Physics

10 April 2013
Radiation exposure from "dark lightning" quantified
Physicists have developed a new model of how thunderstorms manage to produce high-energy gamma-ray radiation and what the likely risk is for air travelers who happen to be near the lightning strike...

10 January 2013
Telling time with matter waves
Berkeley scientists say they have discovered a way to tell time by measuring matter waves, the oscillations of matter whose frequency is 10 billion times higher than that of visible light. Intriguingly, the researchers say the technique can also be reversed, using time to measure mass...

11 December 2012
Are we living in a computer simulation? Physicists propose test to find out
In 2003, a British philosopher published a probabilistic analysis examining the possibility that we might all be living in a computer simulation. His conclusion - that we quite likely are living in a computer simulation - might soon be put to the test by US physicists...

29 November 2012
New experimental findings challenge theory of electromagnetism
A cornerstone of physics may require a rethink if the results from a series of new experiments are confirmed. They suggest that predictions based on the fundamental theory of electromagnetism may not accurately account for the behavior of atoms in exotic states...

26 November 2012
Brain, Universe, Internet governed by same fundamental laws, suggests supercomputer simulation
Structural and dynamical similarities between the human brain and other complex networks such as the Internet or the Universe itself suggest that some fundamental laws might govern them all, although the nature and origin of such laws remain elusive...

1 November 2012
Synthetic magnetism used to control light
Stanford physicists and engineers have demonstrated a device that produces synthetic magnetism to exert virtual force on photons similar to the effect of a magnetic field on electrons...

29 October 2012
Experiment could reveal mechanism behind quantum entanglement
European and Asian physicists have devised a do-able experiment that could reveal the precise workings of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance." The results would show that either faster-than-light communication is possible, or, that the Universe is fundamentally nonlocal, in the sense that every bit of the Universe is connected to every other bit...

20 October 2012
Ball lightning an ion discharge, contends Aussie scientist
No explanation of how ball lightning occurs has been universally accepted by science, but an Australian researcher thinks eye-witness accounts from airline pilots may offer an important clue...

8 September 2012
New uncertainty over uncertainty principle
One of the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, is being freshly challenged by University of Toronto researchers who say that Heisenberg's pessimistic assessment of the limits of measurement may be incorrect...

24 August 2012
Flat lens focuses without distortion
Physicists at Harvard have created an ultrathin, flat lens that focuses light without imparting the distortions that occur with conventional lenses...

10 August 2012
Banking regulations could create financial chaos, say physicists
Imposing minimal capital levels for banks in an effort to stabilize the banking sector will not prevent insolvency and may lead to even greater financial chaos, say the creators of a new theoretical framework for bank stability...

5 July 2012
New boson could be Higgs particle, say CERN boffins
CERN physicists say they have enough statistical evidence to claim discovery of a new fundamental particle - a boson that may, pending further investigation, prove to be the so-called "god" particle responsible for the elusive Higgs field that gives other particles mass...

4 July 2012
Atom shadow photographed using traditional microscopy
For the first time, Australian scientists have managed to photograph the shadow of an atom using only visible light and an extremely powerful optical microscope...

15 February 2012
"Cloaked" buildings could withstand earthquakes, say UK scientists
While much media attention has been paid to the development of an invisibility "cloak" that works with electromagnetic waves such as light, mathematicians from the University of Manchester have been looking at cloaking other wave-types, specifically, the damaging elastic waves generated by earthquakes...

14 December 2011
Higgs boson: no news is God news
The Higgs boson, the elusive so-called "God particle" that gives other particles mass, is still proving to be elusive, with the release of nebulous findings from the Large Hadron Collider that physicists say "hint" at the particle's existence...

5 November 2011
Fine structure constant may vary across universe
Electromagnetism, measured by the so-called fine-structure constant, is one of the four fundamental forces of nature and underpins Einstein's general theory of relativity. But an Australian physicist's observations of distant galaxies indicate that this constant may in fact be a variable...

23 September 2011
Unfashionably early neutrinos trigger faster-than-light brouhaha
Neutrinos shot out of the CERN particle research center have been arriving at their destination too early; suggesting, say the physicists involved, that the sub-atomic particles are travelling faster than the speed of light...

28 July 2011
Acoustic diode allows one-way sound transmission
Based on a simple assembly of granular crystals that transmit sound vibrations, Caltech researchers have created the first tunable acoustic diode that allows sound to travel only in one direction...

19 July 2011
Galactic spin theory neatly explains Charge Parity violation
Experimental observations of sub-atomic particles known as Kaons and B Mesons have revealed significant differences in how their matter and anti-matter versions decay. This “Charge Parity violation” is an awkward anomaly for physicists but a radical new theory suggests that the rotation of our galaxy may explain the discrepancy...

16 June 2011
Experimental results hint at neutrino flavor change
By shooting a beam of neutrinos through a small slice of the Earth under Japan, physicists say they've caught the particles changing their stripes in intriguing new ways...

6 June 2011
Antimatter bottled-up for 16 minutes
Antimatter remains an enigma, but researchers at CERN may soon be able to ascertain some of its key properties thanks to groundbreaking techniques they've developed that trap and store antimatter for more than 15 minutes...

2 June 2011
Physicists explore negative entropy in computation
A team of physicists have discovered that not only do computational processes sometimes generate no heat; under certain conditions they can even have a cooling effect...

15 April 2011
Bicycle design: back to the drawing board
How a bicycle stays upright while moving has always been something of a mystery to science, with a vague cocktail of gyroscopic effects being the accepted explanation. Now, however, scientists have determined the complex interplay of design characteristics that make a bike stay upright, and radically different bicycle designs may be in the offing...

8 April 2011
Physics community buzzing over possible new particle
Experiments at the Tevatron particle accelerator have produced results that indicate the existence of a new, unknown particle that is not predicted by the fundamental laws of physics...

1 April 2011
Spin sensitivity of DNA surprises researchers
Researchers investigating quantum interactions in biological molecules have shown that DNA is extremely sensitive to particle "spin." Their experiment shows that DNA can somehow discern and "filter" electrons moving through it, a finding that could impact both medical science and electronics research...

16 March 2011
LHC may produce time travelling particles
If the Large Hadron Collider does produce the elusive Higgs boson, then physicists speculate that it will also create a second particle, known as the Higgs singlet, that can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or past...

1 February 2011
First demonstration of coherent control of a quantum multi-resonator architecture
Physicists have put a new slant on the shell game by demonstrating the ability to hide and shuffle "quantum-mechanical peas" - in this case single photons - under and between three microwave resonators acting as quantized shells...

21 January 2011
Naturally quantum critical material identified
In what researchers are calling a "dream system," an exotic new superconductor based on the element ytterbium appears to exist in a quantum critical state naturally; a highly desirable property that could have profound implications for the manufacture of superconductors and electronics...

12 January 2011
Satellite catches thunderstorm producing antimatter bursts
Astronomers using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in orbit above the Earth have detected beams of antimatter produced above terrestrial thunderstorms, a phenomenon never seen before...

19 November 2010
Getting to grips with spookiness
Physicists say they have found an equation which shows that non-locality and uncertainty, the two defining properties of quantum physics, are quantitatively linked and that the "amount" of non-locality is determined by the uncertainty principle...

26 August 2010
Solar flares spookily linked to radioactive decay on Earth
Researchers have found that the radioactive decay of some elements sitting in laboratories on Earth seems to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away. This surprising finding, they speculate, may indicate a previously unknown particle emitted by the sun...

17 August 2010
New insight into matter-antimatter conundrum
Physicists have observed that short-lived B meson particles produced from proton collisions break down into debris that includes slightly more matter than antimatter, just the sort of matter/antimatter asymmetry that could explain the prevalence of matter over antimatter in the universe...

30 July 2010
Graphene stress produces gigantic pseudo-magnetic fields
Researchers have reported the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory - just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene...

3 June 2010
Scientists' frustration with frustration at an end
Frustration, the term used to describe a system's interacting components when they cannot settle into a state that minimizes each interaction, has been extremely difficult to study because even systems with few components have interactions so complex that they cannot be modeled effectively on the most powerful computers. Now, however, a team of researchers has simulated frustration in a quantum system in a precisely controllable experimental arrangement. The breakthrough should provide new insights into a host of puzzling phenomena that affect systems from neural networks and social structures to protein folding and magnetism...

19 May 2010
Ball lightning all in the mind, say physicists
Physicists have shown that the magnetic fields produced by lightning discharges have the same properties as transcranial magnetic stimulation, a technique used in psychiatry that can produce images of luminous shapes in the brain...

11 May 2010
Robustness of quantum entanglement in photosynthesis surprises researchers
Scientists have conducted the first study in which quantum entanglement has been examined and quantified in a real biological system...

27 April 2010
Atomic spin captured in image
The use of atomic spin to create nanoscale magnetic storage devices – a field known as spintronics – is a hot topic in physics and computing, but until now no one had actually seen the spin...

22 April 2010
Physicists get a glimpse of fault-tolerant qubits
Rice University physicists have uncovered a bizarre state of matter which possesses what the researchers call a "quantum registry," making it immune to information loss from external quantum perturbations...

7 April 2010
Black hole effect created with nanotube
Harvard physicists have found that a high-voltage nanotube can cause cold atoms to spiral inward under dramatic acceleration before disintegrating violently - an atomic scale destructive force that is eerily similar to the inexorable attractive force that black holes exert on matter at the cosmic scale...

29 March 2010
E8 "theory of everything" looking rocky
The exceptionally simple theory of everything - known as E8 - proposed by a physicist surfer dude in 2007, does not hold water, says a rock-climbing Emory mathematician...

12 March 2010
Physicists to probe flu virus for macro quantum effects
European scientists have described an experiment to test for quantum superposition states in objects composed of as many as one billion atoms, specifically, a flu virus...

16 February 2010
Mirror symmetry broken at 4 trillion degrees
Mirror symmetry, the behavior that normally characterizes the interactions of quarks and gluons, has been observed to break down during extremely energetic particle collisions, raising the tantalizing prospect of different symmetries governing space, time and the behavior of fundamental particles...

18 January 2010
Tying light in knots
A team of physicists has used knot theory - a branch of abstract mathematics - to create holograms where light can flow in whirls and eddies, forming lines in space called optical vortices...