news and background stories regarding Everything Physics:
Most Recent Physics Headlines
You probably do it. It might be ingrained from when you were a kid, and now it’s almost automatic. You see the flash of lightning – and you immediately start counting the seconds till it thunders.
The Standard Model. What dull name for the most accurate scientific theory known to human beings.
From tunnelling through impenetrable barriers to being in two places at the same time, the quantum world of atoms and particles is famously bizarre. Yet the strange properties of quantum mechanics are not mathematical quirks – they are real effects that have been seen in laboratories over and over.
Quantum physics is often defined as the physics of the very small – think atoms, electrons and photons. But we have managed to demonstrate one of the quirky features of quantum physics at a much larger scale. In a paper published today in Nature, we describe how we were able to create quantum entanglement of the motion of objects composed of many billions of atoms.
Researchers have shown that they can shield a sensitive, scalable 44-kilogram germanium detector array from background radioactivity, a key step towards solving a much bigger mystery.
Studies prove almost unanimously that the universe is, indeed, expanding. However, different measurements of the rate by which it expands consistently yield different results. Could this mean we need new physics to understand what's going on?
Everyone’s favorite wonder-material has moved beyond the boundaries of gravity in its latest round of testing. The material was brought aboard a parabolic flight, where a plane alternated climbing and diving in a regular rhythm to simulate micro-gravity for brief intervals of about 23 seconds at a time. These flights are often affectionately referred to as the “vomit comet,” as they tend to inspire some queasiness in humans. The graphene aboard, however, endured the environment and performed well.
Infrastructure supports and facilitates our daily lives – think of the roads we drive on, the bridges and tunnels that help transport people and freight, the office buildings where we work and the dams that provide the water we drink. But it’s no secret that American infrastructure is aging and in desperate need of rehabilitation.
What if you could run your air conditioner not on conventional electricity, but on the sun’s heat during a warm summer’s day? With advancements in thermoelectric technology, this sustainable solution might one day become a reality.
Physicists have demonstrated accelerating light beams on flat surfaces, where acceleration has caused the beams to follow curved trajectories. However, a new experiment has pushed the boundaries of what’s possible to demonstrate in a lab. For the first time in an expeirment, physicists have demonstrated an accelerating light beam in curved space. Instead of traveling along a geodesic trajectory (the shortest path on a curved surface) it bends away from this trajectory due to the acceleration.
There are 6,000 tweets sent a second. In the time you have read this sentence, 42,000 tweets will have been sent. At an average of 34 characters per tweet that’s 1,428,000 characters.
The science and tech world has been abuzz about quantum computers for years, but the devices are not yet affecting our daily lives. Quantum systems could seamlessly encrypt data, help us make sense of the huge amount of data we’ve already collected, and solve complex problems that even the most powerful supercomputers cannot – such as medical diagnostics and weather prediction.
Samsung recently submitted a patent for a new design that features a second screen on the back of its devices. Could the next smartphone be double-sided?
Everything dies. To many, this seems to be the one absolute truth to the universe: Plants and animals rot and decay, stars explode and grow dark, planets crumble or are burned, and even black holes may radiate away. Indeed, our very atoms, which are the same atoms that make up everything else in the universe, decay into lighter elements as time marches on.
Match the following figures – Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Alfred Nobel and Nikola Tesla – with these biographical facts:
Overcoming a series of setbacks, an international project to build what could be a revolutionary nuclear fusion reactor, which will produce renewable energy, has reached a major milestone. Half of the infrastructure required for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project has now been completed — seven years after construction officially began in 2010.
A team of researchers has discovered a new quantum material that's been dubbed a Weyl-Kondo semimetal. It could potentially shape our search for other such materials.
Researchers have discovered how to identify smartphones by examining just one photo taken by the device.The advancement opens the possibility of using smartphones—instead of FaceID or other biometrics—as a form of identification to deter cybercrime.
A pilot project in one of the biggest Indigenous communities in Canada replaces expensive and polluting diesel with solar power. It could be the first of many.
One of the underlying principles of quantum theory is that quantum objects can exist as waves or particles. But, they do not exist as either until they are measured, making it seemingly unachievable to identify or track quantum objects when they’re not being observed. But recently, physicists faced this issue and proved that it is not an impossibility to track unobserved quantum particles.
The soaring value of bitcoin is encouraging more and more companies and individuals to engage in “mining”. Mining is actually a process which secures the distributed bitcoin network, and processes all of its transactions.
Applying a tiny coating of costly platinum just 1 nanometer thick—about 1/100,000th the width of a human hair—to a core of much cheaper cobalt could bring down the cost of fuel cells.
The media tends to depict bullet-proof armor as something that’s thick and heavier than regular clothes. Despite being for bodily protection, the added bulk of that armor might restrict a person’s movements. But scientists at the City University of New York’s Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) have found that diamond-hard armor doesn’t need to be thick. The key to less-bulky protection is graphene, a tightly-packed layer of bonded carbon atoms one million times thinner than a piece of paper.
Despite many varied and valiant attempts, fusion energy has remained out of reach. One new technique uses hydrogen-boron reactions to theoretically achieve fusion in a way that produces no radioactive waste.
Forget about today’s modest incremental advances in artificial intelligence, such as the increasing abilities of cars to drive themselves. Waiting in the wings might be a groundbreaking development: a machine that is aware of itself and its surroundings, and that could take in and process massive amounts of data in real time. It could be sent on dangerous missions, into space or combat. In addition to driving people around, it might be able to cook, clean, do laundry – and even keep humans company when other people aren’t nearby
Many decades ago, scientists theorized the possibility of strange material they called "excitonium." Now, thanks to innovative experimentation, researchers have proven its existence.
Is commercial nuclear fusion energy just around the corner? In Oxfordshire, two new research centers will be built to create the technology necessary to create fusion energy on a commercial scale.
Self-driving cars are expected to make our roads safer. Now, UK insurance company Direct Line is offering a discount to customers who use Tesla Autopilot to facilitate research into its effects.
The first ever all-electric cargo ship is in operation in China's Pearl River. While it's a step in the right direction to eliminate fossil fuels, the ship is being used to carry coal — the very material that encouraged the shift to clean energy.