Browse Physics

A miniature time machine, possibly based on a wormhole through spacetime, could be used to break a super-secure quantum code.

A single neutrino left over from the big bang may have a quantum wave (wave function) that stretches across the universe.

The 1947 invention of the transistor, which made the microchip revolution possible, occurred in spite of a fierce rivalry between the inventors and their boss.

A feeble light beam reverses the magnetism of small regions of a magnetic semiconductor, raising new possibilities for using light in magnetic data storage.

Calculations reveal that a dense cloud of cold atoms pumped with lasers can glow with its own laser light. Such ‘random lasers’ have previously been made only from solid and liquid materials.

A new system for analyzing sleep data could help future patients by providing a more complete picture of their sleep process.

By bouncing cold atoms repeatedly using laser pulses, researchers have devised a way to measure the strength of gravity with a compact device.

A crystal of buckyballs and loosely-bound lithium conducts electricity extremely well–possibly well enough to improve future lithium-ion batteries.

Collisions between nano-particles can sometimes result in more kinetic energy coming out than went in, new simulations show.

Water containing specialized nanoparticles can transport heat at two different rates, depending on the initial configuration of the particles. An improved version of this system could help regulate heat flow in devices.

A research team used a laser to produce large amounts of anti-electrons, opening up new possibilities for research on exotic astrophysical objects.

Researchers built a digital circuit that relies on noise to perform correctly, offering a possible solution to the problem of electronic background noise in the smallest computer circuits.

A new theory explains why large polymer molecules sometimes migrate toward the coldest regions of a fluid, while the smallest ones move toward the hottest.

A new laser-based technique can directly probe the coupling of electrons in photosynthetic proteins and other complex systems.

Turning up the voltage on a machine that makes thin films leads to a sudden “runaway” increase in its output, thanks to a feedback effect.

The thin stream kicked up by dropping an object in water results from a kind of squirting action by the fluid, according to experiments and simulations.

The quantum jiggling that molecules experience even at the lowest temperatures–motion associated with the uncertainty principle–is not as tiny as researchers assumed and may be detected in the scattering of light through a liquid.

A hydrogen molecule trapped in a carbon cage is restricted to discrete energies of linear and rotational motion, an unusually clean demonstration of the wave nature of molecules.

With an array of water-activated levers, researchers demonstrate the first mechanical medium where waves travel in only one direction.

An experiment showing that an optical fiber recoils as light exits it addresses a century-old controversy over the momentum of light in transparent materials.