Browse Physics

Simulations reveal both solid- and liquidlike frictional properties in molecularly thin lubricants.

A proposed device improves on past designs and would sort small particles from large ones to a purity of over 99 percent, without any moving parts.

A new technique measures each unit of charge that accumulates on a submerged plastic bead, unprecedented resolution for a liquid-solid interface and an experiment that may benefit a variety of commercial devices and processes.

An obstacle at the exit of a silo relieves local pressure, aiding the flow of small particles that might otherwise clog.

Motion in an ice avalanche is strongly affected by the feedback effect of melting.

An improved version of a technique for folding tiny objects from a thin membrane uses a magnetic field to affect the shape. The membrane wraps around a droplet of fluid that distorts in response to the field.

A discrepancy between theory and experiment regarding how molecules fold in response to applied forces is resolved.

A conceptual framework that describes the fluidlike flow of dry granular materials also works for particles suspended in a liquid.

AFM experiments suggest the long lifetime of surface nanobubbles is due to a balanced influx and outflux of gas molecules.

A two-dimensional trap takes advantage of the magnetic domain walls in a narrow wire to guide the thermal motion of magnetic particles.

The dramatic speed-up of fluid flow in a drying drop of a colloidal suspension controls the pattern of order and disorder in the particle stain that is left behind.

Corrugations found along the intestine’s inner wall reflect both a mechanical buckling and the constant birth and death of cells, theorists suggest.

Calculations elucidate how the lateral diffusion of macromolecules within a liquid membrane depends on the properties of the solvent layer surrounding it.

Colloids containing ellipsoidal particles have two distinct glass transitions.

The structures within a pile of soil or grain that allows it to bear weight depend only on the average number of neighbors for each particle, not on any details of the types of particles or even on the presence of gravity.

Ring formation in polymerization offers new insight into the formation of giant polymer clusters.

Dynamical heterogeneity, spatiotemporal fluctuations in local dynamical behavior, may explain the statistical mechanics of amorphous solids that are mechanically rigid but have a disordered structure similar to that of a dense liquid.

A rich variety of wrinkle patterns emerge when trying to wrap a sphere with a flat sheet.

The flow properties of foams may not be that different from those of granular materials.

Light scattering measurements provide a microscopic picture of particle motion in a slowly sedimenting gel.