Physics

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have performed the first scanning tunneling…

I first came across the word synchrotron in connection with the Crab Nebula, as well explained here at Hyperphysics. However, the phenomenon is these days very much down-to-earth: last weekend I…

By measuring a peak in the temperature of hot gas in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4649, scientists have determined the mass of the galaxy's supermassive black hole. The method,…

Have you ever been puzzled by a statement like this: “Rotating a spin-1/2 particle by 360° does not bring it back to the same quantum state, but to the state with the opposite quantum phase; this is…

European researchers are the first to demonstrate functional components that exploit the magnetic properties of electrons to perform logic operations. Compatible with existing microtechnology, the…

It’s Physics World time again, folks! This month’s (July 2008) issue has a cover headline “On reflection: Symmetry and the Standard Model”, and a diagram of the 8-dimensional E8 group squashed flat…

We all know what happens when cars collide on the freeway or an anvil lands on Wile E. Coyote's head - physics at the macro level is predictable. But what about a single hydrogen atom and a lone…

When lasers illuminate material it usually warms up, so laser beams are used for cutting sheet steel, for welding or even as scalpels. But this effect can also be reversed. When the frequency of the…

Researchers from the Physikalisches Institut of the University of Stuttgart have create entangled quantum states in diamond, which means there is finally a diamond men care about - namely the one…

The last time you had a cappuccino, did you think 'I bet I can learn something about type-I superconductors here?' Well, a team of Ames Laboratory physicists did and have found that the bubble-like…