Physics

You might not know the term ‘oobleck’, but it’s highly likely you came across it as a kid. Also known as a non-Newtonian fluid, the strange material sometimes behaves like a liquid, and sometimes acts like a solid. It’s usually made of corn-starch and water, and it produces hours of fun for children everywhere. Punch it

Scientists have observed a quantum vibration at normal room temperature for the first time, a phenomenon that usually requires ultra-cold, carefully calibrated conditions – bringing us another step closer to understanding the behaviour of quantum mechanics in common materials. The team was able to spot a phonon, a quantum particle of vibration generated from high-frequency

You might be familiar with the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, where the eponymous feline in a box can be both alive or dead at the same time, often used to illustrate the multi-state paradox of quantum mechanics. Well, now scientists have managed to apply that theory to huge molecules made up of 2,000 atoms. Quantum

From smartphones to electric cars, we’re going to continue to need plenty of batteries in the years to come. New research shows how an upgraded type of aluminium battery could offer several advantages over the traditional lithium-ion ones in use today. The battery has low production costs, and doesn’t take the same environmental toll as

Superconductivity (passing charges through materials without losing heat) promises to revolutionise electronics and power, if we can get it working at reasonable temperatures – and scientists just reported a big step forward in our understanding of the phenomenon. The new discovery centres around the Hubbard model: a maths model of conduction and insulation in materials,

For several years now, physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) have been running a landmark experiment, recording tens of billions of particles break apart in the hopes of catching a few oddballs. And they finally have some intriguing results to share. This experiment, called NA62, has researchers building and destroying pairs of quarks called

A huge experiment to pin down the mass of one of the Universe’s most perplexing particles has put a cap on how big the neutrino might actually be. Once considered massless, the particle’s mass is now thought to weigh no more than a single electronvolt. It might not be a precise answer, but it does

You might think you already know black – even super-black Vantablack, previously the blackest material known to science – but researchers just came up with a material that takes black to a new level of blackness. The new, as-yet-unnamed ultra-black material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), microscopic carbon strings that are a

A fifty-year-old hypothesis predicting the existence of bodies dubbed Generic Objects of Dark Energy (GEODEs) is getting a second look in light of a proposed correction to assumptions we use to model the way our Universe expands. If this new version of a classic cosmological model is correct, some black holes could hide cores of pure

Protons probably aren’t quite as big as we’d once imagined, according to the results of a sensitive physics experiment that took eight years to complete. Scientists now say our earlier measurements of proton size were off by as much as 5 percent – which might not seem like such a huge correction, but to physicists

A team of researchers has just demonstrated quantum enhancement in an actual X-ray machine, achieving the desirable goal of eliminating background noise for precision detection. The relationships between photon pairs on quantum scales can be exploited to create sharper, higher-resolution images than classical optics. This emerging field is called quantum imaging, and it has some

Water is a weird molecule, and no matter how many strange things about it we discover, it seems like there are always more unexpected surprises waiting around the corner – even after centuries of researching it. Case in point: in a new study, scientists in the US have discovered that in the right circumstances, water

When two neutron stars collide, it’s not like we can just pop up there with a thermometer to measure the intense temperatures being generated at the heart of the collision. There are other observables that can help us calculate surface temperatures, but inside? That’s a little trickier. Add to that the fact that we’ve only

It’s not like the one in your car, but a team of physicists at Trinity College Dublin have built what they claim is the world’s smallest engine. The engine is the size of a single calcium ion – about ten billion times smaller than an automobile engine. Rather than powering your next road trip, the

Scientists have found evidence of superconductivity happening at temperatures and energy levels way above its normal boundaries – a finding which could one day go on to help revolutionise the design and workings of our electronics. A superconductor material is one that can transfer electricity without resistance. In turn, this means the electricity travels through

For quantum computing to become fully realised, we’re going to have to make a few huge scientific leaps along the way – including finding a superconductor that can act in the same way as silicon does in today’s computing. A team of researchers thinks that search might now be over. Introducing the compound uranium ditelluride

Carbon can be arranged in a number of configurations. When each of its atoms is bonded to three other carbon atoms, it’s relatively soft graphite. Add just one more bond and it becomes one of the hardest minerals known, diamond. Chuck 60 carbon atoms together in a soccerball shape and boom, buckyballs. But a ring

It’s time to celebrate another first in the field of quantum physics: scientists have been able to ‘teleport’ a qutrit, or a piece of quantum information based on three states, opening up a whole host of new possibilities for quantum computing and communication. Up until now, quantum teleportation has only been managed with qubits, albeit

Researchers have created the thinnest unsupported gold sheets ever created in a lab, producing infinitesimal slivers of the precious metal that are only two atoms thick. These vanishingly thin gold sheets – approximately 1 million times thinner than a human fingernail – measure just 0.47 nanometres in thickness, representing a new breakthrough in the fabrication

The Negev desert that sprawls across Israel is one of the driest places on Earth, but deep below its surface is a different story. Held in the sandstone deep underground is a reservoir of fossil water that lay undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of years. Researchers know this water is old, because it can’t have been

Scientists have just discovered something new about gold. When extreme crushing pressure is applied quickly, over mere nanoseconds, the element’s atomic structure changes, becoming more similar to metals harder than gold. It’s the first time this structural state has ever been observed in gold, suggesting properties that could help scientists refine their understanding of how

Imagine trying to film an event that was over and done within a mere 125 trillionths of a second. It’s something that molecular physicists have long been dreaming of, and at last it seems they’ve achieved their goal. Using precisely tuned pulses of laser light, an international team of scientists from four different institutions has

New images of the Majorana fermion have brought physicists a step closer to harnessing the mysterious objects for quantum computing. These strange objects – particles that acts as their own antiparticles – have a vast as-yet untapped potential to act as qubits, the quantum bits that are the basic units of information in a quantum

When it comes to our physical world, scientific research indicates that size really does matter. While “big” objects, anything from a grain of sand to a galaxy, abide by one set of rules – classical physics – tiny objects, such as atoms and particles, abide by an entirely different set, a discovery that gave birth

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? An experiment earlier this year shows just how much wiggle room we can expect when it comes to distinguishing the past from the future, at least

We may not know what dark matter is, but one thing we do know: it doesn’t appear to have killed anyone by slamming into them – an event that would, at the very least, result in serious injury. So you can scratch that one off your list of things to worry about in this worrisome

In a major step forward for atomic-scale quantum computing, scientists have built the first two-qubit gate between atoms in silicon, allowing qubits to communicate with each other and perform operations faster than ever before. Since a two-qubit gate is the fundamental building block of a quantum computer, this has pretty amazing implications. “A lot of

Physicists in the US have discovered a material that could qualify as the first known three-dimensional example of a quantum spin liquid – an exotic theoretical phase of matter. Quantum spin liquids were first predicted by scientists back in the 1970s. While researchers have studied them for decades, these phases largely remain a theoretical concept, although

Hidden underneath the Naryn-Kala fortress in Derbent, Russia, is a mysterious subterranean vault – a buried structure whose original purpose has been unknown for decades. Now, thanks to clever use of scanning technology, we might finally know what the building is. Researchers used a nuclear physics technology known as muon radiography. It works by tracking the charged

Using some of the world’s most advanced microscope technology, scientists have captured images of molecules changing their charge state in real time. To do this, they added and removed electrons, directly observing changes to the structure of four molecules. Although we’ve known for a long time that such changes occur, this marks the first time

In an incredible first, scientists have captured the world’s first actual photo of quantum entanglement – a phenomenon so strange Einstein famously described it as ‘spooky action at a distance’. The image was captured by physicists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and it’s so breathtaking we can’t stop staring. It might not look like

In the summer of 1935, the physicists Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger engaged in a rich, multifaceted and sometimes fretful correspondence about the implications of the new theory of quantum mechanics. The focus of their worry was what Schrödinger later dubbed entanglement: the inability to describe two quantum systems or particles independently, after they have

Photons – those fundamental particles of light – have a slew of interesting properties, including the fact they don’t tend to crash into one another. That hasn’t stopped physicists from trying, though. University of Chicago physicists have now come up with a new, highly flexible way to make photons behave more like the particles that

It may be Independence Day, but there’s nothing revolutionary about the way your 4th of July fireworks are made. Fireworks have been built from a mix of explosive powder, chemicals, and glue for ages. The earliest fireworks shows date back more than a thousand years. But not all fireworks are built the same. You can’t

Using a new technique, scientists have performed the world’s smallest magnetic resonance imaging to capture the magnetic fields of single atoms. It’s an incredible breakthrough that could improve quantum research, as well as our understanding of the Universe on subatomic scales. “I am very excited about these results,” said physicist Andreas Heinrich of the Institute

Quantum computing promises to revolutionise the power and scale of our computing systems, if only we can figure out how to harness it. Now scientists have made a discovery about how optimal quantum computation might be achieved – and gravity may be the key. More specifically, the geometric rules for finding the shortest distance between

For the first time, scientists have clearly linked together two types of gamma-ray phenomena in thunderclouds, suggesting that weak bursts of gamma-ray activity might precede lightning flashes in certain conditions. The two phenomena in question are weak emissions called gamma-ray glows, which last about a minute, and much shorter and more intense terrestrial gamma-ray flashes

Nothing says welcome to the future like having your wound fixed by a tiny lightsaber. It might sound wild at first, but that’s basically what a new plasma technology advance is now promising. This exciting development means we could soon commercialise low-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs) that operate out in open air, promising a

In 1949, famous physicist Lars Onsager published a paper discussing the potential implications of superfluids and turbulence. Now, 70 years later, a team of Australian researchers has conducted an experiment to back his theory – using a tiny quantum version of Jupiter’s ‘Great Red Spot’ to do it. The swirling fluids on the surface of

Our entire living reality happens in a three-dimensional Universe, so naturally it’s hard to imagine a universe with just two dimensions. But, according to new calculations, a 2D universe could actually support life, too. The new paper is the work of physicist James Scargill at the University of California, Davis, who wanted to test the

The super-thin ‘wonder material’ graphene has been shaking up science for years with its amazing properties, but things get really interesting when you stack this 2D nanomaterial up against itself. In new experiments, physicists in the US have found that when graphene is assembled in a double-layer vertical stack – with two adjacent sheets of

Who better to make the perfect crêpe than two French physicists who specialise in fluid dynamics? Edouard Boujo and Mathieu Sellier are experts in their field, and yet both have struggled in the past to cook the thin pancakes with no lumps and bumps in the middle. Frustrated by their failed attempts and prompted by their hungry families,

There’s something about a bubble of soapy water that causes it to freeze in a peculiar yet beautiful way. The magical-looking reaction has been an internet sensation for years now, and physicists at Virginia Tech think they finally have an explanation. When a normal drop of water ices over, it starts at the coldest point and

Scientists have discovered an unexpectedly simple formula that governs one of the most seemingly unknowable limits in physics: determining how much of an electric field a water droplet can withstand before it will burst. This infinitesimal phenomenon has been studied by physicists for decades, but while the overall concept may be easy to imagine, discerning

Nothing lasts forever. Humans, planets, stars, galaxies, maybe even the Universe itself, everything has an expiration date. But things in the quantum realm don’t always follow the rules. Now, scientists have found that quasiparticles in quantum systems could be effectively immortal. That doesn’t mean they don’t decay, which is reassuring. But once these quasiparticles have

The word uncertainty is used a lot in quantum mechanics. One school of thought is that this means there’s something out there in the world that we are uncertain about. But most physicists believe nature itself is uncertain. Intrinsic uncertainty was central to the way German physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the originators of modern

The particle known as a Majorana fermion is as mysterious and uncontrollable as it is unique. It’s the only known particle that is also its own antiparticle, and has properties that make it an alluring candidate for qubits, the basic unit of information in a quantum computer. Harnessing that potential, however, is easier said than

A new superconducting magnet has briefly sustained an astonishing 45.5 tesla magnetic field intensity. For comparison, your flimsy fridge magnets have about 1 percent of a single tesla. The measurement, achieved by researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) at Florida State University resets the bar on what’s possible in direct current magnetic