Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Physics
Writing with warm atoms
Researchers demonstrated that they can use a scanning tunneling microscope to position atoms in microscopic patterns at room temperature.
- 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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