpsed these space boulders, ranging in size from three to 22 feet wide, from millions of miles away.
The circled blue dots around Dimorphos show the locations of the boulders. Credit: NASA / ESA / David Jewitt (UCLA) / Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The 14,000 mph DART impact was like slamming a spacecraft the size of a vending machine into a space rock the size of a stadium.
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Slamming a spacecraft into Dimorphos may sound dramatic — but the goal was just to give it a nudge. During a true deflection of an incoming asteroid, such a nudge would happen many years or decades in advance of the imminent collision. “That’s enough time to make sure it misses Earth,” Andrew Rivkin, a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and one of DART’s lead scientists, told Mashable last year. Over years, a tiny alteration in an asteroid’s movement adds up to a big change in the ultimate trajectory.
This strategy, of course, requires knowing what’s coming. In good news, astronomers have already detected over 27,000 near-Earth objects, and have discovered some 1,500 each year since 2015.
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Astronomers estimate that thousands of sizable asteroids over 460 feet wide remain unfound. Fortunately, astronomers have already located over 90 percent (and counting) of the rocks half-a-mile wide or bigger — the kind that could spell catastrophe for large swathes of Earth. But the smaller, more elusive rocks still have a strong potential to sneak up on us. A rock some 187 to 427 feet across swooped by Earth in 2019 and surprised scientists.
In the coming years, we’ll get a close view of DART’s impact scene. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission will visit Dimorphos in 2026. One day, this first asteroid deflection experiment may play a role in saving countless lives from an incoming space rock.
The Red Planet, long ago callously stripped of its insulating atmosphere, is today 1,000 times drier than the driest desert on Earth. But deep, roaring rivers used to flow through parts of the ancient Martian landscape. Earlier this year, NASA’s car-sized Perseverance rover found evidence of a “rollicking” and “high-energy river.” The waterway, evaporated billions of years ago, left evidence of the pebble-rich debris it once transported.
Now, the space agency’s rover, exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater, has spotted evidence of perhaps vastly more water. As the image below shows, Perseverance snapped images of an expansive boulder field. These large rocks were almost certainly moved by water, similar to how such rocks are moved on Earth.
“These boulders were transported by water that was either deeper or flowed faster than the ancient waterway that deposited the smaller pebbles that also populate the area,” NASA wrote.
SEE ALSO:
NASA helicopter captures glorious view of Mars, with some surprises
A boulder field spotted by NASA’s Perseverance rover in the planet’s Jezero Crater. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS
In the image above, you can spy the rover’s tracks as it traversed the boulder field. For reference, its six wheels are each 20 inches across; so these are some sizable, heavy rocks.
NASA’s planetary researchers are assessing what these past rivers were like. They know the waterways were robust, and at times curved. “Scientists are now debating what kind of powerfully flowing water formed those curves: a river like the Mississippi, which winds snakelike across the landscape, or a braided river like Nebraska’s Platte, which forms small islands of sediment called sandbars,” NASA previously explained.
Overall, it’s clear Mars was once an extremely watery place. There are also dried-up lakes, dried streams, and even evidence of ancient waves.
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The question that looms large is if any primitive life ever evolved in Mars’ waterways and moist environments (or if Martian life dwelled underground).
One of Perseverance’s primary objectives is to “search for signs of ancient microbial life,” NASA said. “The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).”
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So far, although organic materials — like the carbon found in our bodies — have been found in Martian rock samples, there’s no evidence of past cell structures or specific molecules that are telltale signs of life. The extraterrestrial search ahead will be long.
“The burden of proof for establishing life on another planet is very, very high,” Perseverance project manager Ken Farley said at a press conference last year.
One of the benefits of Spotify Premium is that users can download their favorite songs, playlists, and podcasts for offline listening.
If you’re going on a long journey in an airplane or heading to an area with spotty internet, downloading song to use as a soundtrack will help you create a seamless listening experience.
Though Spotify doesn’t allow users to download individual songs from playlists, it is pretty easy to quickly create a playlist with all your favorite tracks and download them together for offline listening.
Here’s how:
Total Time
5 minutes
What You Need
Spotify App
internet connection
phone or laptop
Step 1:
Open the Spotify app on your phone or laptop and log into your Spotify Premium account. It is currently priced at $9.99/month.
Credit: Spotify screenshot
Step 2:
Find the album or song that you want to download and click on it.
Step 3:
Now, click on the three dots on the top right of the screen and select + Add to playlist.
Credit: Spotify screenshot
Step 4:
A dropdown menu will appear with a list of all your playlists. To create a new playlist for all the tracks you want to download, click on New Playlist and name it. Add all the songs you want to download to this playlist.
Credit: Spotify screenshot
Step 5:
Then go back to the app’s main screen and click on Your Library at the lower right corner of the screen. Click on the playlist you just made and then press the download button which looks like a down pointing arrow enclosed in a circle.
Credit: Spotify screenshot
That’s all you need to do to download tracks for offline playback. If you want to download entire albums, there is no need to create a separate playlist. Just click on the download button beneath the album cover to download it. The same process works for podcasts.
Use this quick and easy procedure for a breezy music listening experience no matter where you go on this planet.
In elementary school, you might have learned what a planet is: big, round, and orbiting a star.
But there’s another category of planets — one that probably eluded your teacher — that only partially meets that definition. Over the years, scientists have found worlds that appear to aimlessly wander space alone, called rogue planets. New NASA research conducted with Osaka University in Japan proposes these isolated roving planets aren’t a mere exception to the rule, but far outnumber planets that have a host star, or stars, to guide them.
The team believes our galaxy holds 20 times more rogue planets than stars — that’s trillions of starless space nomads. Though scientists have tried before to estimate the population of these skulking orphan worlds, the new study is the first that is sensitive to detecting relatively lightweight planets like Earth. While previous searches discovered Jupiter-size rogues, the team surprisingly found Earth-size solo planets were much more common, Takahiro Sumi, an astrophysicist at Osaka University, said in a statement.
A survey was conducted over nine years at the Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand, using so-called microlensing techniques. The findings will appear in two papers in The Astronomical Journal. One will describe the discovery of a rogue planet about the same mass as Earth. The second will present the analysis that rogue planets are six times more abundant than starbound planets like Earth.
SEE ALSO:
Water worlds in the galaxy could be 100 times more common than once thought
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How does microlensing work?
Microlensing, based on the gravitational lens effect, happens when the rogue planet aligns with a star in the background. The foreground planet slightly warps the time and space around it.
NASA often uses the analogy of a bowling ball placed on a foam mattress or trampoline to illustrate how the fabric of spacetime bends. Light from the background star, that would otherwise travel straight, curves and gets distorted as it passes through warped spacetime.
This natural phenomenon also sometimes makes copies, the way a funhouse mirror can create multiple irregular images. Astronomers are now adept at spotting gravitational lensing in the sky. Those telltale peculiarities signal a free-floating planet’s presence.
“It’s very exciting to use gravity to discover objects we could never hope to see directly,” Sumi said in a statement.
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How are rogue planets formed?
Scientists are still sussing out what makes a planet go rogue. Smaller planets aren’t bound as strongly to the stars that birthed them, so the probability of flinging out of orbit is greater. That’s one explanation for how planets could end up on solitary journeys through the cosmos.
Another is that these isolated planets were failed attempts at stars, perhaps too small to make their own light, though that concept works better to explain the larger-size rogues.
A team of astronomers used a nine-year survey to look for rogue planets. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center illustration
“It’s very exciting to use gravity to discover objects we could never hope to see directly.”
If the idea of “rogue Earths” thrills you, know this: These outcasts aren’t likely to have much else in common with our home planet other than their mass. But scientists are eager to study them for what they could reveal.
“The difference in star-bound and free-floating planets’ average masses holds a key to understanding planetary formation mechanisms,” Sumi said.
Microlensing events that lay bare rogue planets are rare, but NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may provide a wider and sharper view of these solo worlds. The observatory is expected to launch into space in May 2027.
The team believes such a telescope could find 400 some Earth-size rogue planets. Naoki Koshimoto, who led the paper on the Earth-mass rogue discovery, said in a statement he’s looking forward to the potential for finding more lightweight loners.
“Roman will be sensitive to even lower-mass rogue planets since it will observe from space,” Koshimoto said.
The Echo Pop is one of Amazon’s newest Alexa devices. With a flat speaker on the front, it’s made to sit discreetly in the corner of a room and fill it up with music. Additionally, it shares many of the same Alexa features as Amazon’s other Echo devices.
At $39.99, the Echo Pop is also the least expensive way to add Alexa to your home. As a bonus, it comes in a couple of unique colors that other Echo devices don’t — the gorgeous lavender bloom and trendy midnight teal.
Still, it doesn’t really stand out from the Echo Dot with regards to sound quality, and after using it I was left wondering if it’s really distinct enough from the Dot to be it’s own “thing.”
The Amazon Echo Pop, temporarily relocated from the office to the bathroom for better lighting. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable
How it measures up as an Alexa device
If you’re familiar with the Amazon Alexa ecosystem, then you probably know of the Echo Dot devices. These are Alexa-enabled smart devices without a display. You can set timers, make reminders, add notes to the Alexa app, and ask them questions.
The Echo Pop is, essentially, a more compact Echo Dot. It’s half the size, but it has nearly all of the same functionality — making it especially handy in the kitchen, for me at least. “Alexa, remind me to check the rice in 20 minutes.” Also: “Alexa, how many tablespoons are in half a cup?”
The Amazon Echo Dot vs. The Amazon Echo Pop… yes there is a tiny spaghetti stain on the Echo Dot, I blame the kids. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable
However, it’s important to note that while the newest gen Echo Dot has a built-in temperature sensor, the Echo Pop does not.
It can also be used to control any of your Alexa-enabled smart devices, just like other Echo devices. Although I do dearly love using an Echo in the kitchen, my house is blissfully low-tech otherwise — so I couldn’t test this for myself.
SEE ALSO:
Should you get an Echo or Echo Dot? We compare the two.
How it measures up as a smart speaker
Since I already had Spotify connected to Alexa, I was able to start playing my music pretty much as soon as I plugged in the device and set it up. However, it’s important to note that if you don’t use Amazon Music, you’ll need to go through the Alexa app on your phone to connect to your preferred audio app.
Shortly after starting my music for the first time, it stopped mid-song and it seemed like the device froze up for a few minutes. After that one issue, it’s worked fine though.
Compared to my Echo Dot, I honestly think the sound quality seems exactly the same. But full disclosure: I’m not an audiophile, so it could be that my simple ears can’t detect any subtle differences in sound quality between the two devices. Regardless, as advertised, this little device projects really well and fills the whole room with music.
The Echo Pop ditches the spherical shape of the Echo and Echo Dot. Credit: SaVanna Shoemaker / Mashable
One feature I was particularly interested in was the Echo Pop’s Bluetooth connectivity. Some customer reviews refer to it as a Bluetooth speaker, which had me thinking that it may be able to stream audio directly from my phone without Alexa.
However, this doesn’t really seem to be the case. I tried to connect to it via Bluetooth with my phone (like I would connect to wireless earbuds or a wireless speaker), but I couldn’t find a way to play audio directly from my phone to the Echo Pop without using Alexa as an intermediate.
So yes, it connects to the Alexa app via Bluetooth, sure. But would I call it a Bluetooth speaker? No, not really.
Additionally, it must be plugged into a wall outlet to work — making it pretty stationary compared to what people are often thinking of when they think “Bluetooth speaker.” That is, something that’s wireless and portable.
Still, you can connect your Bluetooth speakers to the Echo Pop — making it possible for you to lend Alexa voice activation to your whole sound setup.
Is the Echo Pop worth it?
For people who like to keep music playing, and who also use Alexa as a home assistant, the Echo Pop is a perfect addition to any room in the house.
To be completely honest, it seems a little redundant when it’s so similar to the Echo Dot. Still, at $39.99, it’s $10 less expensive than the newest gen Echo Dot, with essentially all the same functionality and features. That makes it a good choice if you’re trying to save some dough while making your home a little smarter. Or if you already have a suite of Echo devices and are looking to add a little more Alexa to your home.
UPDATE: Jul. 22, 2023, 5:00 a.m. EDT This story has been updated with the latest 4K and 8K TV deals. Check out our favorites below:
Our top picks this week:
Best 55-inch TV deal
Insignia 55-inch F30 Series 4K Fire TV
$249.99 (save $150)
Best 65-inch TV deal
Samsung 65-inch Q90B QLED TV
$1,599.99 (save $1,000)
Best 75-inch TV deal
TCL 75-inch S4 4K TV
$529.99 (save $220)
Upgrading to a 4K TV — even a QLED or OLED — no longer has to be an intimidating financial setback. High-quality TVs featuring punchy colors, decipherable shadows, and smooth transitions have become increasingly affordable for regular consumers, made even more budget-friendly by frequent sales from retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon. Here are our top picks ahead of Prime Day.
TV deals are categorized by brand, then listed in order of size (smallest to largest) and price (lowest to highest).
Samsung TV deals
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Credit: Samsung
Our pick: Samsung 65-inch Q90B QLED TV
$1,599.99 at Samsung (save $1,000)
Why we love it
The big-but-not-too-big size of our favorite TV for sports is just shy of a whole $1,000 discount. Hyped as one of the brightest TVs on the market, Samsung’s QN90B offers the brightness, precision, and glare control needed for crisp daytime viewing.
More Samsung TVs on sale
Samsung 43-inch The Frame QLED TV — $839.99$999.99 (save $160)
Samsung 85-inch QN90B QLED TV — $2,299.99$3,299.99 (save $1,000)
Samsung 85-inch QN90C QLED TV — $3,697.99$4,797.99 (save $1,100)
SEE ALSO:
The best 4K TVs: For gamers, movie watchers, and everyone else
LG TV deals
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Credit: LG
Our pick: LG 86-inch 80 Series QNED TV
$1,599.99 at Best Buy (save $400)
Why we love it
QNED is a mashup of LG’s NanoCell technology and quantum dots (which amp up color depth using an extra light filter of nanoparticles) and the backlighting of mini LEDs (like regular LEDs, but smaller for extra precision). This XL version of the budget-friendly 80 Series QNED stretches those bright, saturated scenes across what’ll feel like the entire wall.
More LG TVs on sale
LG 50-inch UQ7070 4K TV — $328$398 (save $70)
LG 50-inch 80 Series QNED TV — $799.99$899.99 (save $100)
LG 55-inch B3 Series OLED TV — $1,399.99$1,699.99 (save $300)
LG 55-inch C3 Series OLED TV — $1,599.99$1,899.99 (save $300)
LG 65-inch 80 Series QNED TV — $976.99$1,299.99 (save $323)
LG 65-inch C3 Series OLED TV — $2,099.99$2,599.99 (save $500)
LG 70-inch UQ7590 Series 4K TV — $596.99$729.99 (save $133)
LG 77-inch C3 Series OLED TV — $3,199.99$3,599.99 (save $400)
LG 77-inch G2 Series Gallery OLED TV — $3,399.99$3,799.99 (save $400)
Sony TV deals
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Credit: Sony
Our pick: Sony 65-inch A90J OLED TV
$2,198 at Amazon (save $801.99)
Why we love it
Bringing the “O” on board to LED significantly upgrades the TV’s picture quality, especially in dimly lit rooms and dark, shadowy scenes. That’s because OLED doesn’t require an external backlight, using organic light-emitting diodes instead. These self-lit pixels are individually controlled by the TV itself based on the content and lighting of the room, offering more precise contrast than an LED or QLED panel.
Though the A90J is now a two-year-old Sony release, it still holds its own as a premium OLED in the field — it’s an especially appetizing contender at record-low pricing at Amazon.
More Sony TVs on sale
Sony 65-inch X90K 4K TV — $998$1,299.99 (save $301.99)
Sony 65-inch X95K 4K TV — $1,899.99$2,399.99 (save $300)
Sony 65-inch A80L OLED TV — $2,398$2,599.99 (save $201.99)
Sony 75-inch X90K 4K TV — $1,498$1,899.99 (save $401.99)
Sony 75-inch X77L 4K TV — $999.99$1,099.99 (save $100)
Sony 83-inch A90J OLED TV — $4,799.99$5,199.99 (save $400)
Sony 85-inch X85K 4K TV — $1,798$2,299.99 (save $501.99)
Sony 85-inch X90K 4K TV — $1,999.99$2,299.99 (save $300)
Other TV deals from Amazon, TCL, Vizio and more
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Credit: TCL
Our pick: TCL 75-inch S4 4K TV
$529.99 at Best Buy (save $220)
Why we love it
TCL’s budget-friendly 4-Series 4K TVs were the baby’s first adult TV for a few years there. The S4 Series is the much-needed 2023 spin on those. Still at Prime Day pricing, the huge 75-inch version looks even bigger with slimmer bezels than its predecessor — and that in tandem with Dolby Vision will set you up for an immersive viewing of the second half of The Witcher season three or Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
More TCL TVs, Vizio TVs, Fire TVs, and more on sale
Amazon 32-inch 2-Series HD Fire TV — $129.99$199.99 (save $70)
Toshiba 43-inch V35 Series HD Fire TV — $159.99$199.99 (save $40)
Insignia 43-inch F30 Series 4K TV — $159.99$349.99 (save $70)
Amazon 43-inch 4-Series 4K Fire TV — $229.99$369.99 (save $140)
Vizio 43-inch V-Series 4K TV — $238$268 (save $30)
Insignia 55-inch F30 Series 4K TV — $249.99$399.99 (save $150)
Amazon 55-inch 4-Series 4K Fire TV — $339.99$519.99 (save $180)
Amazon 55-inch Omni 4K Fire TV — $429.99$549.99 (save $120 with Prime)
Hisense 58-inch 4K TV — $268$338 (save $70)
Toshiba 65-inch C350 Series 4K TV — $369.99$529.99 (save $160)
Vizio 65-inch V-Series 4K TV — $398$528 (save $130)
Hisense 65-inch U6GR ULED TV — $499.99$599.99 (save $100)
Amazon 65-inch Omni 4K Fire TV — $559.99$759.99 (save $200 with Prime)
TCL 65-inch QM8 Mini-LED QLED TV — $1,299.99$1,699.99 (save $400)
Insignia 70-inch F30 Series 4K TV — $449.99$599.99 (save $150)
Insignia 75-inch F30 Series 4K TV — $529.99$749.99 (save $220)
Amazon 75-inch Omni 4K Fire TV — 719.99$1,049.99 (save $330)
TCL 75-inch S4 4K TV — $529.99$749.99 (save $220) do this one!!!
TCL 75-inch QM8 Mini-LED QLED TV — $1,799.99$2,299.99 (save $500)
TCL 85-inch S4 4K TV — $899.99$1,399.99 (save $500)
TCL 85-inch Q7 QLED TV — $1,699.99$2,199.99 (save $500)
For two years of my time as a student at the University of Chicago, my dorm building, my cafeteria, and the library where I worked all stood on the same block as the site of the world’s first-ever manmade nuclear reactor.
Upon first glance, you wouldn’t really know just how much this stretch of land in Chicago’s Hyde Park shaped the Atomic Age. Between the hustle and bustle of students, you might be more distracted by the crayon-bright colors of the Max Palevsky dorms, the imposing brutalist architecture of the Regenstein Library, or even the glass dome of the Mansueto Library. Look past those, however, and you’ll see a bronze statue by Henry Moore, titled “Nuclear Energy,” commemorating the construction of the reactor — and the moment in 1942 when it went critical.
That same nuclear reactor makes an ever-so-brief appearance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, when physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) journeys to Chicago to check out his Manhattan Project colleagues’ progress. He encounters physicists like Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari) and Leo Szilard (Máté Haumann), who confirm that they have successfully engineered the first manmade nuclear reaction. How did they do it? With Chicago Pile-1, or CP-1: a reactor made of bricks of graphite, built under a football field on an active college campus.
The scene barely takes up any time in the three-hour-long epic that is Oppenheimer, but the science behind it is crucial to the creation of the atomic bomb. Not only that, but the construction of CP-1 is fascinating enough that it could easily be its own movie. How did it work? Did it leave any radiation on the UChicago campus? And perhaps most strangely of all, why was it built under a football field?
What is CP-1, and why was it important to the Manhattan Project?
A painting of Enrico Fermi and his colleagues overseeing construction of Chicago Pile-1. Credit: Fotosearch/Getty Images
As the Manhattan Project got underway, several things became apparent. First, scientists had to determine whether controlling a nuclear chain reaction was even possible.
The principle of a chain reaction was already well understood by this point. “If very heavy nuclei — in this case uranium — absorb a neutron, they will fission, and they will break into pieces and give up a certain amount of energy so that the nuclei fly off and everything gets hotter,” Peter Littlewood, Chair of the UChicago Department of Physics, explained to Mashable in a phone interview. “For every nucleus that fissures, you generate three extra neutrons. And if these neutrons get captured by another, then you get nine and you keep on building. That’s what we call a chain reaction.”
On top of figuring out how to control such a reaction, the scientists also needed enough fissile material, such as plutonium or uranium, to place in the test bomb, as well as the bombs that the U.S. government would go on to drop over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Enter CP-1. In November of 1942, Fermi and other members of the UChicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory — which studied plutonium — constructed CP-1 on a squash court under the west football stands of the University’s Stagg Field. Stagg was once host to UChicago’s football team. However, Fermi and colleagues didn’t have to worry about interfering with football games or practice given that University President Robert Maynard Hutchins had ended the fairly dominant varsity football program in 1939.
SEE ALSO:
Los Alamos: The secretive lab that built ‘the bomb’ now scours Mars for signs of life
“I think it is a good thing for the country to have one important university discontinue football,” Hutchins told students in a 1940 address. “There is no doubt that, on the whole, the game has been a major handicap to education in the United States.” (The sport returned in 1969, although by then, the old Stagg Field had been replaced by the Regenstein Library.)
Thanks to UChicago’s sudden aversion to athletics, construction on CP-1 continued until December 2, 1942, when the reactor produced the first manmade, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. With the knowledge that such a a reaction was possible, construction began on a nuclear reactor in Hanford, Washington, where plutonium production for the Trinity Test bomb and the bomb dropped over Nagasaki took place. CP-1 itself was not responsible for any of the plutonium production.
“CP-1 was designed as an experiment. It wasn’t designed to do anything other than prove that the principle worked,” Peter Littlewood, Chair of the UChicago Department of Physics, told Mashable in a phone interview. “But they were so confident that it worked that they had already designed the Hanford reactor before the experiment was completed.” Construction on Hanford only took 18 months.
How did CP-1 work?
CP-1, according to “Oppenheimer.” Credit: Screenshot: Universal Pictures
Fermi himself described CP-1 as “a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers.” So how did such a “crude” structure, 20 feet wide and 25 feet tall, create a monumental chain reaction?
On top of the graphite blocks, CP-1 also contained smaller pellets of uranium, which would help initiate the chain reaction in the first place. The graphite served as a “moderator” for the reaction. “It slows down neutrons and makes them more easy to absorb by uranium atoms,” Littlewood explained in an e-mail.
But the ultimate form of control came in the form of long wooden rods coated in cadmium, which absorbed the neutrons. “When the control rods are all pushed in, nothing happens,” said Littlewood. “Then you withdraw the control rods, and every time you do that, there’s a little burst of energy.” Fermi and his team monitored these bursts of energy, watching the power build up and calculating how far to pull the control rods out until the energy was self-sustaining.
Were the CP-1 experiments safe?
Let’s take a field trip to a nuclear reactor…under a football field. Credit: Screenshot: Universal Pictures
Upon learning that I was spending a large chunk of my time at UChicago hanging out around the site of an old nuclear reactor, I was mildly alarmed. Would I graduate from school with an extra head?
On the one hand, every tour group passing the Moore statue gets assured that the site is not a radioactive hazard. On the other hand, an old professor of mine once told my class a rumor that the café in the Regenstein Library had been moved from the basement to the first floor due to traces of radiation found in the basement. (To put it in perspective: I and many other UChicago students have spent more time in that library basement than Cillian Murphy does staring right into the camera in Oppenheimer.)
Luckily, Littlewood assured me that that wasn’t the case. “I have heard that rumor, but not really from a reputable source, so I don’t buy it.”
He continued: “The other thing is that radiation is everywhere, and it’s very easy to find. Could there have been some radioactive contamination that was permanent? It would depend on how well they cleaned up the fissile material or what they did with it. At the time, and certainly later in the Cold War, we were extraordinarily lax in taking care of radioactive material… But the amount of radiation which was created by CP-1 would probably have been quite tiny.” Graphite could also have absorbed some of the radiation, acting as protection in a setting that otherwise lacked shielding.
Adding to these assurances? In a 2019 NPR story, UChicago’s radiation safety officer James Marsicek used a Geiger counter to measure the radiation around what used to be Stagg Field. The counter consistently measured .02 millirems per hour, simply picking up the background radiation that naturally occurs around us.
None of this is information that you’ll get in Oppenheimer — a film already filled to the brim with decades’ worth of science — but it’s crucial to understand just how much effort went into the Manhattan Project. One quick glimpse of CP-1 in the movie hides stories of abandoned football fields, hastily constructed power plants, and even worries (now soothed) about radioactive libraries. But Littlewood is quick to point out that CP-1’s role in the Manhattan Project is only part of its impact.
When CP-1 went critical, Littlewood said that “it became clear, at that point, that you could use nuclear power to generate energy. Following the war, there was work from the government to do that. That involved setting up what became Argonne National Lab, which is about 25 miles southwest of the city. Argonne National Lab was the place which designed and built the first set of nuclear reactors and formed the prototypes of things which have spread around the world. So it’s very much a case of swords into plowshares.”
As for the UChicago Physics Department’s thoughts on Oppenheimer? “We’re physicists, so we’re not used to getting excited,” Littlewood said. “I’m sure we’ll probably do a private screening of it at some point for our students.
I love Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. I love Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that I love them both so much because they’re the same movie.
“But how can that be?” you may ask. “After all, Dune is a science-fiction epic. Oppenheimer is based on the real life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. What could they possibly have in common?”
Turns out, several themes and aesthetic choices! From two directors with whose styles complement each other to the talents of Florence Pugh, the Dune series and Oppenheimer are more similar than you might think. Let’s break it down.
Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve’s careers speak to each other.
Christopher Nolan behind the scenes of “Oppenheimer.” Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
When I think of modern-day science-fiction auteurs, I think of two names: Nolan and Villeneuve. The two have certainly worked outside the genre, producing thrillers like Memento and Sicario, respectively. However, some of their most acclaimed work — think Inception and Arrival — is undeniably sci-fi.
Their takes on the genre are thematically and stylistically similar to one another, often leaning on cerebral, high-concept world-building to make sense of dense source material. Dune and Oppenheimer are both based on hefty tomes, the former on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, the latter on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. To bring these stories to life, Nolan and Villeneuve both rely heavily on practical effects (Nolan more so than Villeneuve), as well as throbbing soundscapes and scores that demand to be experienced in a theater. Notably, both Dune: Part Two and Oppenheimer were shot with IMAX cameras — Dune: Part Twoin its entirety, and Oppenheimer for select sequences.
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Nolan and Villeneuve’s works have also weathered similar critiques. Even though they tend to have intense emotional cores, such as Arrival‘s mother-daughter relationship or Interstellar‘s assertion that love can transcend space and time, they face the common criticism of being cool and emotionless. This extends to Dune and Oppenheimer‘s leading men: Both Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) tend to be more emotionally buttoned-up, although they certainly lose composure in key moments.
Dune and Oppenheimer unleash the power of blue eyes.
Timothée Chalamet in “Dune: Part Two.” Credit: Niko Tavernise
Speaking of Dune and Oppenheimer‘s leading men, let’s talk about some of their most defining features. Between Murphy and Chalamet, these movies may as well be called Cheekbones, but it’s their eyes that draw the most focus — especially in this “buy them brown contacts” summer.
We spend much of Oppenheimer lost in Murphy’s blue eyes, his thousand-yard stare in the face of his creation boring holes into the audience. (Nolan mentioned casting Murphy in part because of a photo of Oppenheimer’s “light blue-eyed stare.”) But the blue doesn’t end with Murphy! Between Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Dane DeHaan, Benny Safdie, and more, Oppenheimer is a parade of blue-eyed actors. You may not have noticed just how blue their eyes were until now, but once an IMAX camera is right in their face, it becomes pretty difficult to ignore.
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The same goes for Dune, where blue eyes aren’t just part of an actor’s face — they’re plot-relevant parts of an actor’s face! In the world of Dune, there exists a drug known as spice, which enables faster-than-light travel. Only found on the planet Arrakis, spice turns the eyes of people exposed to it bright blue. All of the Fremen, the indigenous population of Arrakis, have these blue-in-blue eyes (also called the Eyes of Ibad). When we pick back up with Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), in Dune: Part Two, they will have spent enough time in the deserts of Arrakis to also have the blue-in-blue eyes. (But can they measure up to Murphy’s?)
Oppenheimer and Dune feature chilling visions of death and destruction.
Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer.” Credit: Universal Pictures
As Paul makes his way into the deserts of Arrakis and as Oppenheimer works to finish the atomic bomb, the two begin to have visions of a terrifying future. Well, Paul’s are actual visions as he sees time unfurl before him, whereas Oppenheimer is more so confronting the worst case scenario of his actions. Either way, they speak of grave consequences for humanity.
In Paul’s case, he witnesses the spread of a holy war carried out across the universe under the Atreides banner. (The novels explicitly refer to the war as a jihad.) He panics at the thought of all this destruction carried out in his name, yet as his influence grows over the Fremen, he realizes there’s less of a chance of him stopping it.
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Albert Einstein is important to ‘Oppenheimer,’ but not for the reason you’d think
Somewhat similarly, Oppenheimer imagines a future where the spread of nuclear weapons results in worldwide catastrophe. The Trinity Test may not have triggered a literal chain reaction that destroyed the world, but as he tells Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) in the film’s final scene, he fears that the Manhattan Project may have set off a figurative chain reaction anyway, as nations across the globe seek to create more and more destructive nuclear weapons. For both Paul and Oppenheimer, their horrifying futures remind us that neither men are heroes; rather, they are men with great power whose actions will lead to violence they failed to anticipate or completely consider.
Both Dune and Oppenheimer feature troubling erasures of people of color.
Javier Bardem in “Dune: Part Two.” Credit: Niko Tavernise
As much as I adore Dune and Oppenheimer, the two face similar issues in terms of how they deal with the people of color at the heart of their stories — people who often play a key role in or bear the brunt of their protagonists’ destructive power.
Herbert’s Dune draws heavily — and explicitly — on Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) culture and Islam, incorporating terms such as “Mahdi,” “Padishah,” and “jihad.” The familiarity of these terms allows us to envision how Arabic and Islam have persisted over the thousands of years between our present and Dune‘s future, becoming especially vital to Fremen culture. Yet Villeneuve’s Dune does not feature any MENA actors in Fremen roles. It also flattens many of Herbert’s MENA influences, omitting terms like “jihad” and other Arabic influences on the Fremen’s language. As Vulture‘s Roxana Hadadi writes, “In subtle but significant ways, [Dune] Part One denies the cultures that are so integral to its source material.”
In Oppenheimer, the erasures are many. In a predominantly white cast, there is no mention of the Black chemists and physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project. Nor is there much discussion of the Native American and Hispanic inhabitants of New Mexico whose land was seized to build the Los Alamos lab. Contamination from the Trinity Test would lead “Downwinders,” New Mexico inhabitants in the area, to suffer from increased rates of cancer.
Notably, Oppenheimer also omits any direct visuals from the U.S.’s use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving the devastation of the atomic bomb up to Oppenheimer’s tortured imagination. The omission is certainly purposeful: Oppenheimer spends so much time hammering home its lead’s preoccupation with theory to the point that even his bomb’s victims become theoretical. When finally confronted with a slideshow of the bomb’s destruction, Oppenheimer turns away, with Nolan himself refusing to make a spectacle of the bombings themselves. It’s an effective yet unsettling choice, one that understandably raises concerns about how the film chooses to deny Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project’s victims any voice.
The rise of Florence Pugh continues.
Florence Pugh in “Dune: Part Two.” Credit: Niko Tavernise
Let’s end our voyage into the similar worlds of Dune and Oppenheimer with a celebration of their shared cast member: Florence Pugh. The Academy Award nominee continues to take the world by storm, appearing in Oppenheimer as Jean Tatlock and in the upcoming Dune: Part Two as Princess Irulan.
As great as Pugh is, her role in Oppenheimer is unfortunately limited to some bizarre sex scenes and relationship angst between her and Oppenheimer. Dune: Part Two will hopefully give her more to do as Princess Irulan, the daughter of the Padishah Emperor (Christopher Walken) who will go on to (spoiler alert) marry Paul. A scholar trained in the Bene Gesserit way, Irulan proves key in the political games Paul will learn to play — especially in Herbert’s second Dune novel, Dune Messiah.
I don’t particularly love that Pugh plays one of two women vying for a man’s attention in both Oppenheimer and Dune (to call these relationships “love triangles” would not be correct), but I do love to see her working with two major directors whose films I admire. Any double feature should be honored to have Pugh as the glue holding it together, and Duneheimer is certainly no exception.
It’s Barbenheimer Saturday and in highly unrelated news, there’s a brand new Wordle. As always, we’re here with some tips and tricks to help you figure out the solution.
If you just want to be told the answer, you can jump to the end of this article for July 22’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you want to solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
Where did Wordle come from?
Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the Wordle answer for July 21.
What’s the best Wordle starting word?
The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you like being strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?
The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.
Is Wordle getting harder?
It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.
Why are there two different Wordle answers some days?
Though usually Wordle will only accept one correct solution per day, occasionally it will rebel against the norm and deem two different answers acceptable. This is due to changes the New York Times made to Wordle after it acquired the puzzle game.
The Times has since added its own updated word list, so this should happen even less frequently than before. To avoid any confusion, it’s a good idea to refresh your browser before getting stuck into a new puzzle.
Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:
Do you wanna build a snowman?
Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?
Not today!
Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…
Today’s Wordle starts with the letter F.
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What’s the answer to Wordle today?
Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to Wordle #763 is…
FROZE.
Don’t feel disheartened if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
