Physics
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Prying apart antimatter
Matter and antimatter look reassuringly alike in physicists' first investigations of energy levels of antihydrogen atoms.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Prying apart antimatter
Matter and antimatter look reassuringly alike in physicists' first investigations of energy levels of antihydrogen atoms.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Getting Warped
While museum displays such as simulations of warped space-time acquaint visitors with the ideas behind Albert Einstein's scientific discoveries, other galleries of artifacts, letters, and even film footage reveal the multifaceted man that Einstein was.
By Peter Weiss - 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
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.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Connect the Dots
Transforming sunlight into electricity by means of quantum dust.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Stretched matter goes to unusual extremes
Researchers have discovered that several unusual forms of matter with extremely high or low densities can expand laterally in one direction and contract in another when extended.
- Physics
Identity Check: Elusive neutrinos morph on Earth, as in space
Strengthening a challenge to the prevailing theory of particle physics, measurements of elusive particles called antineutrinos from nuclear reactors suggest that no neutrino types, be they matter or antimatter, have stable identities.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Icicle waves go with the flow
A new model of icicle growth may explain the strange fact that ripples often found on those icy spikes typically sit about 1 centimeter apart, whether the icicles themselves are big or small.
By Peter Weiss - 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.
By Peter Weiss - Materials Science
Nanotube ID: New signatures aid nanotech progress
Researchers have developed a means for rapidly distinguishing among 33 semiconducting varieties of carbon nanotubes.
- 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.
By Peter Weiss