Physicists Just Reversed Time on The Smallest Scale by Using a Quantum Computer
It’s easy to take time’s arrow for granted – but the gears of physics actually work just as smoothly in reverse. Maybe that time machine is possible after all? A…
UK Put a Black Hole on a 50p Coin to Honour Stephen Hawking, And It Looks Stunning
It’s been a year since the renowned and profoundly influential physicist Stephen Hawking passed away, and the Royal Mint has honoured his legacy in the form of a new commemorative…
New Quantum Physics Experiment Suggests That Reality Isn’t Objective
A new quantum physics experiment just lent evidence to a mind-boggling idea that was previously limited to the realm of theory, according to the MIT Technology Review – that under…
Chinese Officials Say Their “Artificial Sun” Will Be Completed This Year
In November, Chinese researchers announced that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor — an “artificial sun” designed to mimic the nuclear fusion process the real Sun uses to generate…
We Just Got More Evidence That Sound Waves Really Do Carry Mass
Traditionally when we think of sound waves, we think of invisible vibrations moving weightless through the air – not carrying any mass. That might be about to change. Physicists have…
For The First Time Ever, NASA Captures Images of Supersonic Shockwaves Merging in Air
For the very first time, NASA has captured the shockwaves of two supersonic jets interacting in mid-flight, and the result is so brilliant, even the researchers are amazed. The images…
This Lab Has Built a Prototype ‘Anti-Laser’ That Swallows Light
In recent years scientists have started exploring the concept of anti-lasers – devices that can perfectly absorb a particular wavelength of light, as opposed to emitting it the way a…
Physicists Want to Use Quantum Particles to Find Out What Happens Inside a Black Hole
A new method for analysing the entanglement of scrambled particles could tell us how the Universe still keeps track of information contained by particles that disappear into black holes. It…
Melting Glass Experiment Surprises Scientists by Defying a Law of Electricity
A team of scientists working with electrical currents and silicate glass have been left gobsmacked after the glass appeared to defy a basic physical law. If you pass an electrical…
This Crazy Optical Effect Turns Plain Water Into Dazzling Iridescent Colours
Have you ever seen fine water condensation on a transparent surface shimmer like a rainbow? Scientists have now figured out exactly how it happens – and have used this new…
Physicists Are Rethinking a Fundamental Quantum Law to Help Us Understand Reality
Deep in the heart of physics there’s a lucky guess. It was an incredibly good guess, one that remains solid in the face of time and experiment, and is now…
Physicists Have Finally Solved a Fundamental Mystery Concerning The Insides of Atoms
Something about atoms has never added up. Fundamental particles called quarks get kind of sluggish once they’re caught up in crowds of protons and neutrons – and quite frankly, they…
We May Have Been Wrong About Why Grapes Make Plasma in The Microwave
For years, the internet has hemmed and hawed over a mysterious yet universal truth: a grape, sliced nearly in half and placed in the microwave, will suddenly begin to spit…
Physicists Are Recreating ‘Black Holes’ in The Lab With Surprising Simplicity
Black holes are the Universe’s most jealously guarded secrets. We all want to know what’s going on inside such exclusive space clubs, yet the best we can do is stand…
For The First Time Ever, Scientists Have Produced Fractal Light From Lasers
Two decades after the hypothetical prediction that it should be possible, scientists have been able to produce fractal light from a laser. Not only that, they’ve shown the fractal light…
Earth Could Be Crushed to The Size of a Soccer Field by Particle Accelerator Experiments, Says Astronomer
Martin Rees, a well-respected British cosmologist, made pretty bold statement late last year when it comes to particle accelerators: there’s a small, but real possibility of disaster. Particle accelerators, like…
This Wild Paper Suggests Gravity Is Just a Product of Quantum Mechanics
A team of theoretical physicists has a mind-bending new explanation for why our Universe is the way it is, and how it emerged in all its strangeness. According to a…
A 10-Year-Old Won His Science Fair With The Physics of Why Tom Brady Is a Cheater
Football fans in the US can be divided into three camps – those who think the Patriots victory against the Colts in the 2014/15 playoffs were given a helping hand…
Scientists Recreated a Devastating ‘Freak Wave’ in The Lab, And It’s Weirdly Familiar
On the Draupner oil platform off the coast of Norway, workers would expect big waves to shake things up from time to time. But at 3 pm on New Year’s…
We Just Got Lab-Made Evidence of Stephen Hawking’s Greatest Prediction About Black Holes
Scientists may have just taken a step towards experimentally proving the existence of Hawking radiation. Using an optical fibre analogue of an event horizon – a lab-created model of black…
Physicists Have Built a Machine That Actually Breaks Two Rules of Light
When you beam intense pulses of light into a thin circle, strange things will happen, according to new research based on the optical equivalent of a whispering gallery. Inside tiny…
CERN Just Revealed Plans For a New Particle Accelerator, And It’s Monstrously Huge
Some of the Universe’s deepest secrets are locked up so tight, a whole new kind of subatomic cataclysm is needed to tear them free. To unleash those kinds of forces,…
Physicists Just Created a Strange New Type of ‘Quasicrystal’ in The Lab
Dan Shechtman has the rare honour of possessing a Nobel Prize for ‘nonsense’. It’s been nearly four decades since he set out to convince the chemist community of a discovery…
Mind-Melting Study Says Our Universe Is an Expanding Bubble in Another Dimension
Physicists have come up with a bold new idea to explain the enduring mystery of our expanding Universe – we might actually be living in a ‘bubble’ between other five-dimensional…
This Breathtaking Science Photo Shows a Single Trapped Atom
At the very centre of the image above is something incredible – a single, positively-charged strontium atom, suspended in motion by electric fields. Not only is this an incredibly rare…
Here’s Why String Theory Might Actually Point Us Towards a ‘Theory of Everything’
Like divorced parents during the festive season, physics is made of two beloved authorities who just can’t get on – general relativity and quantum mechanics. For decades, many researchers have…
Doctoral Student Just Published a Paper Describing How Time Travel Would Be Possible
The concept of time travel has always captured the imagination of physicists and laypersons alike. But is it really possible? Of course it is. We’re doing it right now, aren’t…
Physicists Just Smashed Another Record For High-Temperature Superconductivity
Scientists in Germany say they have hit a new superconductivity milestone. According to their paper, they achieved resistance-free electrical current at the highest temperature yet: just 250 Kelvin, or -23…
Scientists Have Recreated Tiny Drops of Quark Soup From The Very Early Universe
You probably don’t stop to think about this often, but right after the birth of the Universe, matter was not in the form we recognise today. Instead, scientists think it…
Scientists Made a Bunch of Lava And Exploded It, Because Their Jobs Are Awesome
Volcanic eruptions, as history has proven, can be very dangerous. And there’s something that can make them even more so. When lava comes into contact with water, it can dramatically…
A Tiny High-Speed Particle Could Actually Melt a Hole in a Space Station, Study Shows
We know that even a grain of dust or tiny droplet can damage a tough metal surface if the particle gathers up a high-enough speed when it smashes into it.…
We Now Have Atomic Clocks So Precise, They Could Detect Space-Time Distortion
Atomic clocks, based on the minute oscillations of atoms, are the most precise timekeeping devices humans have created. Every year, scientists make adjustments that improve the precision of these devices.…
Our Universe’s Gravity Isn’t Leaking Into Other Dimensions, Physicists Find
Well, general relativity is still holding firm. According to a new test of Einstein’s venerable theory, our Universe’s gravity isn’t leaking into other dimensions. We are all very relieved to…
The Definition of a Kilogram Has Changed
Humanity just made a weighty decision. On Friday, representatives of more than 60 nations, gathered in Versailles, France, approved a new definition for the kilogram. Since the 19th century, scientists…
The Definition of The Kilogram Is About to Change. Here’s What That Really Means
Finally, 130 years after it was established, the kilogram as we know it is about to be retired. But it’s not the end: a new definition will be put in…
These Fractal Triangles Made Out of Electrons Will Quite Possibly Blow Your Mind
The image you see above is something theoretical physicists have described as groundbreaking: a type of fractal called a Sierpinski triangle, created out of electrons on the quantum scale. It’s…
We Just Got Closer Than Ever to Unlocking Graphene’s Superconducting Powers
Scientists are now closer than ever to being able to use graphene as a superconductor – to conduct electricity with zero resistance – making it useful for developing energy efficient…
Stephen Hawking’s Final Book Suggests Time Travel May One Day Be Possible
“If one made a research grant application to work on time travel it would be dismissed immediately,” writes the physicist Stephen Hawking in his posthumous book Brief Answers to the…
LHC Is Hinting at a Tantalising New Particle. We May Even Need New Physics to Explain It
There was a huge amount of excitement when the Higgs boson was first spotted back in 2012 – a discovery that bagged the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013. The…
CERN’s About to Release Details on Tantalising ‘Bumps’ in Large Hadron Collider Data
Strap yourselves in, because CERN has something up its sleeve. On Thursday 1 November, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physicists will be discussing the fact that they may have found a…
Less Than 1% of Large Hadron Collider Data Ever Gets Looked At
When experiments are run at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, it’s a tremendous event. The world’s largest machine has been responsible for discovering numerous new subatomic particles, including the…
Living Organisms May Have Been Put in Quantum Entanglement For First Time, Study Claims
A few years ago, the journal Small published a study showing how photosynthetic bacteria could absorb and release photons as the light bounced across a minuscule gap between two mirrors.…
This Bizarre Form of Ice Grows at Over 1,000 mph, And Now Physicists Know How
New research into a very weird type of ice known as Ice VII has revealed how it can form at speeds over 1,000 miles per hour (1,610 kilometres per hour),…
We Might Be Able to Transfer Data Through Gravitational Waves, Says a Wild New Paper
On February 11th, 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) made history when they announced the first detection of gravitational waves. Originally predicted made by Einstein’s Theory of…
Physicists Discover That Strange ‘Ferroelectric’ Particles Actually Exist, And Could Change Computing
More than eight decades after they were predicted to exist, physicists have found evidence of discrete units of matter that could help us better understand the electrical equivalent of ferromagnetism.…
We Just Received The First Experiment Results From The Coldest Spot in Space
In January last year, a rocket carrying a tiny chip packed with rubidium-87 atoms was launched more than 200 kilometres (124 miles) above the planet’s surface. The mission was brief,…
Physicists Discover Tantalising New Properties of Uranium Compounds, Including Superconductivity
Scientists have experimentally confirmed the existence of strange new uranium compounds – and they predict some could even achieve superconductivity close to room temperature. Superconducting materials are able to shuttle…
We Don’t Actually Know The Shape of Wormholes. This Physicist Has a Wild New Idea For Figuring Them Out
The humble wormhole is a science fiction perennial, often depicted as looping tunnels beyond gaping whirlpools of light. In reality, nobody has much of an idea what these things might…