Physics

  1. Physics

    Muffled shots tell a lot about snow

    A snowfield muffles gunshots in a way that can now be used to reveal important traits of the snow.

    By
  2. Physics

    Seeming sedate, some solid surfaces seethe

    Although they're as orderly as bathroom-floor tiles, surface atoms of copper--and perhaps other solids--actually roam randomly and widely within their grid.

    By
  3. Physics

    The Atoms Family

    Dracula doesn’t want to suck your blood. He wants you to enter his online library and learn about the properties of light, waves, and particles. Here at “The Atoms Family” Web pages, created by the Miami Museum of Science, Dracula and four other silver-screen ghouls invite Web surfers into their laboratories to try out physics […]

    By
  4. Materials Science

    From Metal Bars to Candy Bars

    Materials scientists have turned the tools of their trade on some of the most familiar substances in the world: food.

    By
  5. Physics

    Muon orbits may defy main physics theory

    A tiny discrepancy from theory in a newly remeasured magnetic trait of a subatomic particle, the muon, may represent a first crack in the 30-year-old prevailing standard model of particle physics.

    By
  6. Materials Science

    Scientists develop self-healing composites

    Researchers have developed a composite material that has the ability to repair small cracks within itself, a characteristic that could be used to extend the reliability and service life of electronic and aerospace components.

    By
  7. Materials Science

    Droplets string themselves together

    Under the right conditions, mixing two incompatible polymers can produce drops that organize themselves into strings.

    By
  8. Physics

    Force from empty space drives a machine

    A novel micromachine uses quantum fluctuations of empty space to help drive its motion.

    By
  9. Physics

    Voltage flip turns magnetism on, off

    Researchers in Japan have made a material whose inherent magnetism can be turned off and on electrically, as long as the material, a novel semiconductor, stays ultracold.

    By
  10. Physics

    Collider is cookin’, but is it soup?

    By making the densest, hottest matter ever in a lab, smashups between fast-moving nuclei in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider are coming closer than ever to reproducing the superhot, primordial fluid that presumably filled the universe immediately after the Big Bang.

    By
  11. Physics

    Light Stands Still in Atom Clouds

    Ordinarily in continuous motion, light pulses come to a dead stop in specially prepared atom clouds.

    By
  12. Physics

    From the January 24, 1931, issue

    EINSTEIN DISCUSSES REVOLUTION HE CAUSED IN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT – By Dr. Albert Einstein From far away I have come to you, but not to strangers. I have come among men who for many years have been true comrades with me in my labors. You, my honored Dr. Michelson, began with this work when I was […]

    By