When it comes to the kinds of technology needed to contain a sun, there are currently just two horses in the race. Neither is what you’d call ‘petite’. An earlier form of fusion technology that barely made it out of the starting blocks has just overcome a serious hurdle. It’s got a long way to
Physics
One of the ultimate goals of modern physics is to unlock the power of superconductivity, where electricity flows with zero resistance at room temperature. Progress has been slow, but in 2018, physicists have made an unexpected breakthrough. They discovered a superconductor that works in a way no one’s ever seen before – and it opens
For some physicists, measuring the spectrum of tiny waves making up empty space has been a goal for decades, but until now none have found a good way to achieve it. Now physicists from ETH Zurich have cleverly used laser pulses to understand the quantum nature of a vacuum, setting a landmark in our attempts
Ice is a complex beast. While you and I only ever come into contact with one kind of it, scientists actually know of around 20 different molecular varieties – some so esoteric and rare, they may only exist inside computer simulations, or buried within distant planets. But just because water can freeze into a
A pair of mathematicians from Australia and France have devised a new way to multiply numbers together, while solving an algorithmic puzzle that has perplexed some of the greatest math minds for almost half a century. For most of us, the way we multiply relatively small numbers is by remembering our times tables –
Matter takes many shapes, but most of us are familiar with the basic three states – solid, liquid, and gas. Now, for the first time, scientists have discovered that it’s possible for matter to exist in two of these states at once. Specifically, the metal potassium can be a solid and a liquid simultaneously,
Everything you see around you is made up of elementary particles called quarks and leptons, which can combine to form bigger particles such as protons or atoms. But that doesn’t make them boring – these subatomic particles can also combine in exotic ways we’ve never spotted. Now CERN’s LHCb collaboration has announced the discovery
Today our middle-aged Universe looks eerily smooth. Too smooth, in fact. While a rapid growth spurt in space-time would explain what we see, science needs more than nice ideas. It needs evidence that whittles away contending arguments. We might finally know where to look for some. A team of physicists from the Centre for
Physicists have measured the sound of ‘nothingness’ at room temperature – an important step in our future ability to listen in to the Universe. You can think of it a little like this – we’ve now been able to measure the way some of the ubiquitous ‘background noise’ of space interacts with our equipment, which
An international team has managed to capture an elusive state of matter that stays stable even at room temperature. It’s called a supercrystal, and all it took were laser pulses shorter than a blink of the eye. Okay, so of course it’s more complicated than that. The experiment involved layering inorganic compounds and “frustrating”
Why do we exist? This is arguably the most profound question there is and one that may seem completely outside the scope of particle physics. But our new experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has taken us a step closer to figuring it out. To understand why, let’s go back in time some 13.8
Of all the different dark matter detectors in the world, only one has consistently come up with a positive signal. The results of DAMA experiment in Italy are hotly debated – and now two experiments seeking to verify it using the same materials have returned conflicting results. ANAIS, a dark matter detector run by
For the first time, a woman has been awarded the prestigious Abel Prize. Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck of the University of Texas at Austin will receive the annual prize for her tremendous contributions to the field. “The recognition of Uhlenbeck’s achievements should have been far greater, for her work has led to some of the
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) say they’ve found a way to levitate and propel objects using only light – though, for the time being, the work remains theoretical. They hope the technique could be used for “trajectory control of ultra-light spacecraft and even laser-propelled light sails for space exploration,” according to
In quantum physics, particles can ‘tunnel’ through seemingly impenetrable barriers, even when they apparently don’t have the energy to do so. Now, researchers have gleaned behind the curtain to better understand how this trick is done. This problem has puzzled scientists for decades – in particular, the time it takes for particles to do
Back in 2015, scientists found something amazing – a classic formula for pi hidden in the world of quantum physics. Pi is the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter, and is incredibly important in pure mathematics. But this was the first time scientists had found it “lurking” in the world of physics, when
Around 13.7 billion years ago, our Universe sprang into existence, but what was around before the Big Bang? In an episode of Star Talk released just a few weeks before his death in March 2018, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking sat down with host Neil deGrasse Tyson to talk about what exactly pre-dated the beginning of our
It’s easy to take time’s arrow for granted – but the gears of physics actually work just as smoothly in reverse. Maybe that time machine is possible after all? A recent experiment shows just how much wiggle room we can expect when it comes to distinguishing the past from the future, at least on a
It’s been a year since the renowned and profoundly influential physicist Stephen Hawking passed away, and the Royal Mint has honoured his legacy in the form of a new commemorative 50 pence coin. If you’ve ever been concerned that British currency doesn’t feature enough astrophysical equations, we have good news. Although the collector’s item, sold
A new quantum physics experiment just lent evidence to a mind-boggling idea that was previously limited to the realm of theory, according to the MIT Technology Review – that under the right conditions, two people can observe the same event, see two different things happen, and both be correct. According to research shared to
In November, Chinese researchers announced that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor — an “artificial sun” designed to mimic the nuclear fusion process the real Sun uses to generate energy — had hit a milestone by achieving an electron temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius. Now, officials are saying they believe they’ll wrap
Traditionally when we think of sound waves, we think of invisible vibrations moving weightless through the air – not carrying any mass. That might be about to change. Physicists have just provided further evidence that particles of sound really can carry tiny amounts of mass. And that means they can produce their own gravitational fields
For the very first time, NASA has captured the shockwaves of two supersonic jets interacting in mid-flight, and the result is so brilliant, even the researchers are amazed. The images feature two T-38s from the US Air Force, flying at supersonic speeds less than nine metres (30 feet) apart, with a stream of shockwaves emanating
In recent years scientists have started exploring the concept of anti-lasers – devices that can perfectly absorb a particular wavelength of light, as opposed to emitting it the way a laser does. Now researchers have published a study that explores the blueprint for building an anti-laser that’s more complex than anything we’ve seen before.
A new method for analysing the entanglement of scrambled particles could tell us how the Universe still keeps track of information contained by particles that disappear into black holes. It won’t get our quantum information back, but it might at least tell us what happened to it. Physicists Beni Yoshida from the Perimeter Institute
A team of scientists working with electrical currents and silicate glass have been left gobsmacked after the glass appeared to defy a basic physical law. If you pass an electrical current through a material, the way that current generates heat can be described by Joule’s first law. It’s been observed time and time again, with
Have you ever seen fine water condensation on a transparent surface shimmer like a rainbow? Scientists have now figured out exactly how it happens – and have used this new knowledge to make water droplets produce a dazzling array of colours. If the droplets are on a transparent surface, and lit by a single
Deep in the heart of physics there’s a lucky guess. It was an incredibly good guess, one that remains solid in the face of time and experiment, and is now a fundamental principle in quantum mechanics. It’s called the Born rule, and while it’s used for predictions, nobody truly understands how it works. But a
Something about atoms has never added up. Fundamental particles called quarks get kind of sluggish once they’re caught up in crowds of protons and neutrons – and quite frankly, they shouldn’t. For decades, physicists have hunted for clues on the quark’s tendency to slow down in larger atoms, but have come up empty-handed. But
For years, the internet has hemmed and hawed over a mysterious yet universal truth: a grape, sliced nearly in half and placed in the microwave, will suddenly begin to spit plasma. The fiery sight had us mystified for years, garnering millions of views online and a variety of expert opinions, none of which were
Black holes are the Universe’s most jealously guarded secrets. We all want to know what’s going on inside such exclusive space clubs, yet the best we can do is stand outside and listen to the beat. To do this, scientists host their own parties. Sure, these aren’t as fun as twisted pits of spacetime,
Two decades after the hypothetical prediction that it should be possible, scientists have been able to produce fractal light from a laser. Not only that, they’ve shown the fractal light could be created in 3D rather than just 2D. Displaying one of nature’s most common patterns from a very human-made technology could open up
Martin Rees, a well-respected British cosmologist, made pretty bold statement late last year when it comes to particle accelerators: there’s a small, but real possibility of disaster. Particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider, shoot particles at incredibly high speeds, smash them together, and observe the fallout. These high speed collisions have helped us
A team of theoretical physicists has a mind-bending new explanation for why our Universe is the way it is, and how it emerged in all its strangeness. According to a recent paper, space-time itself – the very fabric that makes up our Universe – is nothing more than a product of quantum mechanics. And distortions in
Football fans in the US can be divided into three camps – those who think the Patriots victory against the Colts in the 2014/15 playoffs were given a helping hand by slightly under inflated footballs, those who don’t, and those who ask ‘OMG can’t we just get on with football?!’ Over the past few
On the Draupner oil platform off the coast of Norway, workers would expect big waves to shake things up from time to time. But at 3 pm on New Year’s Day in 1995, a monster struck. It made history. Topping out at nearly 26 metres (about 84 feet), it was the kind of wave you
Scientists may have just taken a step towards experimentally proving the existence of Hawking radiation. Using an optical fibre analogue of an event horizon – a lab-created model of black hole physics – researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel report that they have created stimulated Hawking radiation. Under general relativity, a
When you beam intense pulses of light into a thin circle, strange things will happen, according to new research based on the optical equivalent of a whispering gallery. Inside tiny loops of transparent fibre, waves of light can be forced to break step and change the orientation of their wiggle in odd ways, bending the
Some of the Universe’s deepest secrets are locked up so tight, a whole new kind of subatomic cataclysm is needed to tear them free. To unleash those kinds of forces, European physicists want to build a particle accelerator to rival anything we’ve seen, one that will make the famous 27 kilometre (16.7 mile) Large Hadron
Dan Shechtman has the rare honour of possessing a Nobel Prize for ‘nonsense’. It’s been nearly four decades since he set out to convince the chemist community of a discovery most considered impossible – a material called a quasicrystal. Now we have just observed a brand new variety of these once ‘impossible’ materials for the
Physicists have come up with a bold new idea to explain the enduring mystery of our expanding Universe – we might actually be living in a ‘bubble’ between other five-dimensional spaces. If that makes your brain hurt, don’t worry, it’s supposed to. But we can break this down. Our Universe as we know it
At the very centre of the image above is something incredible – a single, positively-charged strontium atom, suspended in motion by electric fields. Not only is this an incredibly rare sight, it’s also difficult to wrap your head around the fact that this tiny point of blue light is a building block of matter.
Like divorced parents during the festive season, physics is made of two beloved authorities who just can’t get on – general relativity and quantum mechanics. For decades, many researchers have pinned their hopes of unification on something called string theory. On the up side it points to a curious connection between gravity and the behaviour
The concept of time travel has always captured the imagination of physicists and laypersons alike. But is it really possible? Of course it is. We’re doing it right now, aren’t we? We are all traveling into the future one second at a time. But that was not what you were thinking. Can we travel
Scientists in Germany say they have hit a new superconductivity milestone. According to their paper, they achieved resistance-free electrical current at the highest temperature yet: just 250 Kelvin, or -23 degrees Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Although the team’s superconducting material has yet to be verified, the claim has merit – the work was led
You probably don’t stop to think about this often, but right after the birth of the Universe, matter was not in the form we recognise today. Instead, scientists think it was very much in a state of soup, ‘quark soup’ to be precise – a state also known as quark-gluon plasma. Now, researchers say they’ve
Volcanic eruptions, as history has proven, can be very dangerous. And there’s something that can make them even more so. When lava comes into contact with water, it can dramatically explode, like it did with Hawaii’s Kīlauea and Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull – but this doesn’t always happen. The problem is, we don’t really know why
We know that even a grain of dust or tiny droplet can damage a tough metal surface if the particle gathers up a high-enough speed when it smashes into it. But until now there’s been a problem figuring out how or why that damage happens. That’s because the speed has to be really freaking high,
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