Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
-
- 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.
-
- Physics
Four ions mingle in quantum chorus
A new way to produce mysterious quantum correlations among particles ups the record to four particles linked, or entangled, and opens the door to correlating many more particles on cue, a prerequisite for making quantum computers.
- Physics
Prize honors physicist with conscience
Physicist-author Freeman J. Dyson received the Templeton prize for originality in advancing religious understanding.
