Physics

Mar 7th, 2025 - Scientists have succeeded in making light behave like a "supersolid" for the first time—a breakthrough that could improve our understanding of this exotic phase of matter. A supersolid has an ordered structure like a solid but can also flow without friction like a superfluid , and previously they have only been produced in so-called " Bose–Einstein condensates "—which are formed when a gas of atoms is cooled to near absolute zero. "This is only the beginning of understanding ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2025 - A novel theory could finally bridge the gap between quantum physics and general relativity. Gravity is the most familiar of nature's forces. It keeps our feet planted on the ground and dictates the movements of planets and stars. Yet, even so, gravity remains one of the greatest mysteries in physics. In their quest to understand the fundamental forces of the universe, scientists have gotten stuck on gravity. While the other forces — electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2025 - A team of theoretical physicists has proposed a new way to test one of the most intriguing predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity : gravitational memory. This effect refers to a permanent shift in the fabric of the universe caused by the passage of space-time ripples known as gravitational waves. Although these waves have already been detected by observatories such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometer, the waves' ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2025 - Light was turned into a quasiparticle that simultaneously behaved like a crystal and wave. A supersolid is a paradox of physics — a material that is both solid and liquid at the same time. This contradictory form of matter was first proposed more than 60 years ago, and, for a long time, people thought it was too nuts to actually exist. But we're talking about the realm of quantum mechanics, and normal expectations should be thrown out the window. In 2007 , researchers at ETH Zurich and ... [Read More]

Mar 3rd, 2025 - The Universe doesn't care which direction time flows in. Everyone knows that time flows in one direction, with events occurring in a sequence. Time's unidirectionality is linked to entropy, the unstoppable urge of any system to become increasingly disordered. A castle made of sand will eventually collapse, left to its own devices in the desert, but it won't magically form again in this 'ordered' structure. Once you crack an egg, it won't "uncrack" itself. A broken glass shatters and does not ... [Read More]

Mar 3rd, 2025 - DeMille is a pioneering physicist who has developed techniques to search for evidence of new particles and forces that could explain some of the universe's most enduring mysteries World-leading atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physicist David DeMille is looking for new particles and forces that could answer fundamental questions about the universe and solve some of the greatest mysteries of cosmology. DeMille, who recently joined Johns Hopkins University as Bloomberg Distinguished Professor ... [Read More]

Feb 1st, 2025 - Spin Hall nano-oscillators (SHNOs) are nanoscale spintronic devices that convert direct current into high-frequency microwave signals through spin wave auto-oscillations. This is a type of nonlinear magnetization oscillations that are self-sustained without the need for a periodic external force. Theoretical and simulation studies found that propagating spin-wave modes, in which spin waves move across materials instead of being confined to the auto-oscillation region, can promote the coupling ... [Read More]

Jan 22nd, 2025 - Researchers have obtained the first conclusive evidence of an elusive third class of magnetism , called altermagnetism. Their findings, published Dec. 11 in the journal Nature , could revolutionize the design of new high-speed magnetic memory devices and provide the missing puzzle piece in the development of better superconducting materials. "We have previously had two well-established types of magnetism," study author Oliver Amin , a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham in ... [Read More]

Jan 16th, 2025 - Scientists have peered inside protons and discovered that quarks and gluons, their fundamental building blocks, experience quantum entanglement . Entangled particles are connected to each other, so that a change to one instantaneously causes a change to the other, even if they are separated by vast distances. Albert Einstein famously dismissed the idea as "spooky action at a distance," but later experiments proved that the bizarre, locality-breaking effect is real. Physicists have observed ... [Read More]

Jan 13th, 2025 - By & Theoretical physicists have proposed the existence of a new type of particle that doesn't fit into the conventional classifications of fermions and bosons. Their 'paraparticle', described in Nature on January 8, is not the first to be suggested, but the detailed mathematical model characterizing it could lead to experiments in which it is created using a quantum computer. The research also suggests that undiscovered elementary paraparticles might exist in nature. In a separate development ... [Read More]

Jan 9th, 2025 - For more than a century, scientists have been fascinated by the possibility that hidden, minuscule spatial dimensions could be influencing the physics of our familiar three-dimensional world. Despite decades of experimental searches, however, there has yet to be concrete evidence of these extra dimensions. Now, a recent study proposes a way to advance this search: using the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to probe these hidden dimensions through neutrino behavior. Neutrinos ... [Read More]

Dec 29th, 2024 - The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once—an insight with potentially major ramifications. The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine . Imagine standing on a railway platform watching a trolley go past. A girl on the trolley drops a bright red ball. To her, the ball falls straight down. But from the platform, you see the ball traverse an arc before hitting the trolley floor. The two of you ... [Read More]

Dec 27th, 2024 - Quantum computers are expected to solve some problems beyond the reach of the most powerful supercomputers imaginable. Reaching this milestone has been dubbed "quantum supremacy." But whether quantum supremacy has been achieved yet and what it would mean for the field remain unsettled. The term "quantum supremacy" was coined in 2012 by John Preskill , a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech, to describe the point at which a quantum computer can do something that a classical one cannot. ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2024 - One mile beneath a mountain in Italy, scientists at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory fill a particle detector with liquid xenon, hoping to observe evidence of dark matter . The idea is that, free from cosmic rays that interfere with these sorts of experiments aboveground, the lab will eventually detect invisible particles that do not interact with light by mapping how those particles collide with the xenon in the experiment — almost like a group of pool balls that shoots out in all ... [Read More]