All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Physics
Atom microchips get off the ground
Becoming smaller and more versatile, microchips using atoms instead of electrons promise both to improve atomic physics experiments and to pave the way for new technologies such as quantum computers.
- Physics
Light chips find a place to take root
The fabrication of an artificial, inside-out opal of silicon promises to make all-optical microchips possible
- Physics
Light pulses flout sacrosanct speed limit
Faster-than-light firsts: Restless laser pulse leaves before it arrives, while merging microwaves send out a superluminal scout.
- Physics
Spectrum deftly takes visible light’s pulse
A rainbow path to more precise measurements of visible-light frequencies may become an express lane to unprecedented accuracy in everyday measurements for all the sciences.
- Earth
Warm band may have girdled snowball Earth
A swath a liquid ocean may have hugged the planet's midriff even during the most frigid global climatic episodes between 800 million and 600 million years ago, allowing life to survive.
- Physics
Electron cycling in quantum confines
A lone electron zips around in the tightest circle allowed by quantum mechanics in an extraordinarily small, frigid cyclotron, potentially allowing scientists to nail down some fundamental constants of physics more precisely than ever before.
- Physics
Laser links segue to chemical bonds
Light can knit matter together until other bonds take over, providing a potentially useful approach to building nanometer-scale structures and materials.
- Physics
Gravity gets measured to greater certainty
Important but imprecisely measured, the gravitational constant, G, is given its most exact experimental value yet, while a pioneering investigation into gravity finds that extra dimensions, if they do exist, occupy spaces of less than a couple tenths of a millimeter.
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- Physics
Intergalactic magnetism runs deep and wide
Mounting evidence that magnetic fields of surprising strength permeate intergalactic space raises questions about how the fields form and what effects they have.
- Physics
Groovy ’70s sound keeps X rays tight
Cast aside as a way to reproduce music, LP phonograph records reveal another, unsuspected talent that scientists plan to exploit-focusing X rays.
- Physics
Magnetic snap gives ions extra pop
Magnetic fields pump heat into ions when field lines of opposite orientation snap and reconnect.
