Browse Physics

With a simple ball and stick model, theorists explain how the two flagella on a swimming alga become synchronized.

The atomic force microscope, introduced in 1986, provided atomic-scale pictures of surfaces, with few limitations on the type of sample.

An ultra-high-speed camera has captured the cooling of surface electrons in topological insulators.

Quantum calculations are a valuable predictive tool for designing better alloys.

New research has identified a rare form of magnetism at the interface between two different oxide compounds.

Cloaking mechanisms, analogous to those in optical metamaterials, can also hide regions that scatter electrons in semiconductors.

A phase transition controlled by noise determines how volatile rankings are.

Thin filaments of intense laser light have many potential uses but are unstable. Experiments demonstrate that they can be stabilized by sending them through glass whose properties vary periodically in space.

A network model reveals optimal configurations for withstanding random failure or targeted attacks.

The mystery of curved folds in origami artwork is partly unraveled by a mathematical modeling of the elastic forces in a folded ring structure.

Optical microscopes can be adapted to measure the mass of individual cells.

Researchers used a nanoscale tunnel in a silicon chip to measure a flow rate of a few picoliters per minute, which is smaller than any previous observation.

Measurements with live retinal rod cells reveal their capacity for detecting the statistical properties of different light sources.

Magnetic interactions between atoms contribute to sliding friction.

A proposed interferometry experiment could detect quantum states, called anyons, which are neither bosons nor fermions.

An excess of tau leptons in bottom meson decays signals a puzzling departure from the standard model.

Researchers explain where those X- and Y-shaped waves at the shore come from.

State of the art quantum measurements show that the original formulation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can be violated.

The properties that characterize topological insulators, such as symmetry protected surface states, also appear in materials with quasiperiodic order.

Fluidlike folding instabilities of solid surfaces complicate the machining of metals to perfection