Browse Physics

A new technique extracts 3-D info from flat, nanoscale images, potentially leading to high-speed, 3-D movies.

New details of the microscopic architecture of mother-of-pearl suggest how this material could have grown to be so strong.

A theory proposes a new way in which a material could allow magnetic and electric fields to influence one another–a property with great potential for new devices.

New calculations explain why water has such a strong response to electric fields.

Computer simulations reveal an underlying structure for the disordered state of a large number of spheres dumped into a box.

Two black holes can merge and then shoot out of their galaxy, according to computer simulations, and the streaking black hole ‘rocket’ might be visible to astronomers if conditions are right.

Nanoscale air bubbles in water appear to withstand huge swings in pressure, further deepening the mystery as to why they can exist in the first place.

Quasicrystals–orderly but not-quite-crystalline structures–have mostly appeared in solids, but researchers have now made a larger-scale version with polymers.

In a step toward faster and smaller computer memories, researchers pushed the wall between two magnetic regions at over 100 meters per second, 100 times faster than ever before.

In the 1950s, in one of the largest physics experiments of its time, two physicists detected the neutrino, a particle postulated by theorists a quarter of a century earlier.

Researchers demonstrated a tiny memory element controlled by lasers that can switch among four states, rather than the usual two.

A micro-art technique offers the possibility of improved construction of microstructures.

A new trick of relativity theory allows computer simulations of high-speed particle interactions to run much faster.

A theory predicts when a sieve will block particles smaller than its holes and could apply to a variety of natural and artificial filters.

An overlooked gamma-ray production mechanism explains a mysterious source of high-energy radiation from space.

A mathematical model of animal populations shows precisely what elements are required for predators and prey to avoid extinction.

A new theory explains the formation of interlaced zipper-like patterns that appear when thin ice sheets collide.

A new theory explains the force produced by a drastically stretched rubber band. The standard theory works only for modest stretching.

Researchers directly measured the time-varying field during a spark-like electrical breakdown that formed a plasma.

A tank of stirred liquid sodium generates a magnetic field even though it’s highly turbulent–a condition closer to real dynamos in planets, stars, and galaxies, but harder to simulate in the lab.