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. Now, 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
Physics
The word uncertainty is used a lot in quantum mechanics. One school of thought is that this means there’s something out there in the world that we are uncertain about. But most physicists believe nature itself is uncertain. Intrinsic uncertainty was central to the way German physicist Werner Heisenberg, one of the originators of modern
The particle known as a Majorana fermion is as mysterious and uncontrollable as it is unique. It’s the only known particle that is also its own antiparticle, and has properties that make it an alluring candidate for qubits, the basic unit of information in a quantum computer. Harnessing that potential, however, is easier said than
A new superconducting magnet has briefly sustained an astonishing 45.5 tesla magnetic field intensity. For comparison, your flimsy fridge magnets have about 1 percent of a single tesla. The measurement, achieved by researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) at Florida State University resets the bar on what’s possible in direct current magnetic
For nearly 20 years, scientists have debated the viability of an EM Drive, a hypothetical type of engine that could propel a spacecraft without the need for any fuel. If that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is – a working EM Drive would literally break one of the foundational laws
New research has revealed a previously unknown source of magnetism deep within our planet’s stupidly hot, squishy layers. Far from being magnetically dead, some of Earth’s mantle might have pockets of iron oxide (Fe2O3) with enough magnetic pull to have a real effect. A research team made up of scientists from around the globe has
Imagine being a jellyfish just swimming along, minding your own business, when suddenly you’re taken for a nauseating ride in a wildly spinning vortex. This is exactly what happened to a poor creature in Spain, and photographer Victor Devalles managed to capture every moment of it. In fact, Devalles is the one who sort of,
New results from the Large Hadron Collider have confirmed it. The mysterious five-quark subatomic particle – the pentaquark, only discovered a few years ago – really is composed of two sets of quarks. One is a meson, a type of particle that contains a quark and antiquark pair; the other is a three-quark baryon: the subatomic
Plasma, that super-hot mix of electrified atomic particles, plays a key role in the evolution of stars, black holes, and other cosmic elements. For closer study though, plasma needs to be recreated in a lab – and researchers have just managed to generate a particular type of plasma jet for the first time. The key
The famous cat-in-a-box thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is an illustration of one of the defining characteristics of quantum mechanics – the unpredictable behaviour of particles at the quantum level. It makes working with quantum systems incredibly difficult; but what if we could make quantum predictions? A team of physicists believes it’s possible.
On May 29, 1919, a solar eclipse forever altered our conception of gravity, rewrote the laws of physics and turned a 40-year-old, wild-haired scientist into a global celebrity – the very personification of scientific genius. It was a very good day for Albert Einstein. The 1919 eclipse across South America and Africa provided direct evidence
A lab-created analogue of a black hole has provided new evidence that these mysterious space objects really do emit radiation. This evidence is indirect: physicists have shown that the analogue has a temperature, which is a necessary prerequisite for the eponymous radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking. Under general relativity, a black hole is inescapable. Its
As far as mysteries of nature go, ball lightning is one of the more perplexing. It seems there are as many potential explanations as there are sightings, but in spite of decades of intense interest, none stand out as a clear winner. One of the weirder hypotheses claims these glowing balls are nothing more than
All water ice is not made equal. Under certain conditions, its neatly ordered crystalline lattice molecules fall into disarray until it resembles the structural omnishambles of amorphous solids such as glass and plastic. We thought we had a rough idea of how this worked, but a new observation has now thrown a team of researchers
In 1787, the “father of acoustics” Ernst Chladni first recorded the pattern of behaviour of sand grains on a vibrating plate – the way that heavier particles travel away from the vibrations, and lighter particles move towards them. In a new experiment underwater, researchers have now observed the exact opposite happening. This latest study could
If you’ve ever opened a science textbook, you’ve probably seen a picture of an atom, with a cluster of protons and neutrons making up its nucleus, around which whirls a swarm of electrons. But you also probably know that all these particles aren’t shaped like neat little spheres, as usually depicted. As far as we
Scientists in Germany have hit a new superconductivity milestone – achieving a resistance-free electrical current at the highest temperature yet: just 250 Kelvin, or -23 degrees Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The work was led by Mikhail Eremets, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, who set the previous high temperature record for superconductivity
The world produces a staggering 180 billion aluminium cans every year, but it’s a safe bet many of the people consuming those beverages don’t know about a hidden material concealed inside the metal cylinders. For decades, aluminium can manufacturers have lined the inside of their cans with plastic. Why? Well, it’s to protect the beverage
Sound isn’t just something we hear. It’s a formidable physical phenomenon – a wave of pressure that reverberates through the air around us. But the medium sound moves through doesn’t have to be air. Incredibly loud sounds can also travel through water, sometimes even being the result of particularly noisy fish. But if you really want
Finally, 130 years after it was established, the kilogram as we know it is about to be retired. But it’s not the end: tomorrow, 20 May 2019, a new definition will be put in place – one that’s far more accurate than anything we’ve had until now. After the shift was unanimously voted in at the
After 12 successful seasons, “The Big Bang Theory” has finally come to a fulfilling end, concluding its reign as the longest running multicamera sitcom on TV. If you’re one of the few who haven’t seen the show, this CBS series centers around a group of young scientists defined by essentially every possible stereotype about nerds