About a hundred years ago, in his theory of general relativity Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, “ripples” in the fabric of space and time as a result of the universe’s violent and energetic processes, like a collision and merger of black holes or a collapse of supernova. Gravitational waves are difficult to […]
Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave simultaneously as a particle or a wave, but it’s only possible to see one of these attributes at any given moment. Even though a variety of experiments have successfully observed both behaviors of light, they have never been able to observe both at the same time. Now, […]
Back in 2010, researchers found that superfluid helium reservoirs stored in separate containers could behave collectively. Now, a new theoretical model reveals that the phenomenon of mysterious “action at a distance” between fluid reservoirs is much more common than previously thought. The original discovery, made by a team from the University at Buffalo and the […]
Using a new quantum imaging technique, a picture has been captured without the camera detecting the light that was used to illuminate the subject. Instead, the detector relies on entangled photons that have never touched the subject (in this case, a silhouette of a cat). Normally, an image of an object is obtained by sensing […]
Physicists have proposed an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell’s inequality – a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, would mean that our Universe is based not on the laws of classical physics, but on the probabilities of quantum mechanics. In 1964, physicist John Bell took on this seeming disparity […]
In his book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued that as individuals strive to maximize their advantage in life, they inadvertently contribute – as if under the influence of a “hidden hand”- to an aggregate disposition of wealth. Victor Yakovenko, a scientist at the Joint Quantum Institute, thinks that if Smith were a physicist, […]
Building on related research that showed how two entangled black holes could be linked by a wormhole, an MIT physicist has shown that two entangled quarks could also give rise to a wormhole that connects the pair of elementary particles. The new work bolsters the relatively new idea that the laws of gravity holding together […]
A cornerstone of physics may require a rethink if the results from a series of new ion trap (pictured) experiments at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are confirmed. The results, reported in Physical Review Letters, indicate that predictions based on the fundamental theory of electromagnetism may not accurately account for the behavior […]
The gravity-defying grace and exquisite balance of our feline friends extends to the way they lap-up their milk; which MIT, Virginia Tech and Princeton University engineers have found is a perfect balance between two physical forces. Reporting their findings in the journal Science, the researchers explain that when cats lap, they extend their tongues straight […]
The exceptionally simple theory of everything – known as E8 – proposed by a surfing physicist in 2007, does not hold water, says rock-climbing Emory mathematician Skip Garibaldi. Garibaldi did the math to disprove the theory in conjunction with physicist Jacques Distler, of the University of Texas, and their work appears in Communications in Mathematical […]
