It might look like any old 18-carat nugget of gold, but it hides a secret. Produced in the lab, this shiny disc weighs just a fraction of what it should, and has other interesting properties to boot.    Unlike a typical chunk of the bright metal, here the gold nanocrystals are held together with a

Particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are incredibly useful – and usually incredibly huge – instruments for studying some of the fundamentals of particle physics. But now scientists have managed to squeeze one on to a silicon chip.   It’s nowhere near as powerful as the bigger versions, as you might expect, but the

Nothing lasts forever. Humans, planets, stars, galaxies, maybe even the Universe itself, everything has an expiration date. But things in the quantum realm don’t always follow the rules. Scientists have found that quasiparticles in quantum systems could be effectively immortal.   That doesn’t mean they don’t decay, which is reassuring. But once these quasiparticles have

As 2019 winds to a close, the journey towards fully realised quantum computing continues: physicists have been able to demonstrate quantum teleportation between two computer chips for the first time.   Put simply, this breakthrough means that information was passed between the chips not by physical electronic connections, but through quantum entanglement – by linking

Earlier this year, we celebrated a first in the field of quantum physics: scientists were able to ‘teleport’ a qutrit, or a piece of quantum information based on three states, opening up a whole host of new possibilities for quantum computing and communication.   Up until then, quantum teleportation had only been managed with qubits, albeit

When it comes to data transfer and computing, the faster we can shift electrons and conduct electricity the better – and scientists have just been able to transport electrons at sub-femtosecond speeds (less than one quadrillionth of a second) in an experimental setup.   The trick is manipulating the electrons with light waves that are

A unique material that appears to decouple an object’s temperature from the amount of thermal radiation it produces could provide a new way of hiding from infrared cameras (not to mention bloodthirsty aliens equipped with infrared vision).   Thermal radiation is emitted by basically everything with a temperature above absolute zero, and the hotter things

Quantum physics has up-ended classical physics again, this time enabling heat to transfer across empty space without any of the atoms or molecules that would usually be needed for such a push.   The research taps into a particular bit of quantum weirdness known as the Casimir effect: the idea that empty space isn’t really

Everything in our Universe is held together or pushed apart by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear interactions. Physicists think they’ve spotted the actions of a fifth physical force emerging from a helium atom.   It’s not the first time researchers claim to have caught a glimpse of it, either. A few years

We can use just about any part of the electromagnetic spectrum to make a laser – from long-wave microwaves to bursts of highly powerful X-rays. The only ones we’ve had trouble with have been the ultra-short wavelengths making up the gamma ray part of the spectrum. Now, that might be set to change.   A

There’s some irony in the fact that the darkest objects in the sky – black holes – can be responsible for some of the Universe’s brightest light. Simulations of the magnetic fields surrounding black holes and neutron stars have now provided new insights into their astonishing brilliance.   Astrophysicists from Columbia University in New York

Set in the middle of a mass of laser equipment, researchers have managed to trigger the coldest chemical reaction in the known Universe. This feat promises to reveal some essential truths about how the building blocks of matter react at ultra-low temperatures.   How cold is the reaction exactly? We’re talking in the region of

Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat – an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work.   The metal, found in 2017, contradicts something called the Wiedemann-Franz Law, which basically states that good conductors of electricity will also be proportionally good conductors of heat, which is

A newly theorised type of time crystal could revolutionise the potential of these fascinating structures. Unlike the time crystals that have been created to date, it would not require the application of an external stimulus to keep the atoms ticking.   The method hinges on inducing entangled particles to affect each other’s ‘spin’ (a property

Everything in our Universe is held together or pushed apart by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear interactions. Physicists now think they’ve spotted the actions of a fifth physical force emerging from a helium atom.   It’s not the first time researchers claim to have caught a glimpse of it, either. A few

Under the right circumstances, individual electrons can form partnerships that allow them to zip effortlessly through special materials called superconductors – letting them conduct electrical current without resistance.   That in itself is pretty impressive. But now physicists have found evidence these quantum partnerships – known as ‘Cooper pairs‘ – are also capable of acting

Alternative facts are spreading like a virus across society. Now it seems they have even infected science – at least the quantum realm. This may seem counter intuitive. The scientific method is after all founded on the reliable notions of observation, measurement and repeatability. A fact, as established by a measurement, should be objective, such

One of the ways in which quantum technology promises to revolutionise computing is through quantum key distribution (QKD) – a quantum device that lets people securely encrypt and decrypt communications.   Now, scientists have been able to seriously shrink down the amount of space needed to create one. Researchers have developed a QKD chip just

The three-body problem, one of the most notoriously complex calculations in physics, may have met its match in artificial intelligence: a new neural network promises to find solutions up to 100 million times faster than existing techniques.   First formulated by Sir Isaac Newton, the three-body problem involves calculating the movement of three gravitationally interacting

The atmosphere is fluid. This means it’s subject to fluid dynamics, such as circulation, currents, and, yes, gravity waves. The atmosphere is always in motion, so these phenomena happen all the time; but actually seeing them is another matter.   Well, thanks to weather satellites, now you can take a mighty gawk at atmospheric gravity

In a breathtaking achievement, physicists have shattered the world record for particle acceleration. In just 20 centimetres (8 inches), they have increased the acceleration of electron beams from 0 to a whopping 7.8 billion electron volts (GeV).   This nearly doubles the team’s previous energy gain of 4.2 GeV over 9 centimetres, demonstrating a way

From tiny snowflakes to the jagged fork of a lightning bolt, it’s not hard to find examples of fractals in the natural world. So it might come as a surprise that, until now, there have remained some places these endlessly repeating geometrical patterns have never been seen.   Physicists from MIT have now provided the

A pair of mathematicians from Australia and France have devised an alternative way to multiply numbers together, while solving an algorithmic puzzle that has perplexed some of the greatest math minds for almost half a century.   For most of us, the way we multiply relatively small numbers is by remembering our times tables –

We know that Leonardo da Vinci was a genius who was well ahead of his time, but even the great man himself might have struggled to believe that engineers would still be marvelling over his creations some 500 years later.   Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have analysed a bridge designed by

You might not know the term ‘oobleck’, but it’s highly likely you came across it as a kid. Also known as a non-Newtonian fluid, the strange material sometimes behaves like a liquid, and sometimes acts like a solid. It’s usually made of corn-starch and water, and it produces hours of fun for children everywhere.   Punch

Scientists have observed a quantum vibration at normal room temperature for the first time, a phenomenon that usually requires ultra-cold, carefully calibrated conditions – bringing us another step closer to understanding the behaviour of quantum mechanics in common materials.   The team was able to spot a phonon, a quantum particle of vibration generated from

You might be familiar with the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, where the eponymous feline in a box can be both alive or dead at the same time, often used to illustrate the multi-state paradox of quantum mechanics.   Well, now scientists have managed to apply that theory to huge molecules made up of 2,000 atoms.

From smartphones to electric cars, we’re going to continue to need plenty of batteries in the years to come. New research shows how an upgraded type of aluminium battery could offer several advantages over the traditional lithium-ion ones in use today.   The battery has low production costs, and doesn’t take the same environmental toll

Superconductivity (passing charges through materials without losing heat) promises to revolutionise electronics and power, if we can get it working at reasonable temperatures – and scientists just reported a big step forward in our understanding of the phenomenon.   The new discovery centres around the Hubbard model: a maths model of conduction and insulation in

For several years now, physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) have been running a landmark experiment, recording tens of billions of particles break apart in the hopes of catching a few oddballs. And they finally have some intriguing results to share.   This experiment, called NA62, has researchers building and destroying pairs of quarks

A huge experiment to pin down the mass of one of the Universe’s most perplexing particles has put a cap on how big the neutrino might actually be. Once considered massless, the particle’s mass is now thought to weigh no more than a single electronvolt. It might not be a precise answer, but it does

You might think you already know black – even super-black Vantablack, previously the blackest material known to science – but researchers just came up with a material that takes black to a new level of blackness.   The new, as-yet-unnamed ultra-black material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), microscopic carbon strings that are

A fifty-year-old hypothesis predicting the existence of bodies dubbed Generic Objects of Dark Energy (GEODEs) is getting a second look in light of a proposed correction to assumptions we use to model the way our Universe expands.   If this new version of a classic cosmological model is correct, some black holes could hide cores of

Protons probably aren’t quite as big as we’d once imagined, according to the results of a sensitive physics experiment that took eight years to complete. Scientists now say our earlier measurements of proton size were off by as much as 5 percent – which might not seem like such a huge correction, but to physicists

A team of researchers has just demonstrated quantum enhancement in an actual X-ray machine, achieving the desirable goal of eliminating background noise for precision detection.   The relationships between photon pairs on quantum scales can be exploited to create sharper, higher-resolution images than classical optics. This emerging field is called quantum imaging, and it has

Water is a weird molecule, and no matter how many strange things about it we discover, it seems like there are always more unexpected surprises waiting around the corner – even after centuries of researching it.   Case in point: in a new study, scientists in the US have discovered that in the right circumstances,

When two neutron stars collide, it’s not like we can just pop up there with a thermometer to measure the intense temperatures being generated at the heart of the collision. There are other observables that can help us calculate surface temperatures, but inside? That’s a little trickier.   Add to that the fact that we’ve

It’s not like the one in your car, but a team of physicists at Trinity College Dublin have built what they claim is the world’s smallest engine. The engine is the size of a single calcium ion – about ten billion times smaller than an automobile engine.   Rather than powering your next road trip,

Scientists have found evidence of superconductivity happening at temperatures and energy levels way above its normal boundaries – a finding which could one day go on to help revolutionise the design and workings of our electronics.   A superconductor material is one that can transfer electricity without resistance. In turn, this means the electricity travels

For quantum computing to become fully realised, we’re going to have to make a few huge scientific leaps along the way – including finding a superconductor that can act in the same way as silicon does in today’s computing. A team of researchers thinks that search might now be over.   Introducing the compound uranium

Carbon can be arranged in a number of configurations. When each of its atoms is bonded to three other carbon atoms, it’s relatively soft graphite. Add just one more bond and it becomes one of the hardest minerals known, diamond. Chuck 60 carbon atoms together in a soccerball shape and boom, buckyballs.   But a

It’s time to celebrate another first in the field of quantum physics: scientists have been able to ‘teleport’ a qutrit, or a piece of quantum information based on three states, opening up a whole host of new possibilities for quantum computing and communication.   Up until now, quantum teleportation has only been managed with qubits,

Researchers have created the thinnest unsupported gold sheets ever created in a lab, producing infinitesimal slivers of the precious metal that are only two atoms thick. These vanishingly thin gold sheets – approximately 1 million times thinner than a human fingernail – measure just 0.47 nanometres in thickness, representing a new breakthrough in the fabrication

The Negev desert that sprawls across Israel is one of the driest places on Earth, but deep below its surface is a different story. Held in the sandstone deep underground is a reservoir of fossil water that lay undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of years.   Researchers know this water is old, because it can’t have

Scientists have just discovered something new about gold. When extreme crushing pressure is applied quickly, over mere nanoseconds, the element’s atomic structure changes, becoming more similar to metals harder than gold.   It’s the first time this structural state has ever been observed in gold, suggesting properties that could help scientists refine their understanding of

Imagine trying to film an event that was over and done within a mere 125 trillionths of a second. It’s something that molecular physicists have long been dreaming of, and at last it seems they’ve achieved their goal.   Using precisely tuned pulses of laser light, an international team of scientists from four different institutions

New images of the Majorana fermion have brought physicists a step closer to harnessing the mysterious objects for quantum computing. These strange objects – particles that acts as their own antiparticles – have a vast as-yet untapped potential to act as qubits, the quantum bits that are the basic units of information in a quantum

When it comes to our physical world, scientific research indicates that size really does matter. While “big” objects, anything from a grain of sand to a galaxy, abide by one set of rules – classical physics – tiny objects, such as atoms and particles, abide by an entirely different set, a discovery that gave birth