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For nearly 70 years, CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, has served as a narrow but sturdy cultural bridge between East and West. But that link, which endured the coldest days of the Cold War, is straining under the weighty repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some Ukrainian physicists are calling for Russia … Read more
Physicists in Australia have programmed a quantum computer half a world away to make, or at least simulate, a record-size time crystal—a system of quantum particles that locks into a perpetual cycle in time, somewhat akin to the repeating spatial pattern of atoms in an actual crystal. The new time crystal comprises 57 quantum particles, … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more For years, Maritza Tavarez-Brown couldn’t talk about the end of her astronomy career without tears. She’d wanted to be an astronomer since high school. But she struggled in her introductory … Read more
Scientists can now reliably create a strange quantum object called a domain wall. The discovery could lead to new quantum technology and to a better understanding of quantum particles in general. Domain walls form when groups of atoms at very low temperatures segregate into different clumps, or “domains.” Between those domains forms a “wall” that … Read more
This story is part of a special package being published this week about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science Apriel Hodari has spent many years studying how to improve training and reduce inequity in the scientific workforce. That research has brought her face to face with “the … Read more
This story is part of a special package about the barriers Black physicists face and potential models for change. Read more C. Smith/Science In the 1990s, physics departments at U.S. universities faced an existential crisis. The number of undergraduate physics majors had plummeted by 25% over 10 years, prompting fears that many departments might disappear … Read more
Ghost-like particles called neutrinos hardly ever interact with normal matter, giving the teensy apparitions supreme hiding powers. They are so elusive that, in the decades since their initial discovery, physicists still haven’t pinned down their mass. But recently, by plopping them onto a 200-ton “neutrino scale,” scientists have put a new limit on the neutrino’s mass. The … Read more
Decaying isotopes of hydrogen have just given us the smallest measurement yet of the mass of a neutrino. By measuring the energy distribution of electrons released during the beta decay of tritium, physicists have determined that the upper limit for the mass of the electron antineutrino is just 0.8 electronvolts. That’s 1.6 × 10–36 kilograms … Read more
A new museum exhibit hopes to uncover the secrets behind the doodles, in-jokes and coded messages on a blackboard that legendary physicist Stephen Hawking kept untouched for more than 35 years. The blackboard dates from 1980, when Hawking joined fellow physicists at a conference on superspace and supergravity at the University of Cambridge in … Read more
As basic science teaches us, changes in temperature can result in phase transitions in materials – like when water solidifies as ice in the freezing cold. However, in some cases the temperature that triggers the change is different depending on whether the material is cooling down or warming up. This is known as a hysteresis … Read more