Physics

  1. Physics

    Putting the brakes on antihydrogen

    By mixing ultracold antiprotons and antielectrons, physicists have created the first atoms of antihydrogen that move at a leisurely enough pace for direct measurements of their properties.

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  2. Materials Science

    Metal Manipulation: Technique yields hard but stretchy materials

    Researchers have combined a standard metalworking technology—rolling—with a programmed sequence of cooling and heating steps to process copper into a form that contains both nanoscale and microscale crystal grains.

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  3. 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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  4. Physics

    Neptunium Nukes? Little-studied metal goes critical

    Researchers have measured with far greater accuracy than ever before how much neptunium it would take to make a bomb.

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  5. Physics

    Magnetic snap gives ions extra pop

    Magnetic fields pump heat into ions when field lines of opposite orientation snap and reconnect.

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  6. 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.

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  7. Physics

    The Physics of Fizz

    Toasting a burst of discovery about bubbles in champagne and beer.

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  8. 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.

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  9. Physics

    Ring around the proton

    An orbiting electron accelerated to relativistic velocities by a laser in a strong magnetic field can behave like a ring-shaped electron cloud spinning around the nucleus.

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  10. Physics

    Writing with warm atoms

    Researchers demonstrated that they can use a scanning tunneling microscope to position atoms in microscopic patterns at room temperature.

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  11. Physics

    Cooled device unveils a quantum limit

    A novel suspended device chilled near absolute zero demonstrates the existence of a basic unit, or quantum, of heat conductance—the first evidence of quantum mechanics in mechanical structures.

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  12. Materials Science

    Molecular Separations: New artificial sieve traps molecules

    Researchers have created a metal-laced organic solid that acts as a sieve with nanosize pores for capturing molecules.

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