Q&A: Illuminating physics in the kitchen
It's a place most of us have to visit daily. Sometimes eagerly. Sometimes begrudgingly. But the kitchen also can be a place of scientific discovery......»»
People who contribute least in crowdsourcing can do the most to improve a public good, says study
Whether talking about the office kitchen, hiking trails or ratings on Yelp, there are always people who put in effort to leave those spaces better. There are also those who contribute nothing to that public good......»»
Q&A: Philosophy meets physics—professor uncovers hidden truth about Newton"s 300-year old law
Like most high schoolers in an intro to physics class, Dan Hoek heard the legendary tale of Isaac Newton and the apple......»»
Acquitting a physicist accused of "obscurantism"
American-born British theoretical physicist David Bohm made many significant contributions to physics. But he's most famous for challenging convention and interpreting quantum mechanics in terms of nonlocal or hidden variables. Several eminent contem.....»»
Detecting gravitational waves with an interferometric seismometer array on the lunar near side
A team lead by Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, recently proposed a promising plan to detect gravitational waves (GWs) by putting seismometers on the moon's surface. Their research is published in the journal Science China Physics,.....»»
Good news for clumsy divers: Physics holds the key to less-painful belly-flops
Insights could help improve future designs of naval ships, seaplanes, or projectiles. Brown researchers set up a belly flop-like water experiment using a blunt cylinder, adding an important vibrating twist to it that ul.....»»
Good news for clumsy divers: Physics holds the key to less-painful belly flops
Insights could help improve future designs of naval ships, seaplanes, or projectiles. Brown researchers set up a belly flop-like water experiment using a blunt cylinder, adding an important vibrating twist to it that ul.....»»
Physicists ask: Can we make a particle collider more energy efficient?
Ever since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, physicists have wanted to build new particle colliders to better understand the properties of that elusive particle and probe elementary particle physics at ever-higher energy scales......»»
How to Measure the Calories in a Candy Bar—With Physics!
Step one: Trick or treat. Step two: Get out your bomb calorimeter. (Yes, that is a real thing.).....»»
The Physics of Faraday Cages
You can't block electromagnetic waves, but there's still a way to keep electronic devices like cell phones in stealth mode......»»
Singles become pairs: New insights into the light scattering of atoms
Researchers headed by Jürgen Volz and Arno Rauschenbeutel from the Department of Physics at the Humboldt University of Berlin, partners of the DAALI project, have gained new insights into the scattering of light by a fluorescent atom, which could al.....»»
Dark matter scientists receive first transmissions from deep underground
Scientists have received the first transmissions from a muon detector placed 1 km underground in the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory......»»
Physics has long failed to explain life—but researchers are testing a groundbreaking new theory in the lab
Modern physics can explain everything from the spin of the tiniest particle to the behavior of entire galaxy clusters. But it can't explain life. There's simply no formula to explain the difference between a living lump of matter and a dead one. Life.....»»
Eureka: With GPT-4 overseeing training, robots can learn much faster
GPU-based physics simulator speeds up reality by "1,000x" while GPT-4 calls the shots. Enlarge / In this still captured from a video provided by Nvidia, a simulated robot hand learns pen tricks, trained by Eureka, using simultane.....»»
Q&A: Developing a tool to identify cancerous cells from their membranes
Dr. Basudev Roy, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, has recently published a paper about cell membrane fluctuations and their use for diagnosing cancerous diseases in the journal Physical B.....»»
Do we live in a computer simulation like in The Matrix? Proposed new law of physics backs up the idea
The simulated universe theory implies that our universe, with all its galaxies, planets and life forms, is a meticulously programmed computer simulation. In this scenario, the physical laws governing our reality are simply algorithms. The experiences.....»»
Accelerating waves shed light on major problems in physics
Whenever light interacts with matter, light appears to slow down. This is not a new observation and standard wave mechanics can describe most of these daily phenomena......»»
Scientists propose super-bright light sources powered by quasiparticles
An international team of scientists is rethinking the basic principles of radiation physics with the aim of creating super-bright light sources. In a new study published in Nature Photonics, researchers from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in P.....»»
New technique uses near-miss particle physics to measure wobbling tau particles
One way physicists seek clues to unravel the mysteries of the universe is by smashing matter together and inspecting the debris. But these types of destructive experiments, while incredibly informative, have limits......»»
A physics milestone: Miniature particle accelerator works
Particle accelerators are crucial tools in a wide variety of areas in industry, research and the medical sector. The space these machines require ranges from a few square meters to large research centers. Using lasers to accelerate electrons within a.....»»
Can selection tie evolution more closely to physics?
New papers claim to link evolution to other physics, but neither really succeeds. Enlarge / Does Assembly Theory have useful things to say about evolution? The paper written by its proponents makes that difficult to tell. (credit.....»»